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The HPV vaccine is a very important vaccine because it protects people from getting types of HPV that may lead to genital warts and cancer.  HPV is responsible for almost all cases of cervical cancers and is particularly dangerous due to its long incubation period.  According to studies, the HPV vaccine can prevent about 90% of HPV-related cancers.  HPV causes 1/3 of all preventable cancers, so if receiving the HPV vaccine can eliminate all HPV-related cancers, this will go a long way in making the world healthier and cancer-free.  We need to continue to push people to get the HPV vaccine, because if getting a single shot can completely eliminate your risk of getting cervical cancer, I believe everyone should be doing that. 

Lawmakers are starting to recognize the importance of the HPV vaccine and are doing their part by taking action in the legislative system.  In Illinois, Rep. Robyn Gabel proposed a law that would require all students entering 6^th grade to be vaccinated against HPV.  I believe this is a great idea because passing a law would force people to get the vaccine, as opposed to giving them the option, which some people would not take.  I think the idea of requiring 6^th graders to get the vaccine is a great idea as well because getting the HPV vaccine in 6^th grade before most children are sexually active gets the children vaccinated before they become sexually active and are able to contract the disease.  People are fighting this proposed law because they believe it would promote early sexual activity.  However, I don’t think children would engage in sexual activity earlier just because they are getting vaccinated for HPV.  Hopefully more states try to pass laws similar to this one, maybe one day we can make all vaccines mandatory.

Many people are afraid to get the HPV vaccine because it may cause adverse side effects.  In 2011, a mother took her to child to get the vaccine and almost immediately after the first shot her daughter developed serious neurological problems.  The daughter ended up in the hospital for weeks and had to relearn how to walk, talk and do everything.  In 2012 the CDC reported that of the 40 million doses of the HPV vaccine that have been given in the U.S., 1600 of them resulted in severe side effects.  So while this vaccine has been linked to some negative side effects, it is a very small proportion of the population that receives the vaccine.  Most doctors still believe the vaccine works and has proven itself as safe and effective.  I think that if the vaccine can help to prevent anything, it is worth taking the very small risk of a negative side effect.

A superbug is defined as any bacterium that has become resistant to antibiotics that are used to treat it.  As you can predict, bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics are a big problem, this means new treatment methods must be found to deal with these bacteria.  Bacteria become resistant for a variety of reasons, people misuse antibiotics and cause them to be ineffective, people also use antibiotics for viruses like the cold and flu, even though viruses are not effected by antibiotics.  It is frustrating to me that people contribute to the superbug problem simply by not educating themselves on how antibiotics work and misusing them.  Since superbugs are becoming more and more common, we are in danger of not having any functioning antibiotics anymore, something has to be done to address this problem soon.

In November, the CDC released a report with new information on antibiotic resistance.  According to this report, about 3 million Americans per year experience an illness due to an antibiotic resistant superbug each year.  Of these 3 million people, 35,000 deaths are caused by superbugs in the US each year.  Since the first CDC report about superbugs in 2013, the illness totals have risen from 2 million per year to 3 million, so this is a growing problem.  Dr. Jesse Jacob thinks the problem is more urgent than people are acting, he says “Antibiotic resistance has long been a problem, but the threats we face are real, immediate, and demand immediate action. Antibiotic resistance threatens modern medicine”.  The fact that superbugs are becoming more and more of a problem every year is troubling, we rely on antibiotics for so many things, if they become useless humans could be in a lot of trouble. 

Scientists have begun to look for ways to fight superbugs and an interesting solution may have been found.  A study at McMaster University in Canada found that cannabigerol, a compound in marijuana, could defeat the methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus.  The cannabinoid compound could be developed into an antibiotic drug that is effective against superbugs.  The compound is also non-psycho-active, meaning it will not get the patients high.  I think it is great that researchers are looking at ways to combat superbugs and may have already found an effective method of doing so.  I know if people would stop misusing antibiotics by taking them incorrectly and giving them to farm animals, superbugs would not be as big of a problem, we must stop contributing to the issue.

Whooping cough is not talked about much in the US, but it is a problem nonetheless.  According to the CDC, there have been an average of 25,000 cases nationwide of whooping cough per year for the past 8 years.  However, the vaccination rate for the DTaP vaccine was 95.5% over that time for children, so it is strange that the number of cases is so high.  It is very surprising to me that there is such a high number of whooping cough cases in the US because I have not heard much concern about it in the media.  I have heard more about measles than whooping cough, even though measles is controlled very well in the US.

