5 Things to Know About the First Drug to Prevent HIV

[Fate]

Only some?

Okay, they all have value in some fashion. But I don't happen to believe that they all have the same value. Some vaccines are necessary; some are just nice to have.

I'm pretty sure I've made it clear in the past that this is my stance on this.

Not sure what that distinction means.  After all, certainly not everyone "needs" a chicken pox vaccine as a life or death type issue but some people do.  Not sure that means a chicken pox has less value than a vaccine for something like HIV which occurs less frequently.

Before the vaccine we had about 10,000 hospital admissions and 100 deaths a year due to chickenpox. It's not an entirely benign virus.

[Fate]

Not sure what that distinction means.  After all, certainly not everyone "needs" a chicken pox vaccine as a life or death type issue but some people do.  Not sure that means a chicken pox has less value than a vaccine for something like HIV which occurs less frequently.

I'd say the chickenpox vaccine has quite a bit less value than an HIV vaccine. Without the chickenpox vaccine, you get an uncomfortable rash and low-grade fever for two weeks. Without the HIV vaccine, you die.

Seems fairly simple which one is more valuable to society at large.

Obviously more lives would be saved by an HIV vaccine, but it doesn't exist. Today we are saving lives and significantly reducing hospitalizations with the varicella vaccine. It has a lot of value for our society.

[merithyn]

But that isn't true. There are people who die of smallpox and there are lots of people in the west who have HIV and don't die because of it.

Smallpox =/= chickenpox

Obviously more lives would be saved by an HIV vaccine, but it doesn't exist. Today we are saving lives and significantly reducing hospitalizations with the varicella vaccine. It has a lot of value for our society.

It has value. I'll leave it at that.

[garbon]

Smallpox =/= chickenpox

True...

http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/25/deaths-from-chickenpox-down/

Deaths from chickenpox (the varicella virus) have dropped 97 percent in adolescents and children since the use of the vaccine began in 1995, new analysis shows.

"I think there's certainly the potential for very little disease in the future and very few deaths if we are to fully implement and maintain that program," said Jane Seward, deputy director, Division of Viral Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The study appears in journal Pediatrics. Researchers from the CDC looked at data from 1990 to 2007.

"Every kid did get chickenpox and, in the pre-vaccine era, there were 3-4 million cases a year," Seward said. "What people may not have realized, every year, about 105 people died of chickenpox. About half of those were children and about 11,000-12,000 were hospitalized with severe complications. We started preventing the disease to really prevent those very serious complications."

Among adults younger than 50, the decline was 96 percent; overall, the decline was 88 percent.  Seward pointed out that adults get more serious chickenpox than children and also need two doses of the vaccine.

"They have about twenty times higher risk of dying from chickenpox than children do. So it is really important for adults who haven't had chickenpox to get the vaccine."

[Habbaku]

And Berkut outright tells use that he knows better then most people what liberty means and that he knows better then CdM.

Okay, so they were both condescending. Yippee?

Yes, but Raz is only ideologically opposed to one of them. 

[merithyn]

Fate, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but one of the unintended affects of the vaccine was that it has caused a marked INCREASE in shingles in adults, which is far more dangerous, painful, and deadly than chickenpox is to children. In addition, because one of the ways to maintain immunity from chickenpox is through continued exposure - ie from being around children with the disease - it's becoming increasingly common for adults to get regular old chickenpox, which is, again, far more dangerous.

The vaccine doesn't have long-term affects, which is a major concern given that the disease IS so dangerous to adults comparatively.

So, while it has some value, it also has deleterious affects as well.

[Neil]

And Berkut outright tells use that he knows better then most people what liberty means and that he knows better then CdM.

Okay, so they were both condescending. Yippee?

Yes, but Raz is only ideologically opposed to one of them. 

Surely everyone (except for Berkut and grumbler) is ideologically opposed to libertarians?  Even those of us who aren't particularily ideological should oppose the destruction of society.

