Vaccination and Today’s Typhoid Marys

A few thoughts on disease and the increasing percentage of “Typhoid Mary” carriers in our schools, businesses, and society…

Tara K. Harper
January 24, 2019

Measles and the masses

First up: Measles. Yep. Yet another outbreak here — already 31 confirmed cases amongst deliberately unvaccinated children. By the way, 18 of those kids are under the age of 10. (Only 1 unvaccinated adult has so far been infected, but cases are still being recorded.)

Here’s the thing: Measles is so infectious that if 1 person has it, 90 percent of the unvaccinated people who breathe that contaminated air or touch a contaminated surface also become infected. (Clark Co health dept.) It’s like a warning sign. A miner’s canary. An extra high tide. The preshock to a major quake.

Measles outbreaks amongst the unvaccinated are an indicator of other outbreaks and endemics to come. Like a yellow light for all the other preventable diseases that have higher mortality rates. Diseases that cause even greater permanent injury or harm. By that I mean paralysis, brain damage, heart damage, infertility, lung damage, blinding, disfigurement, death…

22 percent of students are deliberately unvaccinated…

Did you know that over 22 percent of the students in Clark Co., WA, are deliberately unvaccinated? (State records; also USA Today.) I thought it was 7 percent. Turns out it’s much worse.

22 percent? That’s more than 6,200 potential carriers of virulent disease mixed in with all the other students — in just one county. (The Oregonian.)

Let me put it another way. For every classroom of 20 kids, 4 to 5 are anti-vaxxers sitting right there with the other children, like land mines waiting to go off. Land mines that can carry horrific diseases. And all those hungry viruses and bacteriums are just aching for a host. Just waiting to slip into the other families, your little brothers and sisters, your very vulnerable infants…

Wait! Don’t your own vaccinations protect you?

Sure. Very well, in fact. — As long as you’re old enough to get a vaccine, or as long as you don’t have a weakened immune system. Infants, toddlers, the very young or very old, pregnant women, those with cancer, the immunocompromised — these are the people at greatest risk from anti-vaxxer carriers.

Vaccination = antibodies = protection up front

Vaccination itself is almost 100 percent protection for diseases like measles, mumps, chicken pox, polio, etc. For diseases like pertussis (whooping cough), pneumonia, and others, a vaccination can’t always prevent disease, but it can significantly strengthen your system to fight. In other words, you can still get sick; but you might not suffer as much.

The difference is that a vaccinated immune system gets antibodies up front. Those glorious cells that say, wait a minute, that’s a bad guy… Attack!

A vaccinated immune system can immediately recognize the disease before it overwhelms your body and harms or maims or kills you. A vaccinated immune system helps you recover, not just survive.

An analogy

I often think of vaccination as a soldier running a gauntlet of baddies in order to get to safety. You prep him up front: “Okay, private, there’s gonna be some guys with guns; there’s gonna be some clubs and knives.” (You’re on your own to over-voice with the John Wayne accent.) “There might even be a couple head-bashers out there. So suit up, son, and make your run.”

So the soldier puts on his desert-camo, laces up his sturdy boots, straps on his shin guards and body armor, and slaps his helmet on. Looks at the goal, and starts running. And the bad guys come at him every which way. Some are shooters, but the bullets ping off his chest plate. One baddie tries to whack him over the head, but his helmet protects him from that. Another comes at him with a knife, but he’s got that really great body armor. And the last sneaky baddie tries to crush his feet — but his sturdy boots work perfectly, and he just kicks the baddie out of the way and keeps on a’running. So our well-prepped soldier makes it through the gamut and comes out on the other end. Worst effect? The barest little headache from that guy who hit his helmet.

But then there’s the opposite: The un-prepped anti-vaxxer, the vaccination objector. (It’s an analogy, folks; I have no problem with conscientious objectors as long as they also serve. Think Hemmingway and the ambulance service in WWI.)

But in terms of disease? This anti-vaxxer has deliberately refused all protection. He refuses the sturdy camo clothing, the reinforced carbon-poly helmet, that ceramic-kevlar body armor, and those really nice heavy-soled boots. Instead, he shrugs into his bright hibiscus summer-weight t-shirt; squidgies his bare feet into open-toed sandals; and makes sure his lightweight, drawstring, mis-patterned shorts are well settled on his hips. And says to himself, “All those other guys with armor, those guys will take the hits for me.”