According to Stanley Plotkin, a vaccine developer, the DTaP vaccine is flawed because its effectiveness sometimes wanes after 2-3 years.  Even more troubling, in a study of baboons given the DTaP vaccination and exposed to the pertussis bacteria, researchers found that the vaccinated baboons became silent carriers of the disease and spread it to non-vaccinated baboons.  This is bad because it means that the vaccinated kids are more of a danger to spread the whooping cough to their peers than unvaccinated children.  The unvaccinated kids will develop a whooping cough and stay home until they feel better, then they will never spread the disease. The vaccinated children who are infected will have no cough or other symptoms, comes to school and spreads it.  Scientist have discovered that the DTaP vaccine has given rise to a mutant form of the bacteria that they are not protected from.  Based on this information, it seems to me that it is time for us to start developing a new DTaP vaccine. 

Researchers at West Virginia University have recognized that the DTaP vaccine is outdated and want to reboot it.  The original DTaP vaccine was introduced in the US in 1996, and it has not been updated since then.  Dr. Wolf acknowledged that new strains of pertussis are emerging that are completely resistant to the current vaccine.  The current vaccine also requires booster shots since its effects wear off after a few years, many people fail to get these booster shots.  Researchers at WVU are looking at new ways to administer the DTaP vaccine, specifically with a nose spray.  They think since the bacteria is inhaled from germs released into the air, a nose spray vaccine would be more effective.  This makes sense to me and I am glad that they are working on developing a new vaccine.  It is important for people to keep getting vaccinated, but vaccinations do no good if the vaccine is outdated.  So we need scientists and researchers to keep updating vaccines that fight new strains that may appear.

There are currently two forms of vaccinations available for polio.  The inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) is given through injection, thus it requires a health professional to administer.  In most countries IPV is used in addition to oral polio vaccine (OPV) to provide further protection.  The OPV is taken as oral drops, so it does not require a health professional to be used.  OPV is the main preventative measure against polio today.  However, IPV is the only vaccine that is used in the US, other countries use only OPV or a combination of both.  This is because the US is currently free of polio and there is a low risk of poliovirus being brought into the US.  I find it strange that the US only uses IPV because according to the WHO, IPV is recommended in addition to OPV, it is not meant to replace the OPV.  I think it makes more sense for the US to continue to use the OPV as well, just to make sure polio stays out of the US. 

Though the United States is currently free of polio, that is not the case in many other countries.  The Ghana Health Services recently started a free vaccination campaign nationwide for the IPV.  The campaign is targeting children between the ages of 21 months and 4 years.  They are targeting this age range of children because this group never received vaccination after they removed a drug component from the OPV in 2015.  Ghana has had some success in controlling their polio problem, since joining the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in 1996 they have been able to increase routine vaccination and use strategies such as active surveillance.  I’m glad that countries other than the US are starting to get the healthcare attention that they deserve and are taking vaccinations seriously.  The US should not be the only country free of polio, I hope the whole world can be free of polio in the future.

Polio is such a problem that some countries are requiring travelers to have themselves vaccinated with the polio virus before they can enter the country.  Most of the countries that require vaccination for travel are in the Middle East or Eastern Europe such as India, Iraq, Lebanon and Ukraine.  I believe it is very important to do your research and have all your vaccinations before you travel to a new country.  Last week, the Research Institute of Tropical Medicine discovered that the Butuanon River in Cebu, Philippines was contaminated with poliovirus.  If I were to travel to the Philippines without being vaccinated for poliovirus and contract the virus, I would run the risk of bringing the poliovirus back into the US for the first time in a long time.  Just as people research the foods and cultures of foreign countries before they travel, they should also research the immunization requirements and diseases they may encounter. 

A big reason a lot of people don’t get vaccines is because they are misinformed about how vaccines work and their effects.  Wakefield Research did a survey that centered on common myths about the flu, of those interviewed over 80% of adults got at least one question wrong and 28% got every question wrong.  Results of the study also showed that African Americans are the most likely race to not get vaccinated and men are more likely than women to skip vaccination.  Maybe African Americans are less likely to vaccinate themselves because they are less informed or they don’t have the insurance or income to pay for the vaccinations.  More than 20% of parents thought their children would get sick if vaccinated, 13% thought the shot was unnecessary, and 10% didn’t see the flu as a serious health concern.  I believe the first step to getting more people to vaccinate themselves is educating them about the vaccines and the illnesses that they treat.

              Millennials are the least likely generation to be vaccinated, a study found that more than half did not get the flu this season.  Millennials are also the most likely group to fall for misinformation about vaccines.  A survey by The American Academy of Family Physicians found that 61% of millennials agree with at least some of the beliefs of the anti-vaxers, this is way above the national average for adults (52%).  Another 25% of millennials said they did not get their vaccines because they did not have time or forgot.  To me, it is not surprising that millennials are the least vaccinated group.  Millennials are young adults who are either in college or just starting to work real jobs.  This is their first couple of years without their parents doing everything for them, so it makes since that they are too lazy to go get vaccines without their parents forcing them to.  It does surprise me that so many millennials believe anti-vaxers, millennials that are fresh out of college or high school should be educated enough to know that vaccines are a good thing.