[Valmy]

Surely everyone (except for Berkut and grumbler) is ideologically opposed to libertarians?  Even those of us who aren't particularily ideological should oppose the destruction of society.

Habbaku and Scipio are actual Libertarians, as far as I know, as opposed to Berkut.

[garbon]

Fate, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but one of the unintended affects of the vaccine was that it has caused a marked INCREASE in shingles in adults, which is far more dangerous, painful, and deadly than chickenpox is to children. In addition, because one of the ways to maintain immunity from chickenpox is through continued exposure - ie from being around children with the disease - it's becoming increasingly common for adults to get regular old chickenpox, which is, again, far more dangerous.

The vaccine doesn't have long-term affects, which is a major concern given that the disease IS so dangerous to adults comparatively.

So, while it has some value, it also has deleterious affects as well.

We've a shingles vaccine too though.

[derspiess]

True fact: About 3 years ago I was responsible for the first documented case of chicken pox the Denver area had seen in like 10-15 years.

I came down with shingles, not knowing I had it (thought it was some weird Crohn's symptom).  I felt kinda crappy, but not enough to cancel my trip out to Denver to see my best friend and his family.  His little girl was due for her chicken pox shot the next month, but thanks to me she didn't end up needing it.  Their pediatrician made a big deal about it & arranged for some local med school students to come out & observe because it was a rare opportunity to see chicken pox symptoms.

When I got back home I was feeling worse and the rash on my shoulder got worse, so I went to the doctor & he immediately diagnosed that it was shingles.  Then the next day my own kid came down with chicken pox.  Thankfully it ended there.

[merithyn]

We've a shingles vaccine too though.

Sure, and if adults went in every four years to get it, they'd be fine.

Or, we could let nature take its course, allow children to get the disease once in their lives - with a minimal chance at complications* - and no one would need any follow-up shots ever.



*Yes, minimal. 25 times more people die from a bumped head every year than from chickenpox prior to the vaccine. Are we now going to require that people wear helmets 24/7?



EDIT: Bah, typo. It's 25 times, not 250 times.

[Maximus]

But... but... think of the children!!!11

[Berkut]

*Yes, minimal. 25 times more people die from a bumped head every year than from chickenpox prior to the vaccine. Are we now going to require that people wear helmets 24/7?

I suspect that is a false dichotomy.

[merithyn]

*Yes, minimal. 25 times more people die from a bumped head every year than from chickenpox prior to the vaccine. Are we now going to require that people wear helmets 24/7?

I suspect that is a false dichotomy.

How so?

http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/tbi/detail_tbi.htm

TBI costs the country more than $56 billion a year, and more than 5 million Americans alive today have had a TBI resulting in a permanent need for help in performing daily activities. Survivors of TBI are often left with significant cognitive, behavioral, and communicative disabilities, and some patients develop long-term medical complications, such as epilepsy.

Other statistics dramatically tell the story of head injury in the United States. Each year:

· approximately 1.4 million people experience a TBI,

· approximately 50,000 people die from head injury,

· approximately 1 million head-injured people are treated in hospital emergency rooms, and

· approximately 230,000 people are hospitalized for TBI and survive.

There is a solution to the problem: stop allowing sports/games that are known to cause serious head injuries; keep children from playing tag, Red Rover, etc.; require all children under the age of 10 to wear helmets at all times. In short, there is a vaccine, if you will, for preventing thousands more deaths every year than chicken pox even came close to causing.

Yes, chickenpox causes deaths, rarely. Of the 4 million people who got chicken pox every year prior to the vaccine, only ~100 died of it, and there's a question of how many of them died due to limited medical intervention rather than from the disease itself. The varicella vaccine is, plain and simply, a convenience vaccine. Yes, it has value. Yes, it's useful. And yes, it causes long-term affects that had not been foreseen, and which has continued to cost time, money, and lives.

[Barrister]

The false dichotomy is between the inconvenience of receiving a vaccine (a moment's pinprick), versus wearing a helmet 24/7.