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... :)

DilysPrice - very interesting!

The consumers obviously advantaged pain-wise but perhaps not pocket-wise.

Catherina, considering the single measles vaccine was only introduced in 1968 and the MMR in 1988 you have no way of knowing if immunity from them lasts for life yet. Iirc it was initially claimed that only one dose would be necessary, now it's 2 and the mumps component is proving not to be as effective as initially thought.

Natural pertussis immunity lasts longer than the 4-8 years of vaccine induced immunity.

I don't see what the problem with accepting that is?
no problem at all! I said its not an either/or.

Good and hurrah.

Grimma, the sanitation was most certainly not the same! There was a complete breakdown in all services - no rubbish collection, contaminated water etc. It just shows how much we take those things for granted in disease control.

I'm not too unhappy about branded painkillers raking in a bit more profit which the companies can invest in treatments for other conditions(and a bit in my poor little pension pot, thanks) - no-ones forcing people to buy them rather than generic, and if they get a bit of extra placebo power its something of a win-win.

No that's true Grimma, no one is forced to buy them. The corporations do have the money and the power to be able to effectively market their products over others but it's our choice whether to buy them or not. Which is why taking personal responsibility is so important.

1968 to 2011 sounds pretty good to me (and, if it hadn't been for the efforts of the pro-disease faction, Europe would have been measles free in 2010, sigh).

Red herrings as usual. Must resist the temptation to swim after them. If pharma companies did not make a profit then there would be no more new drugs. Very annoying but true. So if they can make some profit to people who are daft enough to buy branded painkillers - and we have all done it - then that is not the end of the world.
Vaccines work in different ways and some give stronger immunity than others. They work with the natural abilities of the immune system, to boost resistance to a whole range of awful diseases. I was listening to someone on the radio talk about her grandmother, in the Welsh valleys (must be in the late 19th C), losing 11 out of her 12 children before they were 5 years old to these diseases. Smallpox has been eradicated by vaccination. It took about 200 years but it was achieved. How wonderful is that.

1968 for single measles vaccine. I don't know too many people who get their immunity tested on a regular basis so I'm not sure on what basis you can say it provides lifelong immunity.

Did you really believe the whole 'measles free' thing? Even though vaccines don't guarantee immunity, we don't know how long they last and there are outbreaks in populations with > 95% (which is supposed to provide herd immunity) ?

bubbleymummy

the 95% are a distractor - as said, 174 of 200odd measles cases in Austria in 2008 occurred within 3 weeks in ONE Steiner school. The fact that this outbreak did not spread is due to the high immunisation coverage and herd immunity outside that school. Vaccines work.

As for measles - I had my immunity tested and the Finns have a cohort study, too - see pubmed (dinner is almost ready).

Catherina - the most ANY study can show is immunity for measles alone for 43 years. That is not 'lifelong' in my book.

I'm talking about the current European outbreak - the cases are not only occurring in the unvaccinated. The US has outbreaks too even though it has a very high vaccination coverage.

Outbreaks. Whereas when I was born, measles was an incredibly common disease. Vast number of lives saved, other lives not blighted.

Smallpox down; polio next target for irradication.

but bubbleymummy, 43 years is pretty good in my book (given that pre-vaccine 98% of the population had measles before age 15).

The cases are mostly in the unvaccinated, something like 86% have not been vaccinated, another 7 or 8% only vaccinated once, some of the remainder with "unknown" or unverified vaccine status. 2x measles vaccine reduces your measles risk tremendously. As for the US, measles spread in the unvaccinated and there hasn't been a single focus larger than 20 cases. Compare that to said Steiner school with 174 cases in a school of 300 (and a vaccination rate of 20%). I have more examples if you'd like, but measles vaccine has totally proven its usefulness.

Nice post CatherinaJTV. Very interesting case study.

Thank you imadgeine - here is a link, although some of the info comes from German speaking sources www.eurosurveillance.org/ViewArticle.aspx?Articleid=18838

Catherina - I didn't say there WAS 43 years of protection. I said that was the most there could possibly be assuming that everyone had that first measles vaccine and that it worked as well as lasting this length of time. That's assuming a lot whereas anyone who caught measles has lifelong immunity.

or died, or ended up disabled...