              It is extremely important for people to be informed about vaccines because in some cases misinformation can prove deadly.  Two weeks ago, a 4-year-old boy died from complications from the flu after his mother took advice from anti-vaccine Facebook group.  The Facebook group advised the mother to use thyme, vitamins and elderberries to treat her son’s illness instead of the Tamiflu that the doctor had given her.  Even after the child died, the anti-vaxxer group still blamed his death on the hospital, saying they never offered any treatments that would have helped.  The mother said “Our whole family is hurting and it feels like we failed him because we did what we had to do.”  This is a tragic example of how misinformation about vaccines can kill people, everyone should do their part and get vaccinated.

People are starting to realize how important the microbiome is for human health and are expanding research in that area.  Some researchers are looking at the possible link between gut microbiome and the behavior of children.  Scientists think that children with behavioral issues have a different microbiome in their stomach than well-behaved children.  However, Dr. Sharpton from Oregon State University believes that the microbiome is not causing the behavioral differences, rather the behavior is causing the microbiome to change.  With more research, Sharpton believes we may be able to predict how a child will behave by looking at their microbiome.  This research is not done yet and the results are inconclusive at this point, however it is an interesting topic that the microbiome could be linked to behavior.  I find this idea rather hard to believe since we learned in class that the microbiome is acquired and affected through exposure to bacteria in the early stages of life, I don’t see how behavioral habits could affect it.

Other scientists are doing research on how the microbiome can be used to predict diseases and the lifespan of people, as opposed to using genetics to predict these things.  In order to conduct this research, scientist looked at the relationship between the gut microbiome of 47 different cases and their association with different diseases such as asthma, high blood pressure and schizophrenia.  The results were then compared to 24 cases that looked at the association between specific human genetics and various diseases.  The findings of the study revealed that the microbiome was on average 20% better at predicting an ill person than the gene testing was.  This study is also interesting; the microbiome prevents harmful bacteria from taking over our bodies.  So it makes sense that doctors could predict what diseases we are more susceptible to by looking at the composition of our microbiomes.

I think it is a great thing that people are starting to research the microbiome more and find links to human health.  With the proper research, scientists may be able to figure out the proper bacteria babies need to be exposed to in order to become as healthy as possible.  Also, if doctors can look at the microbiome of people to see which diseases they are more susceptible to, people can use this information to take preventative measures and avoid some diseases.  There are still many unanswered questions in the field and the potential for growth.  More research in this field could lead to some major advances in medical treatment. 

The coronavirus has continued to spread and kill people, since my last blog post the death toll has risen from 3000 deaths to over 900 deaths.  The virus has continued to reach new countries and has reached new areas of the US.  Last week the coronavirus reached the East Coast of the US for the first time when a Boston man contracted the virus.  This caused a bit of discomfort for some of my friends and family.  Knowing that the virus is creeping closer and closer to us here in North Carolina is definitely unsettling. 

As we discussed in class, the coronavirus has a longer incubation period, which allows the virus to be transmitted through people who have no symptoms.  Studies in Germany seemed to have confirmed this idea.  This is particularly dangerous because it allows the virus to spread very quickly without detection.  This incubation period makes the virus nearly impossible to track because people will not know when they contracted it, who they got it from or who they gave it to.  When I get a cold I normally know where I got it from because that person will have had symptoms of it and my symptoms would show up shortly after. 

The big problem with coronavirus is that we are currently unprepared to fight it, there are no vaccines or anti-viral treatments for it.  Experts say it could take years to develop an effective vaccine for the coronavirus.  As we discussed in class, scientists are working on an anti-viral treatment for the coronavirus using HIV drugs.  China has started to test coronavirus patients with anti-HIV drugs, although there is no evidence that it can help yet.  I think that when they do eventually develop a vaccine for the coronavirus it will rather popular, since many people are very afraid of contracting the virus.  However, there will still be anti-vaccine advocates who refuse to get it.

Many people in the US are afraid of the coronavirus, however the flu is far more dangerous to Americans at the moment.  The CDC estimates that more than 19 million Americans have contracted the flu this season and over 10,000 have died.  Comparing this to the coronavirus, which less than 20 Americans have contracted and only one has died from.  I know multiple friends and family members that have gotten the flu, but I do not know anyone that has gotten the coronavirus.  Yet still, the conversation of my friends and family is focused solely on the coronavirus, the flu is more of an afterthought. 

