Anti-Meningococcal B Vaccine Madness

[Kiwi Kid]

New Zealand is currently in the grip of a more than decade-long meningococcal B epidemic (MenB). There have been over 5300 cases reported and 218 deaths.

For every 100 people who contract meningococcal disease:

• four will die
• 20 will be left with some degree of serious disability, such as brain damage, deafness, loss of limbs or damaged skin
• others will be left with learning or behavioural difficulties

The Pacific Island community has been hardest hit with 1 out of 66 being affected.

A custom vaccine has been manufactured especially for our strain of the disease and an immunisation programme is now under way. See the NZ Government MenB site.

Good news. But it didn't take long for the anti-vaxers to start spreading their odd views. The Immunisation Awareness Society (IAS) issued an article that said that vaccination against MenB is not necessary and all that is required is good nutrition, no smoking, good iron levels and no use of paracetamol. They believe the vaccine money would be better spent on fighting poverty, overcrowding and poor nutrition.

Now the NZ government is already aware of, and working on, poverty and overcrowding. It has active campaigns against smoking and is trying to get good eating messages across. No doubt it could do better.

Now why would someone not want to use a powerful tool such as vaccination to combat this terrible disease? Good question.

To give you an idea of their dogma, the IAS state:

Vaccines are not necessary; vaccines are not effective; vaccines are not safe.

Explains it all, really.

But what is this about paracetamol? It seems that the IAS has misinterpreted a study (what's new?) that used paracetamol use as an indication of recent illness, not as a cause of that illness.

Surprisingly, they have back-pedalled rather rapidly. Here is a statement from their website:

PAMOL(TM) AND MENINGOCOCCAL DISEASE
CORRECTION OF PREVIOUS INFORMATION ON THIS WEBSITE

In earlier versions of our website and this PDF file the IAS made reference to the medication, Pamol(TM). At no time did IAS intend to imply or state that Pamol(TM) causes meningococcal disease. IAS unequivocally states that neither Pamol(TM) nor other medications containing paracetamol cause meningococcal disease.
IAS has withdrawn any and all references to Pamol(TM) in this and all other material and/or publications for which it is responsible.

In an attempt to provide parents with information and options, IAS may be guilty of an over-zealous approach in its wording, visuals and examples. IAS apologises for any misleading or deceptive representations that it may have been responsible for.
IAS unreservedly withdraws and apologies for any statement that may have been interpreted as direct advice to consumers not to use Pamol in the treatment of their babies’ and childrens’ ailments.

This has got to be a first. Methinks the lawyers had a wee word to them.

However, they still state

The IAS believes that such medications may increase the risk of meningococcal disease

Water off a duck's back, I guess.

Can anyone understand where these people are coming from?

 

[Kiwi Kid]

Ah, I see the Ratbags site has picked up on the IAS retraction.

 

[Benguin]

I was moaning about this on another vax thread recently. Probably MMR related.

I still can't get a clear idea of the motive behind these people. If there was substance behind their theories then yes, even if they were to be ultimately flawed.

The claims they make are easy to prove/disprove;

Vaccines are not necessary;
You've answered that one. High rates of a dangerous disease.

Vaccines are not effective;
Compare the incidence of Meningicoccal B in the vaccinated populus versus the unvaccinated, making sure other factors such as age etc are discounted.

Vaccines are not safe;
Safe can be a somewhat subjective definition and I'd prefer it if it was not used. Nothing is 100% 'safe', including 'doing nothing'. All that is required is a comparison of the severity and rate of vaccine side effects against the severity and rate of ongoing problems from the disease.

 

[Kiwi Kid]

I was moaning about this on another vax thread recently. Probably MMR related.

I still can't get a clear idea of the motive behind these people. If there was substance behind their theories then yes, even if they were to be ultimately flawed.

Think I read some of that thread.

I think their motives fall into three categories:
* Genuine belief that vaccines are dangerous - usually mislead by the vultures and not smart enough, or too lazy, to research by themselves.
* A stubborn anti-establishment attitude to everything, no matter what
* Notoriety and profit

The claims they make are easy to prove/disprove;

Vaccines are not necessary;
You've answered that one. High rates of a dangerous disease.

Ah yes, but vaccines will only make it worse and "natural" methods work better. Not.

