A vaccine for superbugs because it isn't profitable enough to make antibiotics.

[bubbleymummy]

Story here

Not exactly ethical really is it? Not that the pharmaceutical companies are that well known for their ethics... :)

Antibiotics aren't being dismissed. Your link said "There is a pipeline of new antibiotics from the evidence I've seen. There are new ways of developing drugs and new drugs have come through."

They're researching other options in addition.

illuminasam - i am afraid granny was wrong. Diphtheria caught from people not swamps.
Bubbleymummy - how do you account for the huge reduction in cases of whooping cough in the 1950s if it was not as a result of vaccination?

Pharma companies are huge multi-nationals. They are not subject to political pressures from individual countries. They are not subject to commercial pressures from individuals. Look how long and how much international effort it has taken to get them to reduce the cost of AIDS drugs. Pharma is not going to change its business model in a hurry. Not a huge point in railing against them really. Unless you enjoy it.
Plenty of other things one might focus on. Why is it that the "pharma is bad" conspiracy theory is so popular I wonder?

imadgeine - actually my grandmother was correct. And so are you.

"The origin of Diphtheria seems to be linked to bad, dirty, and stagnant water. In the British Medical Journal from 1880, there is an article of a few incidences of Diphtheria where those infected with the bacteria had drinking wells that were unclean and had drainage leaks that fed into the drinking well. There was also an outbreak in 1880 New York in a building along the river front that during the tides, water would seep into the basement area then back out again. The health department finally closed the building due to tenants getting Diphtheria. in spite of the drinking water connection to outbreaks and cases of the past, it is claimed that this bacteria can be spread by intimate contact or by airborne particles from an infected carrier coughing or sneezing."

And BTW, we never called her Granny even when she was alive.

I'd prefer a source a bit newer than 1880... eg this. Maybe contaminated water can be an additional cause, but pretty clear that the solution is vaccination.

Yes, the key sentence in your link is:

Diphtheria spreads through respiratory droplets... of an infected person or someone who carries the bacteria but has no symptoms.

Where does the bacteria come from? A major source used to be stagnant water and bad sanitation.

Vaccination maybe one of the reasons that diptheria is rare today but so is improved sanitation.

Vaccination, I'm afraid, is only part of the story.

My point is that we have made it the whole story and that is to our detriment.

how is that to our detriment, when there are hardly any cases of Diphtheria anymore?

Good sanitation is important in the control of many diseases - its not an either/or. An even more obvious example is typhoid.

Because that knowledge - where diptheria bacteria breed - where you could possibly catch it - has disappeared from what we teach our children.

We vaccinate them instead, we make them reliant on injections throughout their lifetime instead of giving them the skills they need to help them avoid catching disease in the first place.

Yes, we should acknowledge the great good that vaccination has done but it's not the whole story.

Speaking as a scientist working in "big pharma" I think the view that "big pharma" is greedy and corrupt is wrong.

The "general public" have no comprehension of the amount of money and effort involved in making new drugs. It's a complicated time consuming process so of course the funding has to come from somewhere.
As we gain greater knowledge of diseases, systems, biological processes it becomes clear that we have already utilised the "easier targets" in our fight against disease. So it's perfectly logical to explore alternatives such as vaccinations. I'm sure money isn't the main focus driving pharma.

I think it's about time we stopped this constant pharma bashing and realised that it's thanks to big pharma that many of us have survived various health challenges.

Don't even get me started on the issue of those choosing not to vaccinate their children. Recently heard that Travellers from the USA are being warned of the dangers of measles in Europe thanks to our reduced vaccination rates.

illuminasam, sadly, children are more likely to encounter an unvaccinated child than they are to encounter "stagnating water".

Apart from very rare occasions, disease outbreaks are centered around accumulations of unvaccinated kids (a community with 30% unvaccinated kids in the pertussis movie clip, often Steiner communities for measles and co), or started by unvaccinated travellers (in the "buy a ticket and go from Italy to US" sense). "skills they need to help them avoid catching disease in the first place" to the reasonably affluent child in Europe means "check your boosters before you go on that school trip to Paris" to me, not "stay away from stagnating water" (the water warning is: "don't head dive into unknown water" and protects from spinal cord injury). What is so horrible about getting a dTaP booster every 10 years?

The best 'skill' for avoiding diptheria is ensuring your vaccs are up to date.

There's plenty of other reasons not to drink dodgy water though, and I don't for a moment think that (western) kids think its ok because they've been vaccinated against a few diseases (some kids elsewhere of course have no choice - no vacc, no clean water ). My DD knows not to drink out of lovely clean flowing streams in the lake district because of liver fluke.