Yeah. Right.

So he readies himself for the gauntlet. And he’s off —

And the first bad guy who raises a rifle shoots our un-prepped anti-vaxxer in the gut. The anti-vaxxer staggers on, but he’s bleeding. The next baddie caves our anti-vaxxer’s head in with a club (no helmet). The knifeman slices him open right across the belly; because, hey, lightweight cotton? Not really a barrier. And the last baddie smashes his feet so he can’t go on even if he had the brains left to finish the run.

Is it over? Not yet.

Our sergeant shouts for support, and the next four soldiers race up to rescue the downed man. 3 of these new soldiers have armor et al, but the fourth guy is yet another anti-vaxxer who has again, refused protection. All 4 of them run out to grab the downed man, and all of them get shot in the process. Why? Because they’re right there, out in the open, with the idiot who’s exposed them to fire.

Fortunately, the 3 soldiers with body armor and helmets, their wounds are minor; they’ll survive with a couple scars, stiff joints, that kind of thing. But that 4th guy, that other un-prepped idiot is now also down, and has to be carried off at yet more risk to others.

You see the point.

Vaccination protects against maiming and damage, not just death

Vaccination is a way to upgrade your immune system to better protect against the worst effects of the disease. If you’re lucky, you will escape the disease completely. If not, you’ll probably have just a mild case, with none of those permanent effects. As in, you won’t come out paralyzed, maimed, blind, deaf, disfigured or mad (aka, nuts, crazy, brain damaged)…

When I think of children, and all the dangers that life already throws in their path, I cannot understand how anyone would not vaccinate their child. I cannot fathom why any parent would willingly, deliberately make their child a magnet for horrific disease — and then claim it’s everyone else’s responsibility to shield the child whom they, themselves, refuse to protect.

And then those unvaccinated adults…

When I think further, I can find little respect for those adult, cognizent beings, who refuse even now to get vaccinated.

Think on it. They’re all around you. They’re in your workplace, unvaccinated… They’re using the coffee machines and cafeterias and bathrooms and handling the doorknobs that you also touch. They’re breathing on you in your meetings, and handing off reports that they’ve coughed on… They put all others at risk whose immune system is not robust.

Have a sinus infection or a cold? Recovering from flu, or a surgery, or injuries from that rear-ender on Hwy 26? Are you diabetic? Disabled? Taking corticosteroids for certain conditions? Have kidney disease? Low body weight? Have any of a host of physical conditions? God help you if you’re pregnant around an anti-vaxxer. Both you and your unborn are terribly at risk.

There are many times in life when your immune system is working hard. Those are the times you’re vulnerable. When you might not be able to stave off a secondary infection.

That childhood vaccine gave you antibodies to use in a fight. But if you’re already defending yourself on one front, you probably can’t risk another attack on the flank. You can’t risk exposure to an aggressive disease that could slip in from someone else.

Look back in time — and not that long ago. There’s a reason that spitting in public became illegal.

Spitting and TB

Getting slightly distracted — but not without point… Spitting is an odd thing, isn’t it? There’s a tremendous ick factor there. Compared to peeing or even doing your doody in public? Those things can be overlooked. But spitting is grotesquely disgusting. I don’t know if it’s because it is a choice for someone to spit, vs what we all recognize as necessary bodily functions. Or that it is something that comes out of your mouth, the lips you speak with, smile with, kiss with… The face you present to others — and that yellow-grey mucous blob that’s now on the sidewalk, that came deliberately out of…you? Ick.

But the point? That blob is one well condensed morass of disease. Spitting is an excellent way to spread it.

And TB — the primary spittle bacterium — that is a scary one.