Vaccines are not effective;
Compare the incidence of Meningicoccal B in the vaccinated populus versus the unvaccinated, making sure other factors such as age etc are discounted.

Now this will be interesting seeing as this is a brand new vaccine and noone has been vaccinated with it before. We have 13 years of statistics to compare to. My only worry is that they will claim that the epidemic was ending anyway.

Vaccines are not safe;
Safe can be a somewhat subjective definition and I'd prefer it if it was not used. Nothing is 100% 'safe', including 'doing nothing'. All that is required is a comparison of the severity and rate of vaccine side effects against the severity and rate of ongoing problems from the disease.

Agreed. I always say that no vaccine is 100% safe or 100% effective in any of my "discussions". It helps remove that strawman early on.

The side effects one can be very frustrating. The anti-vaxers like to wriggle out of that one by saying it is impossible to know the long-term effects until that (undefined) long-term has passed. A bit of a diversion because we sure do know the effects of the disease right now. They also like to poo-poo the adverse reactions reporting databases.

One good thing is that this campaign is getting the long-overdue national vaccination register underway. Can you believe we don't have one? Another "out" for the anti-vaxers who can claim any figures they like without being pulled up on them.

 

[anonimouse]

The side effects one can be very frustrating. The anti-vaxers like to wriggle out of that one by saying it is impossible to know the long-term effects until that (undefined) long-term has passed. A bit of a diversion because we sure do know the effects of the disease right now. They also like to poo-poo the adverse reactions reporting databases.

One good thing is that this campaign is getting the long-overdue national vaccination register underway. Can you believe we don't have one? Another "out" for the anti-vaxers who can claim any figures they like without being pulled up on them. [/B]

To the first point, that's the easy anti-vax "out". I asked anti-vaccinators on another board once to give me a definition of what constituted a "long-term" study. The only response I got was "one generation". I responsed by asking whether in the meantime, we should leave a population vulnerable to a disease because we might find one or two people per 100,000 who suffer a severe reaction to the vaccine? The inability to comprehend that logic was astounding.

Actually, in the U.S., anti-vaxers love VAERS, because it's passive surveilliance that anyone can submit a report to. It makes their numbers seem so much higher, and when they can multiply it by 10 because not every vaccine reaction is reported, they can make a compelling numbers case.

And of course, anti-vaccinators had the idea of a national vaccine registry. They claim it's a violation of their privacy. Yet they want adverse reactions studied across a broad population base. How you can do one without the other? I think the reason why anti-vaxers REALLY don't want a national vaccine registry is obvious.

 

[Kiwi Kid]

To the first point, that's the easy anti-vax "out". I asked anti-vaccinators on another board once to give me a definition of what constituted a "long-term" study. The only response I got was "one generation". I responsed by asking whether in the meantime, we should leave a population vulnerable to a disease because we might find one or two people per 100,000 who suffer a severe reaction to the vaccine? The inability to comprehend that logic was astounding.

I've concluded that they don't give a horse's arse about people dying from diseases. They only care about their long-cherished fantasy that vaccines do more harm than good. An anti-vaxer was telling me that smallpox would have died out naturally without vaccines. Okay, maybe, but what about the hundreds of thousands who suffered in the meantime? Same with MenB. They just don't seem to give a toss. Very perplexing.

And of course, anti-vaccinators had the idea of a national vaccine registry. They claim it's a violation of their privacy. Yet they want adverse reactions studied across a broad population base. How you can do one without the other? I think the reason why anti-vaxers REALLY don't want a national vaccine registry is obvious.

Yes, exactly. The real truth might become blindingly obvious.

The national register in New Zealand will allow people to register their decision not to vaccinate their children. I wonder if it will record their reasons. Unlikely.

The register will only record vaccinations from now onward. It won't include past vaccinations which is a pity but the government is probably just being tight-arsed about it.

 

[geni]

The vaccine is still strain specific we could really do with a general menb vaccine

 

[Eos of the Eons]

I've concluded that they don't give a horse's arse about people dying from diseases. They only care about their long-cherished fantasy that vaccines do more harm than good. An anti-vaxer was telling me that smallpox would have died out naturally without vaccines. Okay, maybe, but what about the hundreds of thousands who suffered in the meantime? Same with MenB. They just don't seem to give a toss. Very perplexing.

