32 replies to this topic

[Still Waters]

A vaccine to protect children against one of the most common and deadly forms of meningitis has been licensed for use in Europe.

The Bexsero vaccine licensed by the European Commission is the first to cover meningococcal B meningitis - until now vaccines had protected against only some of the bacterial types involved.

http://www.bbc.co.uk...health-21140285

[ExpandMyMind]

Are meningitis cases really so high as to warrant all children being vaccinated? I'm not so sure.

[Render]

ExpandMyMind, on 22 January 2013 - 04:16 PM, said:

Are meningitis cases really so high as to warrant all children being vaccinated? I'm not so sure.

Oh come on.

MenB is caused by bacteria, leading to inflammation of the lining around the brain and spinal cord. It can kill within 24 hours and infants are at highest risk.

This is what, absolutely without doubt, warrants it.

[ExpandMyMind]

Render, on 22 January 2013 - 04:28 PM, said:

Oh come on.

MenB is caused by bacteria, leading to inflammation of the lining around the brain and spinal cord. It can kill within 24 hours and infants are at highest risk.

This is what, absolutely without doubt, warrants it.

I am fully aware of what meningitis is, its effects, its dangers when someone has it. I even had a friend who had it twice in his life. This is not what I'm talking about. What I mean is that is it widespread enough to warrant yet more, potentially dangerous, vaccines being given to children? Do the potential positives outweigh the potential negatives? It's clear that with diseases like polio the juice was worth the squeeze, but then there is the flu, where it is not so clear. This is what I am asking. With the tiny amount of people who actually end up suffering from meningitis, is it worth putting yet more potentially dangerous chemicals, through the use of vaccines, into our children, en mass?

[Render]

ExpandMyMind, on 22 January 2013 - 05:13 PM, said:

I am fully aware of what meningitis is, its effects, its dangers when someone has it. I even had a friend who had it twice in his life. This is not what I'm talking about. What I mean is that is it widespread enough to warrant yet more, potentially dangerous, vaccines being given to children? Do the potential positives outweigh the potential negatives? It's clear that with diseases like polio the juice was worth the squeeze, but then there is the flu, where it is not so clear. This is what I am asking. With the tiny amount of people who actually end up suffering from meningitis, is it worth putting yet more potentially dangerous chemicals, through the use of vaccines, into our children, en mass?

For starters; Why would you say it is potentially more dangerous??

Man, it's really become way to hip to be suspicious of vaccines and medicines, that are used to PREVENT ILLNESS AND CURE PPL. Seriously.
Vaccines got through a tiresome process of test after test after test etc : when and if it can finally be approved that means the bad outweighs the good

But oh no, you must have a case. They're trying the vaccinate children, it's probably another evil corporation planning to create a generation of mutants and everyone in that is involved in the process of developing and approving and marketing this vaccine is in on it. Everyone is evil.

Edited by Render, 22 January 2013 - 05:24 PM.

[Coffey]

Render, on 22 January 2013 - 05:23 PM, said:

For starters; Why would you say it is potentially more dangerous??

Man, it's really become way to hip to be suspicious of vaccines and medicines, that are used to PREVENT ILLNESS AND CURE PPL. Seriously.
Vaccines got through a tiresome process of test after test after test etc : when and if it can finally be approved that means the bad outweighs the good

But oh no, you must have a case. They're trying the vaccinate children, it's probably another evil corporation planning to create a generation of mutants and everyone in that is involved in the process of developing and approving and marketing this vaccine is in on it. Everyone is evil.

Because the pharmaceutical company is making money the more people they give it to. All Pharmaceutical companies care about is profit not peoples lives.

If they cared about peoples lives they wouldn't sell HIV contaminated drugs AFTER being caught doing it and knowing they are contaminated.

[ExpandMyMind]

Render, on 22 January 2013 - 05:23 PM, said:

For starters; Why would you say it is potentially more dangerous??

Man, it's really become way to hip to be suspicious of vaccines and medicines, that are used to PREVENT ILLNESS AND CURE PPL. Seriously.
Vaccines got through a tiresome process of test after test after test etc : when and if it can finally be approved that means the bad outweighs the good

But oh no, you must have a case. They're trying the vaccinate children, it's probably another evil corporation planning to create a generation of mutants and everyone in that is involved in the process of developing and approving and marketing this vaccine is in on it. Everyone is evil.