Side note: Spitting laws, which are making a comeback because of the anti-vaxxers, are not really enforceable, but the infectious concerns are real: TB, hepatitis, viral meningitis, cytomegalovirus, Epstein-Barr virus…

By the way, there is now a vaccine for TB. It’s called BCG, or bacille Calmette-Guerin. It’s used mostly in countries that have a high incidence of TB. It’s not used here in the States very often, for a couple of reasons. First, we don’t have a large reservoir of TB, so your risk of infection is usually low — unless you end up in a crowded setting after a natural disaster or similar, as has happened in refugee centers after some hurricanes and quakes; or find yourself in a crowded schoolroom; or on a bus with — well, I’ll stop there. Second, the vaccine isn’t always effective for adults. And third, if you get the vaccine, it can interfere with the skin test for TB. In other words, your doctor won’t be able to quickly tell if you have TB or not. Meaning, they can’t immediately tell if you are infectious.

No requirement for health-care workers
In other words, Typhoid Mary is treating your mom…

We spend so much time and money and worry on drug testing to get or keep a job. I have never heard of an employer (outside of some obvious biochem firms) who has a health condition of employment: Be vaccinated so you don’t willfully put other employees and clients — and their children and elders — at risk.

Did you know that, in Oregon, even health-care workers don’t have to be vaccinated? They work with the most vulnerable people — people already weakened by injury or illness, or who have compromised immune systems, the pregnant, the elderly, post-surgical patients… Yet vaccination is only “suggested” not required for those workers.

Doctors, who are apparently much smarter than the average Oregonian, have vaccination rates around 96 percent (CDC).

But hospital workers, health-care aides, elder-care in general? The worker bees who change your sheets and give you meds, who bring you food and water? Only 35.8 percent of those workers are fully immunized (Am J Infect Control).

One third.

So at that elder-care recovery home for your invalid Mom, 2 out of every 3 workers could be breathing her death sentence on her. No wonder people get sick in hospitals, clinics, and health care homes.

A hundred years ago, hospitals used to be feared. They were places you went, not to live, but to die. But medicine advanced, and hospitals became places where you got well and were able to go home again. Anti-vaxxers are turning that clock back. Now, when you’re weakest, when you really need help, it’s Typhoid Mary who’s treating you, not someone who won’t carry disease.

Anti-vaxxers have the right to refuse vaccinations, sure. But I don’t see where they have the right to put others at risk. You might as well set grandma out in the path of an oncoming bus. I can’t help but think that all heath-care workers should be vaccinated as a condition of employment. Child care? Ditto.

Antivaxxer children in schools

But what about schools? It’s the same issue. I cannot understand why students who are deliberately unvaccinated should be allowed in public schools. If a private school wants to accept them, fine. If they’re a private institution, it’s their choice. Just make full disclosure to all the other parents.

But public schools? No. Mild illness is still illness. For anyone who is immunocompromised, even a light bout of disease can become that horrific death sentence.

One vaccinated kid catches a mild case from a deliberate anti-vaxxer — or simply transfers the active virus by touch or backpack, and carries it home to his mom, just after her cancer treatment…

What are the ethics of that? What possible moral argument can antivaxxers make for willfully passing disease? For deliberately infecting others?

Back to measles

(I did have a point, I think.)

The Vancouver outbreak — turns out, only 66 percent of the general population (adults + kids) has been vaccinated for measles (The Oregonian). Meaning, 34 percent of the city is actually unvaccinated.

Yeah, I hear you: Are you kidding?

No, unfortunately, I’m not.

22 percent of students, and 34 percent of the general population are deliberately unvaccinated for measles. Worse, measles is most often given as a triple-vaccination: the MMR; or measles, mumps, Rubella. If someone isn’t innoculated against measles, it’s almost certain they can carry the highly infectious mumps disease and the devastating Rubella.

The irony is, measles was virtually eliminated in the US by the year 2000 — until anti-vaxxers re-created the viral pool that all of us have to swim in.

Think of it this way: If one kid pees in the swimming pool, it’s icky, sure, but not the end of the world. The actual particulates per million are pretty low. But if 34 percent of the pool is urine…

Is there any one of you who would willingly throw your kid in that?

There’s no such thing as herd immunity when a third of the herd is at risk.

The slow death by disease

Here’s something else: Aside from maternal and fetal morbidity (aka, death of the mother and her unborn child), deafness, and pneumonia (the most common cause of death for younger kids that get measles), and of course, brain damage, measles has another potential effect. It’s got a complicated name: subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE). Basically, it means that the virus can infect your central nervous system.