Yep, and the fact that microbes don't ever go away on their own, but always come up with some nice new strains even every year doesn't mean anything to them? Why do they think we get the flu every year? Tons of people get sick, tons of microbes are made, and tons change to make us all sick again.

The less microbes, the less strains, the better chance of beating it. Only vaccines can help us with that. Beat the microbe down to a smaller population, don't allow it to replicate and change, and eradicate it.

What disease has ever died out 'naturally'? The plague? I'm not sure, but maybe it did, but after reducing the population of humans on the planet to about 100,000.

Oh yes, that's a much better way for disease to be wiped out, wipe out humanity with it!

Oh but, you know, the alternatives will protect you from disease. Yes, anoint yourselves with this oil, and you'll never get sick. Don't take nasty vaccines, they are poison. Use this unproven, unregulated "natural" remedy instead. Nope, I don't make a profit off of it, I'm the good guy. I would never lie to you, it's big pharma and docs that lie, the filthy liars! I care about you, it's totally worth $50.00/bottle of this wonder stuff. Vaccines are free, yes, but the gov't gives the big pharma money, and they make HUGE profits. Not like me, no no, I'm just helping people...blah blah.

They not only want to be right, but they want to be recognized as heros, better than doctors. They need their crap theories to be correct in order to sell sCAM.

 

[Kiwi Kid]

The vaccine is still strain specific we could really do with a general menb vaccine

I'll try and find out if any work is being done towards this. Maybe it will be possible to manufacture something like the multi-strain polio vaccine. That would be good because MenB is not the only form of the bacteria to cause infection in New Zealand. The UK had a MenC vaccine produced for their epidemic not so long ago.

 

[Kiwi Kid]

I have received some information regarding generic meningococcal vaccines.

My contact said:
Using a technology called reverse vaccinology. I attended a seminar by Chiron who are working on such a vaccine and have made good progress. They have identified immunogenic aspects that are shared among all the strains using this technology and from what I recall they were up to clinical trials.

Here is some background information:

REVERSE VACCINOLOGY - Elucidating potential antigens for vaccines

By knowing the genetic code of an organism it is possible to extrapolate the codes for all genes. Some of these will include peptides with antigenic properties. This technique is being applied in the development for a mengingococcal vaccine that will be protective against all strains. The search for a vaccine against this disease has been going for 40 years with little success. The main reason for failure has been the sequence and antigenic variablility of the antigens which have been identified during this period using conventional methods. Recently the genome for Nessaria meningitidis was sequenced.

In reverse vaccinology the genome sequence can be fed into a computer which can predict the proteins located in the bacteriums surface.

Using this method there were 600 predicted proteins identified in silico (computational biology). Of these 350 were successfully expressed in E.coli as fusion products, purified and used to immunize mice. There were 91 novel surface proteins identified, 29 of these induced bactericidal antibodies – a prediction of a good vaccine candidate. Until this time only 12-15 had been identified and only 4 –5 of these had bactericidal properties.

How many of these 29 vaccine candidates can induce protective antibodies across all strains of N.meninitidis?

Some of these do indeed give protection against all known strains and 5 vaccine candidates are in clinical trial.

• Advantages in reverse vaccinology
• Fast access to virtually every antigen
• Non-cultivable can be approached
• Non abundant antigens can be identified
• Antigens not expressed in vitro can be identified.
• Non-structural proteins can be used

• Disadvantages
• Non proteinous antigens like polysaccharides, glycolipids cannot be used

The science of genetics reaps some more rewards.

 

[Capsid]

I was involved in trying to develop a menB vaccine. We identified a good epitope on the bacterial surface that was common to all strains but it did not induce bactericidal antibodies. Those epitopes that did produce bactericidal antibodies were strain specific. The solution would be to produce a vaccine containing all strains but this would be a manufacturing nightmare.

 

[Kiwi Kid]

Let's hope this Chiron crowd have success. It would be great to have a vaccine that covers all strains. We'll watch with interest.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

New technologies are fascinating in this are. If the anti-vaccinators actually looked at facts they would appreciate this amazing gift we have at our disposal. Some companies are scared away from investing in research because of the nonsense the anti-vaccinators and sCAM groups stir up. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you (or in this case-saves you).

Thank you for posting all this information, and I look forward to seeing more.

Appreciatively,

Eos.

