Dear Diligent Doctors,

I am from Mauritius island. Here there are considerable number of patients with rheumatic fever. It would be a very good thing to have a vaccine against strep. You are doing a great job. Bon courage!

Regards

Sister Claude

soeur-claude@live.fr

Reports on new vaccines always talk about an "immune response" being triggered, but they never specify what triggered the response. Is it truly the production of antibodies to the subject pathogen? Or could it be a response to a protein in the culture media (bovine fetal serum, aborted human embryo, poultry egg, monkey kidneys, etc.). There has been some theoretical discussion that perhaps some of today's autoimmune disease (which are at epidemic levels) could be as a result of the body's targeting proteins injected into the body (versus proteins traveling through the digestive system and being properly broken down into their component amino acids) that closely resemble our own proteins. Another possibility would be an immune response triggered by other foreign substances injected into the body, such as all of the adjuvants used in vaccines (thimerosal, aluminum, formaldehyde, polysorbate 80, etc.).

Vaccines typically contain weakened or inactivated fragments of a germ that are strong enough to stimulate immunity, including the production of antibodies that attack the germs when a person is exposed to disease.

Maybe the answer is "D. All of the above" (reaction to the pathogen, various proteines, and adjuvants).

But the new vaccine — created through genetic engineering — does not include substances thought to have caused problems with earlier versions...

Oh, goody! We don't have enough natural pathogens in this world. Let's create some new ones in the lab. I know, I know. Some are going to say that there's no difference between the naturally occurring bacterium and the genetically engineered one. If that were true, they wouldn't have needed to created a genetically engineered bacterium in order to avoid said unidentified "problems with earlier versions" of vaccines against strep.

The bacteria, commonly found in the throat and on the skin, cause more than 10 million cases of strep throat and mild skin infections each year nationwide. Untreated strep throat can lead to rheumatic fever and potentially rheumatic heart disease, which affects an estimated 12 million people worldwide and kills about 400,000 each year, mostly in developing nations.

Do we really need a vaccine to prevent sore throats and mild skin infections? As for rheumatic fever in developing nations, perhaps we should focus on sanitation instead of vaccination. Improved sanitation would result in fewer bacterial and viral infections of all kinds, not just strep. It seems to have worked for the rest of us.

“There is a need” for a Group A vaccine — in this country because of the financial burden of strep throat...

Ah... Now we get to the heart of it. It's all about money. Silly me! I should have known.