Death and rebirth of childhood diseases

In the 18th century nearly one in three children would die of infectious diseases, Cheryl Miller, a postdoctoral scholar from WSU told the sixth annual Darwin on the Palouse attendees Saturday evening in Moscow’s 1912 Center.

But while such a disease as smallpox – which has a nearly 33 percent mortality rate – has been eradicated from the world, thanks to the advent of vaccines, there is still work to do.

It is made more difficult by a faked scientific study that has turned many people against these lifesaving vaccines, she said.

“The World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control estimated in the U.S. in the last 20 years more than 21 million hospitalizations and 700,000 deaths have been saved due to vaccines,” Miller said. “Childhood diseases that were present only a few generations ago are absent because of vaccines.”

Although the occurrence of many serious illnesses in the U.S. have been steadily declining for nearly a century, in some cases, recent years have seen them recur.

“Measles was eradicated from the U.S. in 2000,” Miller said. “It’s come back.

The highly contagious disease, which can cause seizures, pneumonia and death, went from zero U.S. cases at the new millennium to 657 cases in 2014, and more than 100 in 2016.

”Measles can be prevented by the MMR vaccines,“ she said. ”One dose of the vaccine can be 93 percent effective in protecting us against measles.“

Miller said mumps is another disease making a comeback. The disease, which causes swelling of the salivary glands, can lead to more complicated effects, such as swelling of the testes in males, deafness and brain damage.

”The number of cases of mumps in the U.S. has risen,“ she said, with 5,000 last year. ”When we stop vaccinating we see cases of mumps come up.“

Miller said much of the fear people have today concerning vaccines stems from a long-since-retracted study published in 1998 by Andrew Wakefield.

”It said 12 children developed autism because of the MMR vaccine,“ Miller said. ”Scientists around the world wanted to figure this out so they could solve this problem, make vaccines safe. But no one could find a link between the MMR vaccine and autism.“

More than 20 papers have refuted Wakefield’s claim, including one large study from Denmark, which showed no difference in the development of autism between children who were and were not vaccinated.

In time, the reason became apparent.

”A lot of people started looking into this paper from 1998,“ Miller said. ”They found falsified information.“

The 12 children selected for Wakefield’s small study had developed autism already and were preselected by lawyers who hoped to sue the vaccine company.

”Andrew Wakefield was being funded by these lawyers,“ Miller said. ”The paper was retracted, but the damage had already been done. People were afraid of vaccines.“

A link between vaccines and autism has never been found, and Miller said several ongoing studies about the disease show both genetics and environment – before and after birth – play a role.

Miller discussed how vaccines work, by getting the attention of certain cells within the body with dead or altered viruses and, in some cases, adjutants, which help the harmless viruses be seen as a threat. The cells create antibodies against the viruses, protecting the vaccinated person from the live illness, if they are ever confronted by it.

When it comes to vaccinations, Miller said individuals need to weigh risks and benefits, as no vaccine can be 100 percent safe for everyone.

Those with preexisting conditions such as allergies to antibiotics, gelatin and other substances, or immune deficiencies need to discuss those risks with their physicians, and possibly receive a medical exemption and rely on herd immunity – the effect when a large portion of society being immunized can protect those unable to be vaccinated.

If you don’t have any risk or allergies or if you’re not too young to be vaccinated, you have to weigh the benefits of you being able to prevent yourself from getting sick and others from getting sick and further the eradication of diseases that have caused so much harm for human life,” she said.