Vaccination on Michael’s Domain

Most dangerous disease of 2025?

Wed, 08 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Thanks to effective vaccines and evidence-based treatment, Covid-19 is not the most dangerous disease of 2025. Equally unsurprising for experts is the fact that HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria are still the top three diseases of concern this year. These cover three different types of pathogens: viruses, bacteria, and parasites. All three collectively kill about 2 million people every year. We in Europe and the US think of HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria as diseases of the past or as manageable chronic diseases. However, all three of these can come back. Malaria was, e.g., endemic in Finland before it slowly disappeared ( last indigenous case in 1954 ). As a consequence of climate change, it could not only return but also spread into countries that have never seen it before. However, in Europe and the US, we probably should be most afraid of the bird flu (avian influenza). Why? Because all pieces are in place for the end of the world as we know it. Influenza type A H5N1 is the type of bird flu currently writing headlines. It has recently caused many outbreaks in birds and cows. Also, humans have increasingly become infected by birds, cows, or drinking raw milk. The only thing that prevents the bird flu from becoming a pandemic is that the bird flu virus does not easily transmit from human to human. However, it only takes a single mutation to change this behavior ( https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adt0180 ). With every infected human, the chance that this mutation happens increases. Influenza is notably an RNA virus, which does mutate on average much easier than a DNA virus. Therefore, it makes much sense to vaccinate the people who are at the greatest risk of contracting the disease, like poultry workers, bird ringers, or vets. Finland has started to do exactly that , and also several other EU countries are following a similar strategy . However, unless the rest of the planet follows, these actions won’t make much of a dent in the global mountain of risk in front of us. The production of a bird flu vaccine is routine and could be done rather rapidly since the process is identical to the generation of the seasonal flu vaccine. But I doubt that it will be possible to vaccinate the population fast enough. Big countries like Germany apparently want to wait until the virus has mutated. How else can you interpret the statement of the German Federal Ministry of Health that Germany would only acquire bird flu vaccines ‘ in the case of an existing or imminent threatening communicable disease ’. What could possibly go wrong? It is scary that in the US, somebody advocating raw milk might soon be the secretary of Health and Human Services. Other countries take the threat more seriously. While most countries - including Finland - have dismantled their state-run vaccine development centers years or decades ago, the UK maintained a state-owned vaccine development and evaluation center (VDEC, UKHSA’s Vaccine Development and Evaluation Centre ). The UK government has just tasked its VDEC with making 5 million doses of a bird flu vaccine to prepare for a possible epidemic ( https://www.euronews.com/health/2024/12/03/uk-purchases-5-million-bird-flu-vaccine-doses-to-prepare-for-possible-pandemic ). With up to 30% mortality in humans , the bird flu makes Covid-19 (0.3% mortality for unvaccinated people my age) look like a bargain. While the 30% mortality rate is likely an overestimate, even a 3% mortality rate would still be about 10 times worse than COVID-19. Differently from COVID-19, we know the virus and could be well prepared. But with an incompetent government (and I am not only thinking of the coming US government), we are heading straight for the apocalypse. It is unlikely that any warp-speed operation or vaccination campaign will be fast enough to catch up with the flu wave that will be rolling around the globe faster than ever due to air travel having surpassed pre-COVID-19 levels and further on the rise. Happy New Year - and don’t forget to stockpile toilet paper! This piece is loosely based on the discussion about emerging diseases in episode #1017 of the The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe podcast..

Why would anybody get vaccinated?

Sat, 22 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

As you can clearly see from these statistics, the smallpox vaccination did not work: It did not end the frequent epidemics that swept through Sweden (and all other countries for that matter). The epidemics continued for more than 100 years despite the vaccination!* The vaccination was introduced more than 200 years ago in England. The figures are from Sweden because they were one of the few countries that early on kept relatively good statistics. In typical smallpox epidemics, 10-20% of the infected people died. In populations that had not been selected for resistance by frequent epidemic waves, the death rates could rise up to 70%. So why would anybody get vaccinated? With the last smallpox-infected human dying or recovering, the virus would go extinct, and humankind managed to eradicate smallpox this fashion. We got close to the same goal with polio but did not reach it (yet). Despite the differences between polio, smallpox, and SARS-CoV2, the graph seem to indicate that we are in for the long haul.*Note added for those living in an alternative reality: These sentences contain irony!

Finally boostered

Fri, 14 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Hooray, I am finally boostered! I did not mind what I would get, but ended up for the 3rd time getting the BioNTech/Pfizer mRNA vaccine.UPDATE (23.01.2022):I received some feedback concerning this 2-sentence blog post. I never really think much about the vaccination anymore. To me, the situation appears very clear from a science-based medical perspective. Below, I will keep adding answers to some questions and statements.

Covid-19 vaccination

Sun, 23 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

UPDATE (August 6th, 2021) I am now fully vaccinated according to the CDC’s definition !

Martin Jeltsch (1933-2021)

Wed, 03 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This morning, my father, Martin Jeltsch, died from Covid-19 at age 88. He had the opportunity to get vaccinated already starting from January 25th, but he decided not to. If he had taken the first opportunity to get vaccinated, he would have most likely been already partially protected, when he contracted the disease. However, it is no secret that he opposed vaccinations, and his professional affiliation with complementary and alternative medicine was just one of the many things that have made our relationship very complicated. Herd immunity through vaccination will also protect the unreasonable. Hopefully, we will get there soon.UPDATE: According to our mother, my father did actually plan to get vaccinated. However, vaccine roll-out in his county started in the end of January only and he had not even received the first shot yet. That first shot would have given him already partial immunity and most likely would have prevented a serious disease course.

The flu shot works

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Last week my son was down with the flu. He got diagnosed with influenza A. He was terribly sick having more than 39°C fever for more than 4 days and was staying at home for 10 days before he was able to go to preschool again.My daughter didn’t get sick. Neither did my wife nor did I. Guess why? Because we got the seasonal flu shot. Here in Finland, the seasonal flu vaccine is free of charge for infants between 6 and 35 months, senior citizens 65 years or older, pregnant women and those with chronic diseases or medication that put them at higher risk for a severe disease or complications . Additonally, many employers offer free flu shots for their employees.Because my son doesn’t belong to any of those that gets the shot for free and because he strongly opposed to the shot and because the risk of infection for unvaccinated individuals for any given year is maybe only 5%, we let him go unvaccinated. Bad decision. There is a very good article about flu vaccinations on the Science-based Medicine blog and a very good podcast by pediacast.org about the topic. Unfortunately the flu mist (the vaccination that is inhaled as opposed to be injected) was not yet available on the Finnish market for the 2011/2012 flu season. Flu mist is produced by MedImmune , a subsidiary of AstraZeneca . According to my health care provider Mehiläinen the intranasal vaccine will be very likely available in Finland for the next flu season. The vaccine’s name will be Fluenz , under which it has been approved for by the European Medicins Agency in 2011 for the whole European Union.My son just opposed the injection, not the flu vaccine per se. Flu mist is as effective as the flu shot and it might even confer better protection compared to the shot. That makes sense, because the antigen enters via a natural route. And since it is a life vaccine, the immune response might be better and more sustained. Maybe my employer’s health care provider Mehiläinen should offer also free seasonal flu shots for the children of employees, because despite being vaccinated, I missed several days of work because I had to take care of my son.