It’s not immediately apparent when this happens. Instead, it takes time, time off your life. It develops months to years after infection — often 6 to 8 years before it’s even recognized. It’s degenerative, and there is no cure. In other words, you die. It’s a lingering, painful way to go.

If you’re vaccinated against measles, the vaccine reduces the incidence of SSPE by 90 percent. But of course, you do need the vaccine.

That is a protection deliberately denied by anti-vaxxers to their children. Or rather, denied to their little carriers of disease.

Unvaccinated, infected children all over public spaces

In this current outbreak of 31 cases (so far), that mass of unvaccinated, infected kids has been all over the public spaces. They’ve been shedding their virus at 9 schools, various grocery stores including a high-end grocery (I don’t know why that last was so important to point out in the stats, but there it is), a Costco, an Ikea, a Dollar Tree, various churches, a Trail Blazer’s game, Portland International Airport, and other community spaces.

They’ve left infection behind with every touch of counter, handrail, faucet, and door knob. (You can get the full list of addresses for the exact sites from any number of local news articles.)

Small, 6-case outbreak cost you, the taxpayer a “grossly underestimated” quarter million

Anyone remember 2015 — the very small, 6-case outbreak in Callum County? 249 people confirmed as exposed; after testing the local population. Just 6 actual cases, but that includes the death of an immunocompromised woman. A woman who had been vaccinated but who had a weakened immune system at the time she was exposed to the virus. A mother who, at that moment, was vulnerable to carriers of virulent disease.

Let’s set her death aside for the moment. For now, let’s just look at some dollars. To manage that small, 6-case outbreak in 2015 — it cost you, the taxpayer, well over a quarter million $$ (Callum Co. report). That’s $25,000 per case of measles — as opposed to a $20 preventative vaccination for each of those 5 kids. Also, that quarter million in taxpayer costs was the initial reported list of costs to the Callum Co health dept, the WA state dept of health, local schools, lab confirmations, etc. It wasn’t in any way the total cost to the state; aka, you, the taxpayer who has to empty his wallet again.

Why do a couple cases of measles cost so much? Because in Washington, as in Oregon, the state is required to deal with communicable diseases. The state has to do this regardless of who spreads the disease.

For example, in Oregon, the state is required to lab-test anyone suspected of being exposed to a communicable disease — like measles, mumps, polio…. (ORS 433-032.) That bill is on you, the taxpayer.

Also, if treatment is required, and the anti-vaxxer claims they can’t pay, the state still has to treat them (ORS 433-035). Treat them, their kids, their victims. Again, you, the taxpayer, gets to foot that bill. All told, a quarter million dollars in 2015 — for just 6 cases of measles.

Grossly underestimated costs

That “grossly underestimated” (Callum Co. report) quarter million $$ didn’t count the cost to many agencies who could not estimate total impact.

• It didn’t include the financial impact of the woman who died from the disease — let alone the personal impact to her family (grief, of course, cannot be measured).
• It didn’tinclude the costs to doctors’ offices, hospitals, or clinics who had to enact quarrantine and/or outbreak protocols.
• It also didn’tinclude the cost to businesses who had to provide paid leave for all the potentially exposed, deliberately unvaccinated employees who were sent home for house quarrantine for 2 weeks at at time.

$250,000 taxpayer dollars. (Grossly underestimated.)

For just 6 cases of measles.

Just think what this current 31-case outbreak will cost. And it’s not even over yet. The WA governor has issued a public health emergency. Officials in Idaho, not just Oregon are issuing health warnings to watch for migrating cases — and the disease has definitely spread to Oregon (The Oregonian). Clark Co. by itself has already spent over $100,000, and expects their costs to go to 7 figures (Washington Post). That’s millions of dollars, folks.

Cost of a vaccination: $20 copay — or even free

Cost of a vaccination:

• WITH insurance, $0 to $20. In other words, it’s fully covered or an office visit co-pay.
• WITHOUT insurance, $80 for the 2-dose course

But check those state laws again. Under ORS 433.269, even if you don’t have insurance and can’t afford the money, you can still get free innoculations for your kid. You just have to ask for the vaccines. You have to CHOOSE to protect your own child. Protect your child, as well as all those who interact with your child on a daily basis. If you don’t… Well, it’s everyone else who picks up the tab, isn’t it?

