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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)

#31

Post by protomyth »

baddox wrote: post #30
protomyth wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I doubt they were even looking for that (if I'm really cynical, do you even trust them not to hide that?). The drug companies do not do the data for their clinical trials - a third party supervised by the FDA does. The penalty for hiding data is pretty high.

Why should I expect the FDA to be more reliable than the drug companies?

Well, that's a trust the government debate, but I worked at one of the third-parties and they did a pretty damn fine job of it. Their reputation was pretty important to them.

I was astounded by the cost in a study. Thousands of samples overnighted to the lab with multiple tests run on each. The bill for that alone is staggering.

Re: Why Your Dog Can Get Vaccinated Against Lyme Disease and You Can’t (2012)

#32

Post by pvaldes »

Not natural top predators in the ecosystem: explosion of coyotes, deers and deer's ticks.

I'll wish to read some research about tick density in yellowstone after the arrival of the wolf. Is increasing?, decreasing?. Keeping some parts of the park relatively clean of deer's ticks?.

Mmmh, both seem mutually exclusive species, that's interesting...

http://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/maps/interactiveMaps.html

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/gray_wolves/ima...

Re: Why Your Dog Can Get Vaccinated Against Lyme Disease and You Can’t (2012)

#33

Post by soneca »

tokenadult wrote: post #4

tl;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 vacc…

> People who had irrational fears of vaccines claimed harms from the Lyme vaccine that probably were not caused by the vaccine.

If you say yourself that the harms were only "probably not caused by the vaccines"; implying that they might be caused; how can you affirm that the fears are irrational?

Re: Why Your Dog Can Get Vaccinated Against Lyme Disease and You Can’t (2012)

#34

Post by moron4hire »

Practicality wrote: post #15
TheBeardKing wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minnesota is a state.

A lot of people get confused because the term state can refer to either a federated state (like in the U.S.) or a sovereign state (hence the term, "head of state" for the leader of a country). Also, it's even more confusing because the states used to be considered different nations, united. Hence why they used to be called "these united states." Just an FYI.

Given that "States" is in our country's name, as well as the fact that they are "United", I think people should reasonably expect that its subdivisions are not called "countries".

Re: Why Your Dog Can Get Vaccinated Against Lyme Disease and You Can’t (2012)

#35

Post by fecak »

ghaff wrote: post #16
pgrote wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the prior lawsuits? Wouldn't it be inviting a fiasco? I wonder if a Federal law in the USA could prevent lawsuits for specific vaccines.

Already exists: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/09-152.pdf [EDIT: Actually this may not be correct (in this case) because LymeRix was a voluntary vaccination.]

The tl;dr is that in the US, vaccine manufacturers have no liability for the vaccines they produce and sell. Vaccine injury claims are heard without a jury, and paid out by a special fund which exists due to a per-dose tax on vaccines.

Vaccinations like the one for Lyme being made unavailable isn't a decision based on liability or risk so much as low demand.

Re: Why Your Dog Can Get Vaccinated Against Lyme Disease and You Can’t (2012)

#36

Post by pwenzel »

vanderZwan wrote: post #17
simoneau wrote: post #5

Lyme 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.

My younger sister had lyme and was nearly paralyzed before it was discovered. Both of my parents are GPs . My aunt caught Lyme when visiting us in Europe (note that the European and American versions are different), and had to visit 5 different doctors before she got her treatment. The first two thought she was just overworked. By the third time my uncle (neurosurgeon, living in Europe) suggested she had Lyme. The th…

> Lyme is very easily missed. It can manifest itself in a way that has nearly no visible symptoms, with only the patient claiming to be in enormous pain.

This is absolutely true.

My wife contracted lyme disease just after our son was born. It was originally written off as postpartum symptoms or postpartum depression. By the time it was diagnosed, antibiotics were not effective. She felt so awful from the antibiotics that she quit that course of care and switched to homeopathy. Following the homeopathic care, she has gotten remarkably better--but still feels occasional ill effects, including a food allergy that surfaced after her contracting this disease.

Lyme disease is no joke.

Re: Why Your Dog Can Get Vaccinated Against Lyme Disease and You Can’t (2012)

#37

Post by __z »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #18
vanderZwan wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My younger sister had lyme and was nearly paralyzed before it was discovered. Both of my parents are GPs . My aunt caught Lyme when visiting us in Europe (note that the European and American versions are different), and had to visit 5 different doctors before she got her treatment. The first two thought she was just overworked. By the third time my uncle (neurosurgeon, living in Europe) suggested she had Lyme. The th…

My son was on an island at a retreat, and his neck and head started hurting like crazy. He was instantly diagnosed by his peers, the counselors and the resident nurse. He was ferried/driven 200 miles to a hospital the same day for antibiotics! So it varies to be sure.

Your son, like most people who get Lyme, probably had a bulls-eye rash and/or recalled being bitten by a tick. A bulls-eye rash is enough to diagnose Lyme disease.

Not only that if you start coming down with symptoms of Lyme right after getting bitten by a tick then diagnosis is very trivial. Those who don't have a bulls-eye rash or recollection of tick bites and don't spend a lot of time in the woods have non-specific symptoms such as fatigue and joint pain. Those are the cases that the diagnosis can very easily be missed.

Nowadays Lyme is so common around here that anyone complaining of any non-specific symptoms gets a Lyme blood test. 10 years ago that was probably not the case. A friend of mine went to the doctor with non-specific symptoms and tested positive for Lyme. If her doctors didn't run the Lyme test they would have missed it. They ran the Lyme test even though she didn't spend any time in the woods or remembered any tick bites because they now know to.

If Lyme isn't on the radar of doctors that is a huge problem for diagnosis of some cases. It probably would especially suck for someone who lives in, say, Utah who went to vacation in Maine and didn't recall a tick bite. Your average Utah doctor has probably never even seen a patient with Lyme disease and probably won't think to check for it or ask if you've traveled somewhere where Lyme is common.

Source: http://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/chartstables/reportedcases_sta...

Re: Why Your Dog Can Get Vaccinated Against Lyme Disease and You Can’t (2012)

#39

Post by abakker »

FWIW, having been exposed/infected with Lyme disease 3 times, any vaccine would be welcome. Really. I can't stress that enough.

Due to a variety of factors, including deer overpopulation(1), the Lyme disease infection rate in Deer Ticks in New England is ridiculously high. While I was undergoing treatment for the 3rd time, my doctor indicated that probably 25% of ticks in that region carry the disease.

I'd be all for a vaccine. It would be even better if we could vaccinate the deer agains being hosts somehow...maybe in a salt lick?

(1) http://www.ct.gov/caes/lib/caes/documents/publications/fact_...

Re: Why Your Dog Can Get Vaccinated Against Lyme Disease and You Can’t (2012)

#40

Post by TillE »

vanderZwan wrote: post #17
simoneau wrote: post #5

Lyme 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.

My younger sister had lyme and was nearly paralyzed before it was discovered. Both of my parents are GPs . My aunt caught Lyme when visiting us in Europe (note that the European and American versions are different), and had to visit 5 different doctors before she got her treatment. The first two thought she was just overworked. By the third time my uncle (neurosurgeon, living in Europe) suggested she had Lyme. The th…

I know it's difficult to figure out an unusual illness of any kind, but there are far too many cases where physicians insist on one diagnosis even when it does not fit the symptoms. I've seen it first hand with family members, where a cancer diagnosis could've been made far quicker if they hadn't wasted time with useless bullshit that was just treating side effects, not the major symptoms.

This baffles me, and makes me very eager for computerized systems which hopefully won't just ignore important facts about the case.

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