The vast majority did not.

never mind the many who did die or got maimed?

In Germany, there were about 180 that were known to die each year (not every death was recorded as caused by measles). In the US, an underestimated 80 babies under 1 year died of measles each year, plus hundreds of older children. And then there were the SSPE cases - not many, granted, but a gruesome death, dragged out over years. Germany is still getting about 8 cases a year (some imported from Turkish kids who had measles back home as infants). And the stats are quite reliable - 2003, the area around Duisburg had 1700 measles cases, measles mortality is 1 in 1000 - they saw two deaths. SSPE occurs with a frequency of about 1 in 2000 (in infants) and 1 in 11- 22000 (over all) and lo - they have had a case of SSPE (a little girl called Michaela) from that outbreak too.
Then there were the many defect healings from encephalitis (about 1 in 1000) - in the above outbreak, a 7 year old girl lost her speech for good (my grandmother lost most of her sight as a 12 year old).

Take 1700 children vaccinated with measles containing vaccine (MCV) and show me the 3 deaths and the (at least) 1 disability resulting from that. Also, show me the 80 kids with pneumonia from the vaccine and the 100 or so with otitis from the shot (since about 5% of measles patients come down with pneumonia and 7 or 8% with otitis).

There is absolutely no debate about the fact that measles vaccine is saving lives and quality of lives and is infinitely better than than the disease.

Never mind the ones who die or get maimed from the vaccine itself then? They are very rarely acknowledged because they are just 'unlucky' and the vaccine is for 'the greater good' but actually if you factor in the risk of actually contracting measles then the risk of life threatening complications from the vaccine are higher. Your figures are off by the way. Measles fatality is 1 in 8-10,000 in the UK (links in another thread)

I'm not going to get into yet another vaccine debate. This has been completely done to death and if you're interested there is fairly recent thread about it in this section.This particular discussion is about whether a vaccine can make Europe 'measles free'. My opinion is, no it can't. I think the idea of creating herd immunity with a vaccine is flawed because

a) it isn't 100% effective - people who have been vaccinated can still catch the disease.

b) it does not provide life long immunity - hasn't been round long enough to prove that it does, there is evidence of the mumps component of the MMR waning, other vaccines that were thought to provide lifelong protection are now known to wane.

c) even when the target '95%' is reached and/or exceeded there are still outbreaks of the disease. Have a look at Saudi Arabia's outbreak in 2007. Even with a vaccination rate of 96%, 20% of the population came down with measles.

So, given all those issues, do you still think that vaccinating 95% of the population of every country in Europe will result is going to make Europe 'measles free'?

TBH I'm not even sure why we're discussing herd immunity in relation to a vaccine for MRSA.

So, given all those issues, do you still think that vaccinating 95% of the population of every country in Europe will result is going to make Europe 'measles free'?

yupp - I am totally convinced. Scandinavia was already there (even with a very relaxed schedule, MMR at 18 months and 11 years), they have just had too many imports from France/Italy this year. Heck - the American continent was essentially measles free (100 cases in 800 million inhabitants), but religious and quasi religious disease fans have managed to create enough pockets in immunity for outbreaks to re-occur.

Never mind the ones who die or get maimed from the vaccine itself then?

I absolutely mind those. It is a classical ethical dilemma - do we sacrifice very few for the benefit for the hundreds and thousands. I happen to think that the vaccination benefit for the individual already outweighs the risk for the individual and therefore measles vaccination rocks and measles and vaccine refusal stink and endanger the lives of those who cannot vaccinate (because they are too young or too sick).

fits the current topic www.medpagetoday.com/InfectiousDisease/GeneralInfectiousDisease/27092

and, to return to the original topic - reservations for me would not stem from any profit a company might make, but from observations after the introduction of Prev(e)nar 7 in the US, like, for example this:

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20823436