So… for that one 6-case outbreak in 2015, it would have cost, about $20 per person for vaccinations. That’s $100 total for 5 anti-vaxxers. (Remember, the woman who died had been innocculated, but was immunocompromised when infected by the anti-vaxxers.) That’s $100 versus the very real cost of a quarter million+ in taxpayer dollars.

The current 2019 anti-vaxxer outbreak is already 5x the size, with costs expected to be in the millions. Costs that are shoved on everyone else.

Hmmm.

All because an increasing percentage of parents refuse to innoculate their kids. Then they put those deliberately unvaccinated kids in communities with other children. And expect other families’ children to protect their own walking time bombs.

So… yeah. 22 percent of those Clark Co. school kids are unvaccinated, potential ‘Typhoid Mary’ carriers. (I’m not counting those who have a medical reason for not being vaccinated — they are the immunocompromised; I’m counting only those who deliberately refuse vaccines.)

And then there is Oregon

Lest you think I’m just bashing Clark Co, let’s take a gander across the river at Oregon public schools.

• Josephine county: 10 percent of students in public schools are not vaccinated for measles. (KGW News)
• Wallowa Co: A frightening 12 percent. (LaGrande Observer.)
• Multnomah Co: at least 8 percent of students are deliberately unvaccinated by their parents. (AP.)

But… If you access the actual data from oregon.gov, records show that those numbers don’t tell the whole picture. According to the state, the 2018 stats for children now entering Multnomah Co. kindergarten, up to the age of 5 — the rate of students deliberately unvaccinated for measles, mumps, and rubella — is at 13 percent. It’s a stunning 20 percent who are deliberately unvaccinated for diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis. We’re talking young kids here. The most vulnerable amongst us.

Multnomah Co. is the Portland metro area. It’s Oregon’s major population center and has our largest school district. Which means that, out of the 92,000 students in this county (MLT Co school report), at least 7,300, and possibly twice that number — 14,000 or more — are willful vectors of extremely infectious disease. And they’re right there in the classrooms, at the lunch tables, on the sports teams. Sitting next to your kid. Coughing on the desks, the food trays, basketballs, and bus…

In just a couple years, from 2015 to this January (2019) — the overall number of deliberately unvaccinated students entering Oregon schools has jumped from 5.8 to 7.5 percent. (Some counties, like Jefferson county, apparently have more responsible parents. It really skews the stats.

But seriously, this is January. We’re not even into the year yet, and we’re seeing a nearly 25 percent increase in unvaccinated students.

The infected all amongst us…

So, yes. Fear the walking dead… The Typhoid Mary’s of our time. The pipe bombs of disease. God help them — and God help us all. I mean, why bother to worry about foreign terrorists when we have our own home-grown disease IEDs multiplying around us?

But wait, just think on that for an uncomfortable minute.

What happens to unvaccinated people after grade school? Those anti-vaxxers go to college, get jobs, etc. So now, at a conservative estimate, 7 to 20 percent of the population around us — the adult population — are possible Typhoid Mary’s. Potential carriers of that double-handful of horrific diseases. Diseases which, before we had vaccinations, infected millions of people each year in the US.

Check the numbers yourself: Before the 1963 measles vaccine, every year there were 3 to 4 million cases of just measles alone. (CDC.)

And the dead?

Easily 50,000 a year.

That’s just from a small handful of the diseases on that list of preventable, infectious illness.

50,000 dead every year.

In just this single country.

And that’s before the mid-century population boom. Today? That number would be in the hundreds of thousands each year.

Remember, that is the preventable dead. It’s a drop in the bucket compared to the number of those who survived but were blinded, maimed, paralyzed, crippled, sterilized, brain-damaged, etc. by the diseases that they survived.

Workplace worries are not unwarranted

Uh, but I work in a small company… you say.

Yeah. You’re not safe.

Look at the basic math. This I am still capable of doing, much to the surprise of myself and my friends, who know I have never, ever balanced a checkbook. (Do millenials even know what a checkbook is?)

If you have 100 people in your small company? Between 10 and 20 of them are likely unvaccinated, In other words, potential carriers of horrific disease.