This is not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying that with any cure there comes potential risks, whether it be the flu vaccine or polio vaccine. Any medication for that matter. Around 300 people a year die in the U.S. from taking aspirin every year for example. And what I am trying to ask is whether or not the benefits outweigh the risks in this case. It really isn't all that unreasonable a question, in my opinion.

[Hilander]

I understand what you are saying EMM.  If one child dies from Meningitis but 5 die from the vaccine was it worth it.  Most of the drugs on the market have potentially dangerous side effects.  In some cases it might be worth it as a treatment, like with diabetes, but as a preventative measure it might not.

I would say its worth the vaccination if the disease is taking too many lives or the negative drug reactions are minimal.

[Render]

ExpandMyMind, on 22 January 2013 - 06:13 PM, said:

This is not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying that with any cure there comes potential risks, whether it be the flu vaccine or polio vaccine. Any medication for that matter. Around 300 people a year die in the U.S. from taking aspirin every year for example. And what I am trying to ask is whether or not the benefits outweigh the risks in this case. It really isn't all that unreasonable a question, in my opinion.

Hilander, on 22 January 2013 - 07:38 PM, said:

I understand what you are saying EMM.  If one child dies from Meningitis but 5 die from the vaccine was it worth it.  Most of the drugs on the market have potentially dangerous side effects.  In some cases it might be worth it as a treatment, like with diabetes, but as a preventative measure it might not.

I would say its worth the vaccination if the disease is taking too many lives or the negative drug reactions are minimal.

If you ppl can think this doomscenario up you can be sure of it that ppl who do this as a profession have thought of it.
A vaccine doesn't just pop up on the market. Every element of approving this and injecting this into ppl is being taken into account, that is what all the tests are for.

from the article:
About 1,870 people contract meningitis B each year and one in 10 die.
Experts say the jab is likely to be effective against 73% of the different variations of meningitis B.
A vaccine against the less common meningitis C has been administered since 1999 and is now widely given to babies in the first year of their life.
It has led to a large fall in the number of cases in people under the age of 20.


How rude to immediately insinuate that this vaccine would cause more ppl to die or get hurt from it instead of reducing the horrible risk of MenB.
Don't get fooled by the hype of being anti-pharma and anti-vaccine.
Where are the times that ppl read this and rejoice that a vaccine has been found. A lil hooray would be in order here.

Edited by Render, 23 January 2013 - 08:47 AM.

[ExpandMyMind]

Render, on 23 January 2013 - 08:46 AM, said:

If you ppl can think this doomscenario up you can be sure of it that ppl who do this as a profession have thought of it.
A vaccine doesn't just pop up on the market. Every element of approving this and injecting this into ppl is being taken into account, that is what all the tests are for.

from the article:
About 1,870 people contract meningitis B each year and one in 10 die.
Experts say the jab is likely to be effective against 73% of the different variations of meningitis B.
A vaccine against the less common meningitis C has been administered since 1999 and is now widely given to babies in the first year of their life.
It has led to a large fall in the number of cases in people under the age of 20.


How rude to immediately insinuate that this vaccine would cause more ppl to die or get hurt from it instead of reducing the horrible risk of MenB.
Don't get fooled by the hype of being anti-pharma and anti-vaccine.
Where are the times that ppl read this and rejoice that a vaccine has been found. A lil hooray would be in order here.

I wasn't insinuating anything, I was outright asking. You act as though mistakes haven't been made in the past, and as though at times dangerous drugs haven't even been deliberately put on the market after they have already been mass produced before a problem was found. We should always be extremely wary of what we put in our bodies and allow to be put into others. ALL medical drugs have the potential to kill or maim the people who take them. Another example: Anti-psychotics can cause blood clots that can travel to the lungs and kill people. They can also cause heart failure. See my point? I'm not sure what you're not getting here, all while throwing around labels like 'you people'.

Horrible risk of MenB? Horrible risk? In any given year, you have about as much chance of winning the lottery if you play 3 times a week as you have of dying from MenB. Of course this is no consolation to the parents of those who have died, and no consolation to those left altered after recovering, but how many people will have adverse effects from the vaccine? And would this be comparable to the adverse effects of the disease, including death? These are questions that need to be asked by people outside of the regular circles, as they have shown over the years they cannot always be trusted and impartial in these matters.