 

[Kiwi Kid]

Some companies are scared away from investing in research because of the nonsense the anti-vaccinators and sCAM groups stir up. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you (or in this case-saves you).

That would be a shame. Does it really happen? I couldn't imagine that the companies would even think about the anti-vax nutters when doing their R&D. Maybe their marketing departments consider them.

Thank you for posting all this information, and I look forward to seeing more.

I get most of my stuff from the University of Auckland Immunisation Advisory Centre people who are very helpful. They are at the forefront of the fight against vaccine-preventable diseases in New Zealand and have access to the latest research here and overseas.

 

[Eleatic Stranger]

What disease has ever died out 'naturally'? The plague? I'm not sure, but maybe it did, but after reducing the population of humans on the planet to about 100,000.

If you're talking about the Black Plague it's still quite around. There haven't been any recent pandemics that I know of, though, as it's fairly quickly recognized, we know how it's transmitted and how to prevent it, we don't sleep near farm animals as much, and anti-biotics are at least somewhat effective against it.

More information!

 

[Kiwi Kid]

What disease has ever died out 'naturally'? The plague? I'm not sure, but maybe it did, but after reducing the population of humans on the planet to about 100,000.

There have been a few diseases that have disappeared. Encephalitis lethargica comes to mind. Here are some links I found on it:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/conditions/encephalitis_lethargica.shtml
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/health_and_medical/disorders/encephalitis_lethargica.htm
http://brain.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/full/127/1/2

 

[Eos of the Eons]

That would be a shame. Does it really happen? I couldn't imagine that the companies would even think about the anti-vax nutters when doing their R&D. Maybe their marketing departments consider them.

Public mistrust and questions about the possible link between vaccines and chronic or developmental diseases have created a chilling atmosphere for manufacturers, say many experts. Some parents fear that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine causes autism or that vaccines trigger diabetes, though most physicians discount both theories.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2001-07-30-vaccine-usat.htm

It's expensive to make and test vaccines. Why bother if they are going to be rejected over something idiotic?

A major problem today is that existing vaccines do not reach all the people who could benefit from them and this costs about 2 million lives every year, WHO calculates. Another 3 million to 5 million children could be saved if the drug industry could be persuaded to produce vaccines for a few other conditions including pneumonia and certain diarrheas.

http://claweb.cla.unipd.it/home/cclark/pharmaceutical_en_clark/WORK/past exams/webexams.pdf

The places that could benefit from these are also most likely to refuse them out of "fear".

There is some small hope, but the anti-vaxxers will do all they can to prevent new vaccines from being used. They pull out all the stops to cause fear, saying that they are untested and drug companies want to use the public as guinea pigs.

Excellent article on the costs of making vaccines:

http://www.unicef.org/publications/pub_sowvi_en.pdf

 

[Eos of the Eons]

There have been a few diseases that have disappeared. Encephalitis lethargica comes to mind. Here are some links I found on it:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/conditions/encephalitis_lethargica.shtml
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/health_and_medical/disorders/encephalitis_lethargica.htm
http://brain.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/full/127/1/2

Although the epidemic of encephalitis lethargica hasn't recurred, occasional cases had been reported for centuries beforehand and are still sometimes seen.

The disease hasn't dissappeared.

 

[Rolfe]

There was a terrific TV programme on encephalitis lethargica a couple of months ago. I think I started a thread about it at the time. It turned out to be a molecular mimic autoimmune reaction to a particular strain of strep throat.

It had disappeared for many years but reappeared quite recently. Now that they've got the aetiology pegged, successful treatment should be possible.

Rolfe.

 

[Kiwi Kid]

It's expensive to make and test vaccines. Why bother if they are going to be rejected over something idiotic?

Oh. Quite right. Of course, you are forgetting that vaccine manufacturers make huge profits from their evil products.

The places that could benefit from these are also most likely to refuse them out of "fear".

I wonder what can be done about this. Perhaps more countries can be persuaded to contribute directly to vaccine research for diseases that affect developing countries the most. That would be a good place to put our foreign aid. I see that Bill Gates is making private contributions to this area. Good on him. That's what I'd do in his position. Web Site. Of course, the anti-vaxers don't believe a scrap of it. This crowd believes Bill is trying to eliminate "undesirable" people.

Excellent article on the costs of making vaccines

Thanks for that. It's a great article on all things vaccine, not just cost.