For easy math — and to be conservative with numbers — let’s go with 10 percent as the average. So, 300 people in your company? Then 30 are potential carriers. A thousand? Then 100 in your cafeteria each day are walking disease wells.

It gets scary as you scale up. Mid-sized business with 5,000 people? 500 employees – enough to fill an auditorium — are potential carriers and/or infectious vectors of measles, mumps, polio, chicken pox (and its subsequent excruciating shingles), invasive Haemophilus influenza type b (Hib)…

If you’re a parent, be aware

Now think a moment further. Because the deliberately unvaccinated are not just at your workplace. Some of them are acquaintences, friends. They’re hugging your child, cooing over your baby…

That doesn’t even consider the barristas and babysitters and Uber drivers that are part of daily life… It’s like dangling your kid — and the rest of your family — over a growing pool of hungry ‘gators and expecting the beasts not to bite.

Show me a group of parents who would keep their precious infants, toddlers, children at a daycare if they knew that 20 to 30 percent of daycare workers have deliberately refused vaccination. If they knew that those workers could even now be carrying disease. Remember, most vaccinations require that the child be old enough. And some innoculations are a multi-stage process. One shot this year; another shot next year or a couple years later. Children are always at risk. It’s the children and other vulnerables who need herd immunity to protect them. Not the anti-vaxxers.

Vaccinations strengthen you. They can’t always stave off disease.

We don’t need to succumb or be maimed anymore by these horrific diseases
— not unless we want to be maimed

I remember my Mom talking about how terrified she was when she contracted Rubella (German measles) while pregnant with my brother. The birth defects could have been horrific. She would show me photos, which I still remember. Gave me nightmares. If there had been a vaccination available at the time? She’d have grabbed onto it with both hands.

These are horrific illnesses. We don’t need to suffer them anymore. We have the vaccines we need. Yes, it’s taken a while to figure out which vaccines should be attenuated versus killed viruses. That was time and science well spent. We have many of the vaccines we need now, and judging by the drop in death rates among those who vaccinate, they’re incredibly effective.

In other countries, they don’t always vaccinate — not because they don’t believe in the vaccine or assume others will protect their children. They don’t always vaccinate because they don’t always have access to the vaccine. In other countries, they still see the ravages of these diseases, so they know what happens without vaccines.

But we, here, are insulated by generations of vaccination. We are well buffered from reality. Look around. How many of your friends, children, grandchildren have actually experienced or even seen such diseases?

Post-exposure treatments are now a reality,
but still a poor substitute for prevention

We don’t just have vaccines, either. Now, we even have post-exposure treatments. I’m not just talking about typical antibiotics. I mean dramatically urgent, post-exposure measures and anti-viral treatments designed to nip horrific disease before it bursts out and infests the community.

I hadn’t realized until these past few days just how far we have come in this area. Post-infection treatments aren’t just for rabies anymore. You can get a “precautionary” measles shot within 48 to 72 hours after exposure, and probably be alright. There’s an antitoxin (DAT) for Diphtheria exposure, and an immune globulin (TIG) for confirmed Tetanus cases, and so on.

It doesn’t make up for prepping your body to fight the disease in the first place. Also, post-infection treatments don’t always work. There are a lot of caveats.

Today, getting sick almost always means getting well again —
Anti-vaxxers are turning back those gains

Before 1950, disease was a stalking terror for every family, regardless of their social station. You didn’t worry about getting sick and staying in bed for a while. You worried that being sick meant you could be permanently paralyzed, disfigured, or otherwise maimed as that virus ate away at your body, or that bacteria twisted or locked your limbs, decimated your heart valves, made your brain swell until you became — in the politically correct vernacular of today — not “retarded,” just permanently “impaired.”

Or you could simply die.

Die horribly, in many cases. Disease isn’t a gracious swoon into unconsciousness. I’ve seen some of the ravages of diseases as they eat away at the body and mind. As for death… I accompanied a friend for a death watch once, for a woman who died that night. I’m grateful for the honor. For being allowed to participate in her passing. But frankly, it was…disturbing, distressing, horrific. To watch someone desperate to live because it’s our instinct; and yet desperate to die and, dear God, get the pain and blood-suffocation done with… The best I can say is that I’m grateful in that it prepared me more for other, closer situations.

