Why Your Dog Can Get Vaccinated Against Lyme Disease and You Can’t (2012)
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Re: Why Your Dog Can Get Vaccinated Against Lyme Disease and You Can’t (2012)
#2A family friend was one of the people who helped develop the Lyme vaccine. He invited my Dad to be part of the trial because my Dad spends a lot of time outdoors. It turned out that my Dad got the placebo during the trial, but they let him get the vaccine after the trial was completed. That was a long time ago. The vaccine has certainly worn off at this point.
Re: Why Your Dog Can Get Vaccinated Against Lyme Disease and You Can’t (2012)
#3I was disappointed over the lack of links in a web(!) article, so I did some research over this comment: Poland notes that since then, Lyme has become more widespread and is now the most common tick-borne disease in the country.
Dr. Gregory Poland works in Mayo Clinic which is based in Minnesota. Here are statistics for Lyme disease in that country:
http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/idepc/diseases/lyme/stati...
http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/idepc/diseases/lyme/cases...
And for the entire United States: http://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/chartstables/casesbyyear.html
Looks like the number of cases is slowly growing. Charts don't seem to be normalized. The increase in cases could be due to increase in population.
Re: Why Your Dog Can Get Vaccinated Against Lyme Disease and You Can’t (2012)
#4tl;dr: People who had irrational fears of vaccines claimed harms from the Lyme vaccine that probably were not caused by the vaccine. Sales dropped so much that vaccine manufacturers became reluctant to market the vaccine to humans.
Similar irrational fears prompted the development of the "acellular" version of the pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine, which is less effective than the previously used version of the vaccine. Pertussis is a serious illness, and now that many people refuse to use the vaccine, and even the people who use it can only get a type of vaccine that is less effective than the first vaccine,[1] the whole population is needlessly at risk for pertussis outbreaks.
[1] http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2013/05/...
Re: Why Your Dog Can Get Vaccinated Against Lyme Disease and You Can’t (2012)
#5Lyme disease can usually be treated by antibiotics, especially in the early stages:
http://www.cdc.gov/lyme/treatment/
This isn't mentioned by the article anywhere and must be part of the cost-benefit analysis for deploying a vaccine, especially one which is to be only 80% effective and requires booster shots.
Re: Why Your Dog Can Get Vaccinated Against Lyme Disease and You Can’t (2012)
#6I was disappointed over the lack of links in a web(!) article, so I did some research over this comment: Poland notes that since then, Lyme has become more widespread and is now the most common tick-borne disease in the country. Dr. Gregory Poland works in Mayo Clinic which is based in Minnesota. Here are statistics for Lyme disease in that country: http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/idepc/diseases/lyme/stati... http…
Here are the nationwide statistics for Lyme disease in the US: http://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/index.html
And some links to the CDC sites about other tick-borne diseases prevalent in the US: http://www.cdc.gov/ticks/diseases/ (most of these also include statistics on incidence and geographic distribution)
Re: Why Your Dog Can Get Vaccinated Against Lyme Disease and You Can’t (2012)
#7I was disappointed over the lack of links in a web(!) article, so I did some research over this comment: Poland notes that since then, Lyme has become more widespread and is now the most common tick-borne disease in the country. Dr. Gregory Poland works in Mayo Clinic which is based in Minnesota. Here are statistics for Lyme disease in that country: http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/idepc/diseases/lyme/stati... http…
Minnesota is a state.
Re: Why Your Dog Can Get Vaccinated Against Lyme Disease and You Can’t (2012)
#8Lyme disease can usually be treated by antibiotics, especially in the early stages: http://www.cdc.gov/lyme/treatment/ This isn't mentioned by the article anywhere and must be part of the cost-benefit analysis for deploying a vaccine, especially one which is to be only 80% effective and requires booster shots.
Good point. The percentage also caught my attention. The article didn't mention any percentages of stage 1 cases versus later stages where long term problems can occur.
Re: Why Your Dog Can Get Vaccinated Against Lyme Disease and You Can’t (2012)
#9The patent for LYMErix has expired [1] and the vaccine is still considered to be safe and effective by the FDA [2]. Someone want to start producing it again?
[1] http://patft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=...
Re: Why Your Dog Can Get Vaccinated Against Lyme Disease and You Can’t (2012)
#10Lyme disease can usually be treated by antibiotics, especially in the early stages: http://www.cdc.gov/lyme/treatment/ This isn't mentioned by the article anywhere and must be part of the cost-benefit analysis for deploying a vaccine, especially one which is to be only 80% effective and requires booster shots.
Lyme disease is one of those diseases that present in so many different ways, and often looks like a million different things (see Avril Lavigne's case). Therefore people get sick and are unwell for a very long time before it's finally properly diagnosed. So for those that go outdoors a lot and live in an area with high population of infected ticks, vaccine is a good prevention strategy.