There is a prime example in the UK/Europe forum where people were left suffering after a vaccine. It's not always worth it; this is what I'm saying. There's no point in going to the extreme on either side. No point in someone outright claiming: of course the meds are ok, they have been tested. And no point in someone else saying: I don't trust any vaccine they manufacture because of problems in the past. We must be very wary, this is what I am saying.

Edited by ExpandMyMind, 23 January 2013 - 10:33 AM.

[Render]

ExpandMyMind, on 23 January 2013 - 10:24 AM, said:

I wasn't insinuating anything, I was outright asking.

Im sorry but this:

ExpandMyMind, on 22 January 2013 - 05:13 PM, said:

What I mean is that is it widespread enough to warrant yet more, potentially dangerous, vaccines being given to children? Do the potential positives outweigh the potential negatives?

Is a very clear example of insinuation. It's not because you pose it as a question it's not a insinuation.

ExpandMyMind, on 23 January 2013 - 10:24 AM, said:

You act as though mistakes haven't been made in the past, and as though at times dangerous drugs haven't even been deliberately put on the market after they have already been mass produced before a problem was found.

I don't know what that has to do with this case, except doomy speculation that every pharmaceutical company must be evil because mistakes happened in the past. There is no correlation between one and the other. You're seeing things that aren't there.

ExpandMyMind, on 23 January 2013 - 10:24 AM, said:

We should always be extremely wary of what we put in our bodies and allow to be put into others. ALL medical drugs have the potential to kill or maim the people who take them. Another example: Anti-psychotics can cause blood clots that can travel to the lungs and kill people. They can also cause heart failure. See my point? I'm not sure what you're not getting here, all while throwing around labels like 'you people'.

I see your point. It's always good to ask questions, and all the information is out there and nothing to back up the claim that this vaccine is dangerous.
I didn't mean "you people" as an insult, dont see why you;re getting all sensitive about that. I meant it literally as in "you, the ppl who are making claims that this vaccine has a dangerous side to it" ==> you ppl in short.

ExpandMyMind, on 23 January 2013 - 10:24 AM, said:

Horrible risk of MenB? Horrible risk?

Yup, the effects of an infection are horrible, this is what that sentence meant. It's a horrible risk to have in the world.

And as i've quoted before from the article :
About 1,870 people contract meningitis B each year and one in 10 die.
Experts say the jab is likely to be effective against 73% of the different variations of meningitis B.
A vaccine against the less common meningitis C has been administered since 1999 and is now widely given to babies in the first year of their life.
It has led to a large fall in the number of cases in people under the age of 20.

Are you now gonna say this was a bad decision to vaccinate ppl against menC, because it's even less common than menB?

ExpandMyMind, on 23 January 2013 - 10:24 AM, said:

These are questions that need to be asked by people outside of the regular circles, as they have shown over the years they cannot always be trusted and impartial in these matters.

.
ANd as i've said previously:

Render, on 23 January 2013 - 08:46 AM, said:

If you ppl can think this doomscenario up you can be sure of it that ppl who do this as a profession have thought of it.

They analyse all these questions as their job, this is what they do. You're not the only one in the world asking those questions. The ppl who are involved in the entire process of getting this product on the market ask themselves a bunch of extra questions before, things don't just get approved.

ExpandMyMind, on 23 January 2013 - 10:24 AM, said:

There is a prime example in the UK/Europe forum where people were left suffering after a vaccine. It's not always worth it; this is what I'm saying. There's no point in going to the extreme on either side. No point in someone outright claiming: of course the meds are ok, they have been tested. And no point in someone else saying: I don't trust any vaccine they manufacture because of problems in the past. We must be very wary, this is what I am saying.

I understand, many have become wary and have extrapolated examples to other cases that have nothing to do with each other. This is called panic.
Can mistakes happen? Sure, but what is there left if you can't have any trust in the world anymore because things happened in the past.

[Simbi Laveau]

There are two forms of meningitis. One is not contageous,one is .One is more deadly than the other .

I ,as a paramedic for 17 YEARS...as in years,was exposed to meningitis twice .
So,given I picked up sick people on any given day ,about 8 times,multiple 8 by 20 ,then multiple that by 12,and that by 17,and that's how many sick people I've been exposed to in my life .
So...Two times,in 17 years.

