By Eva Briggs, MD
As I am writing this article, the availability of many vaccines might be in jeopardy in this country.
In fact, at the current moment the vaccine information sheets (VIS) have disappeared — then reappeared — from the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) website.
VIS provide written information about each vaccine and by law must be provided to every patient or their parent-guardian, whenever a vaccine is given.
I’m old enough to have seen some diseases that are now far less common because of vaccination. I want to share some of my personal experiences to help foster an understanding of why vaccines are important.
First, chickenpox which is also called varicella.
Part of my family practice training in residency included a rotation in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). If a mother has had chickenpox, she will pass antibodies to her infant that protect the baby during the newborn period. That’s why the varicella vaccine is not given immediately after birth as those maternal antibodies would block the vaccine and prevent it from doing its job. This vaccine was licensed in the U.S. in 1995, so it was not available during my residency training in 1984-1987. One patient that I cared for was born to a mother who contracted chickenpox at the time her baby was born. The baby ended up covered from head to toe in the tiny blisters characteristic of the disease. She survived after a long hospitalization in the NICU. I don’t know whether she suffered scarring or other long-term aftereffects.
One of my fellow residents contracted chickenpox during his training. He didn’t wind up hospitalized, but he too was covered in blisters and missed about two weeks of work. When I was a teenager, I used to babysit. One of the kids I babysat for developed a serious bacterial infection of his chickenpox lesions and required hospitalization.
Then there is measles. This virus is one of the most contagious diseases. A measles patient can breathe virus particles into the air which can linger for hours after the patient leaves the room. My husband’s best childhood friend developed subacute sclerosing panencephalitis as a teenager. This disease is due to reactivation of dormant measles virus from an earlier typical case of measles. The measles virus slowly destroys the brain. Essentially his friend Doug developed dementia as a teenager. Over several years it robbed his cognitive abilities, his speech, his motor functions, even the ability to swallow, until Doug died as a young adult.
It was incredibly stressful for his family, and his mother who was probably only in her 40s died shortly after of sudden cardiac arrest.
Another one of my husband’s friends, his college freshman roommate, contacted measles as an adult. In adults, measles can attack the testicles (or ovaries in women). This made him so sick and miserable that he wound up hospitalized, missing weeks of school and ultimately dropping out of college.
As an interesting historical note, at that time Crouse Hospital in Syracuse still had a leftover sign on the building from the Hospital of the Good Shepherd which they had previously taken over. I remember seeing this sign when we walked over to visit our friend in the hospital.
I also remember Hemophilus influenza type B (H. flu).
Before there was a vaccine, every parent whose small child used daycare (and plenty of others) feared this bacterial scourge capable of causing meningitis which could kill or disable a child. One of my oldest child’s daycare classmates contracted H. flu at age 2 and was rendered permanently hearing impaired.
As a resident, it seems like every week I cared for at least one child seriously ill due to H. flu. The improved vaccine for this illness was licensed in 1987.
Whatever your political leanings, I feel strongly that it is important to preserve the availability of affordable vaccines for all.
Eva Briggs is a retired medical doctor who practiced in Central New York for several decades. She lives in Marcellus.