Outbreak of Pertussis at a school in Florida re-enforces the need to vaccinate!

Well, I was trying to hold off longer but it is August (National Immunization Awareness Month) and vaccine preventable diseases are in the news again. As reported in this week's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) from the CDC, pertussis (aka whooping cough) has broken out in a charter school in Florida where only about 10% of the students have been immunized claiming religious exemption. CDC reports that 30% of the 316 students have suspected or confirmed pertussis.

Envision now, my ascendency onto the proverbial soapbox as I address the following questions.

Why should students, faculty & staff make it important to take care of immunizations?

Vaccinations save lives and prevent suffering. It may sound like a simple cliche but that doesn't mean it isn't true. Vaccines save an estimated 4.9 million people from suffering every year. Life is a gamble, whether or not you will get infected, whether or not you will be the 1 in however many to die from that disease, why not stack the deck in your favor. Vaccinate!

You know those shingles vaccine commercials where “the shingles virus is already inside you”, that’s why you get vaccinated. If it freaks you out to think about these diseases cruising around inside of you, get vaccinated. Most of the available vaccines are designed, yes designed, to keep you from getting infected. All of the viruses and most of the bacteria that infect humans require growth inside of you in order to reproduce and spread. By getting vaccinated you are not only protecting yourself from getting infected but preventing the disease from spreading to others. It is particularly important for those who cannot get vaccinated for medical reasons that others are. This is called herd immunity and helps to keep the diseases out of the population. How altruistic of you, pat yourself on the back if you got vaccinated! If you didn’t keep reading and hopefully you will change your mind.

With all of these reasons to get vaccinated, why are fewer people vaccinating themselves and their children? Mainly, I think, for two reasons. First, they don’t understand how it works so they don’t bother or are easily dissuaded. Let me solve that problem by telling you exactly how they work. Cells of your immune system recognize parts of these diseases as not belonging in you and they attack; then remember those pieces in case they encounter it again. Vaccines make use of this memory by showing these same parts of the disease to your immune cells in a safe manner without all of the nasty symptoms or potential death from the disease. Then, when the real disease tries to invade, your cells are ready and kill off the disease before it can infect and reproduce. Think of it as studying hard for an exam. It may cause a little pain to study, but it sure makes the exam easier because the more you’ve studied the more you know.

The second reason fewer people vaccinate is actually a testament to the success of vaccinations. The collective populace, particularly in industrialized countries, like the US, no longer encounters these diseases and has forgotten how devastating they are. When most people think of a vaccine, they think of the seasonal flu vaccine they might get every year. For most of the population, getting the seasonal flu is an inconvenience and not much more. So, if this is all that vaccines do, why should they bother with the other vaccinations or watch their baby cry as they get stuck with a needle. They haven’t witnessed kids with polio living their meager lives in an iron lung because they’re muscles won’t work to let them breathe, or babies with neonatal tetanus rigid as a board screaming in pain, or tetanus patients with muscle spasms so strong it breaks their backs, or kids with pertussis coughing so long and hard they faint or vomit, or the disfiguring scars left by smallpox. The corollary to these unobservable diseases is that people think these diseases are gone. WRONG; the only disease that no longer persists in the human population is smallpox. All those other diseases that our parents and grandparents fought so hard to force out of the population still lie in wait for enough people not to be vaccinated that they can regain a foothold and return with a vengeance.

What are some repercussions if we don’t take care of these immunizations? 

            The repercussions implied by the statements above are that we lose more than 130 years’ worth of beating back these diseases. Already we are seeing resurgences of measles, a disease for which the vaccine is nearly 100% effective at preventing. Moreover, while these diseases are multiplying inside an infected person they can change to become more lethal. Failure to maintain vaccinations, allows adaptation of the disease to spread efficiently in the human population, potentially to the point where the current vaccine is no longer effective. This is currently happening with pneumococcus, the vaccine is less and less effective at preventing infection against the circulating pneumococcus.

So, do we just give up and say it’s inevitable? NO, we continue to fight. We develop new vaccines against the new strains, like the devastating avian and swine influenza. We protect ourselves from new diseases, like SARS. By continuing to vaccinate, we have almost eradicated polio from the human population. In March of this year, the World Health Organization announced that only 3 countries in the world, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, still have cases of polio. The others have been polio-free for at least 3 years. Only 3 more countries and polio goes the way of smallpox.

Does this mean that the rest of the world can stop polio vaccinations? NO! Ask yourself, how quickly can someone or something get from one of those countries to where you live. With global transit and commerce as rapid as it is today, 24-48 hours. The time between when a person contracts polio and starts showing symptoms is usually 6 DAYS. That means an infected person can hop on a plane not knowing they’re infected and end up anywhere in the world. Along the way, they can be transmitting the disease before they know they’re sick. Polio is so contagious that a single infected child can result in 200,000 each year, infecting the entire world in 10 years. Oh yeah, there’s no cure for polio once infected. So, should we avoid everybody all the time? Don’t be ridiculous, get vaccinated. The vaccine against polio, and all of these childhood diseases, is really, REALLY good.

What are some facts that you would share with the public about immunizations?

1.      Vaccines prevent more than 2.5 million deaths each year.

2.      3 million people die each year from vaccine-preventable diseases.

3.      There is ZERO data that vaccines cause autism. Unfortunately, people pay more attention to the internet than their highly trained doctor.

4.      You can’t argue with crazy, but neither should you listen to it. Seek sound advice.

5.      Scientists DO know exactly how these vaccines work.

6.      Vaccines strengthen your immune system’s memory against nasty diseases.

7.      Yes, there are a lot of vaccinations. We are fighting 18 different diseases.

8.      Yes, children get a lot of shots when they’re young. That’s because: 1) we are fighting a lot of childhood diseases and want to protect them before they get the disease, and 2) these vaccines last for a long time so start early.

9.      Not all vaccines are given as injections, ask about alternatives.

10.  The injection might hurt, but it’s not nearly as painful as the actual disease.

11.  Yes, vaccines may have side effects and contraindications, but most are mild, headache or muscle ache. But would you rather risk a complication from the vaccine or a life of paralysis from polio?

12.  93% of doctors vaccinate themselves and their own children.

13.  Vaccines work!!! They prevent deadly diseases!!! (Forbes: How Vaccines have changed the world)

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This is a personal blog. The views expressed herein may not represent those of my employer.