Of the two, I was only exposed to the one that's contagious ,once. I also didn't catch it .

So yah,its a,very very  rare occurrence to be exposed to meningitis ,and there's no need for a vaccine ,at all.
It's an excuse to scare parents into making them more money,by giving them another unnecessary vaccination .
But people on this board with absolutely no medical expertise at all,all know better than people that actually see patients in real ,day to day life.

[Simbi Laveau]

I heard Europe is also working on a bubonic plague vaccine too . That's also just so common ...until they weaponize it of course .Let us know when that goes on line .

[ExpandMyMind]

Simbi Laveau, on 24 January 2013 - 02:34 AM, said:

I heard Europe is also working on a bubonic plague vaccine too . That's also just so common ...until they weaponize it of course .Let us know when that goes on line .

The bubonic plague has already been cured, or rather, more or less successfully treated.

Quote

Several classes of antibiotics are effective in treating bubonic plague. These include aminoglycosides such as streptomycin and gentamicin, tetracyclines (especially doxycycline), and the fluoroquinolone ciprofloxacin. Mortality associated with treated cases of bubonic plague is about 1-15%, compared to a mortality rate of 40-60% in untreated cases.^[7]
People potentially infected with the plague need immediate treatment and should be given antibiotics within 24 hours of the first symptoms to prevent death. Other treatments include oxygen, intravenous fluids, and respiratory support. People who have had contact with anyone infected by pneumonic plague are given prophylactic antibiotics.^[8] Using the broad-based antibiotic streptomycin has proven to be dramatically successful against the bubonic plague within 12 hours of infection.

[Copasetic]

Still doling out bad information?

Simbi Laveau, on 24 January 2013 - 02:28 AM, said:

There are two forms of meningitis. One is not contageous,one is .One is more deadly than the other .

Wrong, meningitis---'itis' is from the Greek and Latin root for "inflammation of x". So meningitis is inflammation of the meninges. The meninges are membranes which cover CNS tissues, made of 3 layers: the dura, arachnoid and pia.

Lots of things (many more than two) can cause meningitis. You can have bacterial, viral, fungal or aseptic meningitis (chemicals, autoimmune, etc). In each of these 4 main categories you have lots of different possible offending agents.

Simbi Laveau, on 24 January 2013 - 02:28 AM, said:

I ,as a paramedic for 17 YEARS...as in years,was exposed to meningitis twice .
So,given I picked up sick people on any given day ,about 8 times,multiple 8 by 20 ,then multiple that by 12,and that by 17,and that's how many sick people I've been exposed to in my life .
So...Two times,in 17 years.

I appreciate you were a EMT, the world needs lots of EMTs--It doesn't make you an expert on medicine, pathophys etc. You learn BASIC life support skills as an EMT. Not pathophys, not medical micro etc. Hence you were an ENT and not an MD.

Simbi Laveau, on 24 January 2013 - 02:28 AM, said:

Of the two, I was only exposed to the one that's contagious ,once. I also didn't catch it .

So yah,its a,very very  rare occurrence to be exposed to meningitis ,and there's no need for a vaccine ,at all.

No nonsense. Again there are many types of meningitis. Viral meningitis, while scary from a patient's stand point, is much less threatening to life than bacterial or fungal. The poo viruses, or better picornaviruses are rather good at causing viral meningitis. This family of viruses includes viruses such as echo, coxasckie and polio viruses. Generally the course of viral meningitis is self limited and doesn't require major medical intervention, sometimes people "tough out" these infections at home never realizing they had viral meningitis.

However there are some viral infections we really worry about causing meningitis. HSV is one of those viruses. HSV 1 and 2 have a different predilection for causing meningitis vs encephalitis vs meningoencephalitis. However that is only a general rule both (as well as other herpes family viruses, such as CMV, EBV and chickenpox) are capable of cause either or. Herpes family viral brain infections tend to have a much more serious course and we tend to treat them more aggressively because of that.

HIV also causes a primary brain infections. Other less common but certainly very dangerous viruses are ones like Dengue, yellow-fever and the bunyaviridea as well all capable of causing meningitis/meningioencephalitis.


Bacterial meningitis (cue scary music) is the one you hear all the fear about in popular media. Bacterial meningitis is very serious and the natural history of bacterial meningitis without medical intervention is.....death. Every time. Unfortunately, sometimes even with treatment bacterial meningitis results in death.