But today, we have entire generations who don’t even know what many of these traditional diseases are. Just ask: How many people under 40 have a clue what they are vaccinated for, or why it is so terribly important? I mean, seriously, find me a high-schooler who knows what Diphtheria is.

Diphtheria

DIPHTHERIA — heavy grey mucus buildup, difficulty breathing or fully blocked airways, heart failure, paralysis, death. Occasionally open sores. The mortality rate is 10 percent for adults (CDC). It’s 20 percent for kids under the age of 5 (CDC).

In other words, if you have 3 kids, each one has a 20 percent chance of dying. Those are frightening odds for anyone, let alone a parent.

Is there a vaccine? Yes — it’s a 5-dose regimen that is extremely effective. But you still need a booster every 10 years. Usually, you get the diphtheria booster when you get your tetanus booster.

Today there is also a post-exposure treatment for diphtheria. It’s that antitoxin called DAT. However, DAT is available only from the CDC emergency operations center.

Pertussis

What about Pertussis? Does anyone today remember talking with their grandparents or reading pioneer stories about whooping cough? Well, like measles, it’s making a comeback because of the anti-vaxxers. Last year (2018) in the Eugene, OR, area alone, over 100 children were infected in over 20 schools (Register Guard). In the US, since 2010, between 15,000 and 50,000 cases of whooping cough are now being reported each year (CDC).

PERTUSSIS (whooping cough). Highly contagious. Kids can cough so hard that they vomit and asphyxiate, or even break their own ribs. For infants under 1 year of age, it can be deadly — they just can’t get enough oxygen to survive. Worldwide, there are still over 160,000 deaths per year from whooping cough (CDC). Vaccine available – yes. But of course, vaccination is a parent’s choice. One that everyone else has to live — or die — with.

And then there is…

Tetanus — the dreaded lockjaw

Of all the diseases I learned of as a child, tetanus was the most frightening. Not rabies — although hydrophobia was also frightening (I read Old Yeller when I was far too young). Not because I was taught to be afraid, but because of the expressions I saw in my parents’ and grandparents’ and great uncles’ faces when they spoke of Things That Happened.

We still get cases of tetanus every year in the US. Not surprisingly, every single case is someone who never got vaccinated or who didn’t bother to keep up their boosters. (CDC).

By the way, the rusty-nail syndrome of tetanus is a myth. Tetanus is like E coli, Strep and Staph — it’s ubiquitous. The spores are everywhere, in the soil, in dust, manure… So it doesn’t matter if the nail is rusty. Any object that has been on the ground or in contaminated dust, etc — any object could have the tetanus bacteria on it. That’s why any cut or puncture can be dangerous. That’s also why home births need to follow good protocols, especially for cutting the umbilical cord. Neonatal tetanus is a death sentence for that very vulnerable infant. And worldwide, over 34,000 infants still die from neonatal Tetanus. (CDC.) If the mother is innoculated against tetanus, some protection is conferred to her infant upon birth. But again, she has to have the vaccine, and her infant might still not survive.

Here, in our so-called educated country, we have such knowlege of preventable disease. We know what happens to those who get sick — we have centuries of stats and descriptions, records and photos and personal accounts. Yet with all our news outlets and feeds, our email blasts and YouTubes, our histories, and info from other countries; that knowledge is failing badly. Ignorance is again taking hold.

Today in the US, adult vaccination rates for Tetanus have dropped below 65 percent (CDC), and they look to be going lower.

If you choose to risk tetanus, at least, for this disease, at least it’s a personal choice. You don’t risk much to others. Except for one thing. If you’ve refused the tetanus vaccine, you’ve probably also refused the pertussis booster, the other half of that shot. So now you’re a potential carrier for pertussis, and able to willfully contribute to those 160,000 annual deaths caused by whooping cough. Frankly, I think it’s a good idea for pregnant women in particular to avoid any antivaxxer, including the anti-tetanus ones.

Eliminate, eradicate…

Here’s the thing. We can eliminate or eradicate disease only if we can eliminate the reservoir or make the hosts immune. What we can’t eradicate, we work to minimize. So we innoculate against measles and mumps, polio and pox.