For me, it's an issue of personal responsibility for ones health and for me, that means not being entirely reliant on drugs and injections.

I'm afraid I've had some terrible experiences as a result of putting my trust in doctors and medicine and as a result I don't believe that they are right all the time. I think it's important to take responsibility and make your own decisions about what's right for you and your children.

I also want my children to have good knowledge of the world they inhabit and to me, that means more than 'get a booster and then forget about it'.

but one does not exclude the other? Just as Grimma said, you can be aware of the world you live in and the workings of your body AND vaccinate (actually, IMO, just because you are aware of the workings of nature). No one advocates the "then forget about it" bit...neither regarding diphtheria, nor the bacteria/antibiotics/vaccines.

" I'm sure money isn't the main focus driving pharma."

Well from their own sources, it is.

" Recently heard that Travellers from the USA are being warned of the dangers of measles in Europe thanks to our reduced vaccination rates."

Some of the countries in Europe with outbreaks have over 95% vaccination coverage.

Catherina, how many people get those boosters every ten years? Do you honestly believe that you can put all the blame for outbreaks of disease on unvaccinated children? Really? Even when we know that vaccine immunity wanes so there are many 'vaccinated' adults who are no longer immune and are just as capable of catching and spreading disease.

I think vaccination can give you a sense of safety that changes your behaviour. (Example - I didn't travel on public transport when I was pregnant in the winter because I chose not to vaccinate against swine flu. If I had vaccinated, I would have been more likely to go on public transport. Obviously, this wouldn't work as a solution for everyone because not everyone has that option.)

Some might see that as a good thing but I don't. For me, it's better to know that disease is a possibility and react accordingly.

I also have reservations about the effect of lots of vaccinations throughout life on our immune systems as a whole but that's a completely different issue and one I'm sure that has been done to death (ha ha).

It's a difficult one and there probably is no right answer that will fit for everyone. Certainly not "just go ahead and vaccinate and everything will be alright" anyway.

hmm, isn't it just the natural way of things that bacteria will develop resistance to antibiotics? They evolve constantly

And money is definitely the driving force for big pharma. A good example is Nurofen. The difference between that drug and a bog standard, no bright label, ibuprofen - nothing except the packaging and the price. DP was advised by his doctor not to get Nurofen recently for that very reason.

I wonder how much of their profit goes into marketing, distribution etc?

transfer - yes.

Some of the countries in Europe with outbreaks have over 95% vaccination coverage.

Yes, but not uniformly distributed - Austria's 200 measles tally in 2008 contained 174 cases in one Steiner school.

Catherina, how many people get those boosters every ten years?

not enough, obviously

Do you honestly believe that you can put all the blame for outbreaks of disease on unvaccinated children? Really?

nope, their parents ;) and nope, not all outbreaks, but many...

Even when we know that vaccine immunity wanes so there are many 'vaccinated' adults who are no longer immune and are just as capable of catching and spreading disease.

Not all vaccine induced immunity wanes and not all disease acquired immunity is life long. One needs to be aware of that, too (for example, I did titer tests before ttc #1 AND I had my measles titer tested before moving to the UK).

transfer -

yes and no. Bacteria will develop resistances, but they will use them again if there is no selection pressure. Some countries rotate use of antibiotics if I recall correctly, which slows down the success of resistant strains.

Natural acquired immunity lasts longer than vaccine immunity. Which vaccine gives lifelong immunity?

I prefer the term "disease-acquired immunity" - I coughed 4 months from pertussis (as a teen) and my immunity was gone when I tested (a good while later).

2x measles will give life long immunity, 2x rubella does too.

Life long immunity to a lot of diseases (like pertussis, chicken pox and very likely mumps) seems to depend on repeated exposure. I'd rather get a booster then depend on someone else getting sick, so my immunity can be boosted.

How about this:

After the breakup of the former Soviet Union in the late 1980s, vaccination rates in its constituent countries fell so low that there was an explosion of diphtheria cases. In 1991 there were 2,000 cases of diphtheria in the USSR. By 1998, according to Red Cross estimates, there were as many as 200,000 cases in the Commonwealth of Independent States, with 5,000 deaths.

AFAIK their sanitation, education etc was substantially the same.

Nurofen works measurably better than own brand ibuprofen for most people, even those who know that it's the same stuff, precisely because of the packaging, the advertising and the price. It's a con of course, but it's a con that works to the consumers' advantage. [Sorry for the lurch off topic there, but it's an interesting point].

I wouldn't be so sure about the sanitation - having met a Russian woman and her son who had fled from the country in 1997, living conditions sounded like a nightmare. Extreme poverty was rife.

Again, vaccination rates were a factor but not the only one.

I don't see what the problem with accepting that is?