There are lots of bacteria capable of causing meningitis but lets just go through the most common by age group. In Newborns (think 0-6 months of life) bacterial meningitis is most commonly caused by Group B strep (Streptococcus agalactiae)--which is why all preggo ladies are tested for it, E. coli and Listeria. All but the latter normally come from exposure during passage through the birth canal. The latter, Listeria, can actually cross the placenta as well.

In children the most common causes are Streptococcus pneumonia (also the most common cause of pneumonia), Neisseria meningitidis (meningiococcus) and Haemophilus influenza capsular type B (which we thankfully don't see much of anymore in developed nations because of the HiB vaccine--go ahead insert your rant about vaccines here). That distribution stays about the same throughout adult with meningiococcus taking the lead for a while in early adult life (20s); more on meningiococcus in a minute. As you get to 60s and 70s you start to get more 'exotic' bacteria showing up like gram negative rods (think E. coli, klebsiella etc) and Listeria showing up again.

-Ill save fungi and aseptic for another day.

**You'll notice that:
1. You were wrong about exposure, you're exposed to lots of potential meningitis causing organisms everyday
2. ALL these infectious causes are actually contagious, not "1 of 2" as you claim.

Simbi Laveau, on 24 January 2013 - 02:28 AM, said:

It's an excuse to scare parents into making them more money,by giving them another unnecessary vaccination .

Uhh no. More to the OP. The problem we've had before this isn't that we haven't had a meningiococcial vaccine, we have. What we haven't had though is a vaccine to capsular polysaccharide B.

Here's the quick and dirty on how vaccines work.

For you body to create immunity to an antigen you need two things. 1 you need a t cell response, t cells are then capable of priming b cells and creating long lasting immunity (read memory cells). 2 you need the b cell response, which is the antibody making arm of the humoral immune response. To mount this sequence of events you need protein antigen to active t cells. T cells aren't capable of 'priming' b cells without protein antigen. B cells are capable of making antibody to just polysaccharide (think sugars) by themselves, however you can't establish long last immunity in this way. We get around this by conjugating polysaccharide antigens to proteins to provide long lasting immunity.

The problem with some pathogenic bacteria, such as meningiococcus, is they contain polysaccharide (think sugars) coats which help them evade the immune system by making them harder to phagocytize and helps "hide" their proteins from the immune system. There are different serovars of bacteria (think of them kind like a subspecies) which have different capsular makeups from each other. Previously we have had meningiococcial vaccines against 4 of the 6 capsular serotypes that almost exclusively cause human disease (I believe there are actually 12 or 13 serotypes IIRC)--that is serovars A, C, Y and W.

Serogroup B has many antigenic similarities to human neuronal cells, which has made developing a vaccine against it prohibitive in the past. Which is unfortunate because meningiococcus B certainly causes its fair share of bacterial meningitis (not to mention other bad things like meningiococcial septicemia and Waterhouse-Friderichsen syndrome), however it appears Novartis has found a solution to this problem and developed a working vaccine.

By the way, vaccines are particularly profitable. If these pharma companies were so evil they wouldn't develop a vaccine against type B (which isn't going to make them lots of money), they would just come up with better abx which penetrate the meninges for treating meningiococcial meningitis.

Simbi Laveau, on 24 January 2013 - 02:28 AM, said:

But people on this board with absolutely no medical expertise at all,all know better than people that actually see patients in real ,day to day life.

I'm sorry but again, being an EMT and having an undergrad degree in biology (undergrad degrees in biology really don't teach you anything about medicine, come to think of it an undergrad degree in biology doesn't teach you all that much biology, it does serve as a jumping off point if you wanted to go get further education though) doesn't actually give any medical expertise at all. Really none.

So until you've seen someone literally decompensating on the hospital bed from bacterial meningitis with their blood pressure tanking in the crapper right before your eyes, peticheia popping up every time you walk in to the room and you end up coding them right there, despite you pumping **** loads of 3rd gen cephalosporins in them, blasting them with heavy ass broad specs like meropenem administered intrathecally, pressors, epi, IV fluid boluses etc--Then you can come talk about how much "medicine" you do and know.

Edited by Copasetic, 28 January 2013 - 10:42 PM.