              So far this flu season, 68 children have died from complications of the flu.  This may be due to the fact that this year’s flu vaccine is not extremely effective.  According to Dr. Anthony Fauci, this year’s flu vaccine is not very effective against the B strain of the influenza virus, this strain is particularly hard on children.  According to the CDC, this year’s vaccine is only a 58% match for the B strain, meaning there is a 42% chance the vaccine won’t work on that strain.  As we learned in class, if the information collected about the flu by professionals is wrong or inadequate, the vaccine will be useless.  However, this does not mean that the flu vaccine is not necessary.  This year, I have seen more of an effort by UNC campus health to get people vaccinated.  There are numerous signs across campus about getting the flu shot, and they even offer free flu shots in the Student Stores.

I know there are still many parents who believe that vaccines cause harm to children and do not get their children vaccinated.  They may use these statistics as proof that vaccines do not work, however vaccines always provide some form of protection against the flu, and some protection is always better than none at all.  Recently, an anti-vaccine Facebook group gave a mother advice; they told her to not give her child Tamiflu, which her doctor had prescribed, the child later died from the flu.  The Facebook group mislead the mother by giving her misinformation and this proved fatal for her child.  I think people need to be careful with taking advice from others about vaccines and the flu because the flu can be a deadly virus and the advice of healthcare professionals should be taken seriously. 

The coronavirus has taken the world by storm over the past few weeks.  It started in Wuhan, China and has now spread to multiple countries, many of the world’s experts in infectious disease believe that coronavirus is approaching the title of a pandemic.  The virus is very transmissible, over the last 3 weeks known cases have risen from about 50 in only China to over 14,000 in 23 countries.  There have been over 300 recorded deaths, but only one outside of China, in the Philippines.  The outbreak has definitely caused a scare for many people, I know that many of my friends and family are paranoid about contracting the virus and have been more conscious about washing their hands and having good hygiene in general.

              While we do know that the coronavirus is highly transmissible, experts are not yet sure about how deadly the virus is, there have not been enough cases or tests in to determine that.  The swine flu was scary to many when it emerged in 2009, but it ended up being less deadly than the normal seasonal flu.  People are afraid of the coronavirus because it is unfamiliar and threatening, however doctors in the United States are urging people not to forget about the flu.  People in the US are much more likely to retract influenza than they are to get coronavirus because in order to get it you must come into contact with someone who has it and very few people in the US have contracted it.  The flu has killed as many as 61,000 Americans in a year, while the coronavirus has yet to kill a single American.

              China has taken measures to stop the spread of coronavirus as well as treat those who already have it.  They recently completed construction on an emergency hospital that took them just 9 days to build and its use will be devoted to only coronavirus patients.  Some countries have started to restrict travel in and out of China in an effort to stop the spread.  Several Chinese cities are also on lockdown and quarantine, including Wuhan where the virus originated.  It is clear that China is taking this very seriously and that is a good thing for everyone.  If China can cut off the virus in their country where it originated, it will go a long way in killing the virus everywhere once and for all. 

Andrew Wakefield claimed that the MMR lead to behavioral regression and developmental disorders in children.  However, there were a multitude of problems with his research that backed this claim.  The evidence that Wakefield presented in support of his theory was very insubstantial and it was clear that he had leaped to conclusions in order to prove his point.  Wakefield worked with 12 of his colleagues on this study and they backed his research, however his research was never validated by any outside independent parties.  While his research was never verified by others, almost immediately following his findings’ publishing, epidemiological studies were done that disproved his theory that MMR vaccine and autism were linked.

              Wakefield used an extremely small sample size of only 12 children for his study, in addition his study was not controlled, he only looked at children who had already developed regressive developmental disorders.  Wakefield also exploited the fact that MMR vaccination are already normally linked due to both occurring in early childhood.  Many children get the MMR vaccination around the same time autism presents itself, so a number of children will develop autism after getting vaccinated simply by coincidence.  Due to these flaws in his experimental design the paper was retracted and it was later discovered that Wakefield’s motivation publishing the paper were money-related.  He was funded by lawyers who were working with parents involved in lawsuits against vaccine-producing companies.  To make matters worse for Wakefield, he was found guilty of fraud, due to the fact that he falsified information and hand-picked data that suited his needs.  It is my opinion that Wakefield did all of this for money and publicity, he did not do any actual research and his reputation as a physician and researcher has taken a big hit because of this event. 

              Recently, there has been a mumps outbreak in America, the largest one in over a decade.  In response to this outbreak many organizations are pushing for people to get vaccinated.  The Health Service Executive is promoting people between the ages of 11 and 30 to get 2 doses of the MMR vaccine, this group has been hit the hardest by the recent outbreak.  Some student health services and general practitioners are offering the vaccination free of charge.  I believe offering free vaccinations is a great way to get more people to vaccinate themselves and their children.  The University of Texas is going to start requiring proof of MMR vaccination for students in fall of 2020 in an effort to stop the outbreak from spreading to their campus.  The recent outbreak has some people scared and is forcing more emphasis on vaccination, which will help us in the long run.