But we can’t get rid of everything. Tetanus is a perfect example of this. It can’t be eradicated because it lives everywhere, on the very ground around you. That’s why you need the vaccine as a child, then the booster every 10 years — because you are continually exposed.

(Did I ever tell you about the 6-inch nail punched right through the center of my foot? Mom was furious at Dad for leaving that nail on the rock path after his project. Hmm. It just occurred to me: I’ve now had one nail through my left hand, another through my right foot — I’m halfway to Stigmata…)

But seriously, folks, Tetanus is a terrible way to die. And we sometimes have shortages of this vaccine. Be aware.

Mumps

What about mumps?

That has to be the silliest, most innocuous sounding disease. It’s like something out of a Dr. Seuss book. I’ve got the lumps, they calls it mumps…

Unfortunately, it’s not as fun as that.

Mumps is another disease which, by using vaccines, we had drastically reduced cases by 99 percent (CDC). But in 2016 and 2017, there were over 6,000 new cases reported both years — primarily in college settings. (Again, CDC.) Note that there is no requirement to report mumps cases. Those were voluntary reports of “unusually large” outbreaks in concentrated settings. No one knows each year how many actual cases of mumps are now occuring.

MUMPS. Highly contagious. 20 percent of the people who get infected show no symptoms — they’re unknowing carriers. Hello, anti-vaxxers. Like measles and chicken pox, mumps is making a comeback.

Will it kill you? Rarely. Mostly, mumps just causes swelling of various tissues. That doesn’t sound so bad. Until you realize those tissues include the areas around your ears, the female and male fertility organs (yep, guys, we’re talking testes; meaning, no more little soldiers for you). And the meninges. That’s the rather important bit of membrane that surrounds and protects your brain and spinal cord.

Mumps can mean deafness, sterility, encephalitis, meningitis… There is NO treatment for mumps. If you get it, you just have to endure. If your brain or spinal cord gets a little fried, well…

Prevent and minimize the effects of horrific disease

Point is this: We don’t vaccinate to prevent disease. I mean, some people would like to prevent all disease, but there’s no real way to do that. Also, exposure to disease does strengthen our immune systems. The difference is, strengthen the immune system or deliberately, willfully set yourself or your children out to die or be maimed in the attempt? (Note: I haven’t even touched on the cost to taxpayers for a lifetime’s disability caused by being rendered blind, deaf, crippled, brain damaged… versus that $20 vaccine.)

What we can do is vaccinate. We can strengthen the immune system up front, with antibodies, and try to prevent the severe complications of any given disease.

Getting back to measles…

Clark County schools, with their 22 percent population of unvaccinated students, is basically the same as having nearly a quarter of every classroom made up of Typhoid Marys. Kind of a daunting thought. 1 out of every 4 or 5 kids is a walking time bomb for measles.

So you have to ask yourself: What else do those anti-vaxxer kids carry? What other risks do they bring to my children?

Answer: Most likely every other preventable disease. Because their parents have refused to protect them — and all the rest of us. An antivaxxer doesn’t just refuse one vaccine. Often, they refuse them all.

Think of it as a “groupon” bargain. You can get 3, 5, even 12 horrific diseases for the price of 1 anti-vaxxer. Paralytic polio. Whooping cough, measles and chicken pox — and lifelong shingles (Zoster), which burns like active fire on your skin. Acute hepatitis B. Streptococcus pneumoniae…

Side note: The vaccine for that last one — the pneumoccocal vacine — although specific to particular bacterial strains, seems to confer strong secondary protection. Interestingly, this secondary protection works against many other types of pneumonia, including some viral pneumonias. Surprising and pretty darned spiffy. It’s a really, really good vaccine, especially for elders and those with weaker lungs.

Take a moment and consider…

Hundreds of thousands of people — possibly millions — are alive today because of vaccinations. That’s just in the U.S. alone. Hundreds of thousands who would not otherwise have survived. Some of them are probably your parents, brothers, sisters. Children.

Saw this haiku and had to share:

NATURAL SELECTION
  Attrib. Harry Frank (actual author unclear)

Parents waive vaccines
Preventable disease kills
The species evolves

 

Thus endith the musings.