Vaccine Tied to 'Superbug' Ear Infection

[Guest guest]

this is what we have been talking about - same thing as with antibiotics -

creates vacuum for another bacteria, etc.

" It is a strain of strep bacteria not included in the pneumococcal vaccine "

- a new vaccine coming right up!

ahhhhhhhh - an excuse to make more money......

" Some think Prevnar might be destined to be like flu shots that must be

periodically updated to reflect new strains causing illness. But each tweak

requires new safety studies and more expense. "

Sheri

PS - reminder of 's post that I sent out a few weeks ago

(reprinted at the end here)

http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/diseases/articles/2007/09/17/vaccine_t

ied_to_superbug_ear_infection/

Vaccine tied to 'superbug' ear infection

By Marilynn Marchione, AP Medical Writer | September 17, 2007

CHICAGO --A vaccine that has dramatically curbed pneumonia and other

serious illnesses in children is also having an unfortunate effect:

promoting new superbugs that cause ear infections.

On Monday, doctors reported discovering the first such germ that is

resistant to all drugs approved to treat childhood ear infections. Nine

toddlers in Rochester, N.Y., have had the bug and researchers say it may be

turning up elsewhere, too.

It is a strain of strep bacteria not included in the pneumococcal vaccine,

Wyeth's Prevnar, which came on the market in 2000. It is recommended for

children under age 2.

Doctors say parents should continue to have their toddlers get the shots

because the vaccine prevents serious illness and even saves lives. But the

new resistant strep is a worry.

" The best way to prevent these resistant infections from spreading is to be

careful about how we use antibiotics, " said Dr. Whitney, chief of

respiratory diseases at the federal Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention.

Avoiding antibiotics when they are not needed is the best way to ensure

they will work when they are, she said.

Prevnar prevents seven strains responsible for most cases of pneumonia,

meningitis and deadly bloodstream infections. But dozens more strep strains

exist, and some have flourished and become impervious to antibiotics since

the vaccine combats the more common strains.

If the new strains continue to spread, " it tells us the vaccine is becoming

less effective " and needs to be revised, said Dr. Dennis Maki, infectious

diseases chief at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Hospitals and Clinics.

Wyeth anticipated this and is testing a second-generation vaccine. But it

is at least two years from reaching the market, and the new strains could

become a public health problem in the meantime if they spread hard-to-treat

infections through day care centers and schools.

" I don't think the new strains are moving fast enough to call it a race,

but the fact is that certain strains are increasing, " said Paradiso,

a scientist at Wyeth Vaccines, the Collegeville, Pa., division that makes

Prevnar.

" It is very worrying, " said Dr. Klugman, an infectious diseases

specialist at Emory University. " With the eradication of all the other

types in the vaccine, this one is emerging. "

Several research teams reported on the situation Monday at microbiologists

meeting.

A different pneumonia vaccine has long been available for adults but it

doesn't work in children, so Prevnar was hailed as a breakthrough. It is

used in dozens of countries and had sales of more than $1.5 billion last

year. In the United States, it is given as four shots between 2 months and

15 months.

Before the vaccine, many babies and toddlers developed pneumonia,

meningitis and serious blood infections that led to hearing loss, brain

damage and even death. Drug-resistant ear infections also were a problem.

" Prevnar has done a remarkable job. Over the last seven years, it's

prevented thousands and thousands of infections, " not just in vaccinated

kids but also in unvaccinated family members, said the CDC's Whitney.

But it is a unique vaccine because it covers only seven of the 90-odd

strains of the germ. By contrast, measles is caused by one type of virus.

Booster shots are needed for chickenpox, mumps and measles because immunity

wanes, not because the germ changed.

Prevnar, however, is losing its punch because strains not covered by the

vaccine are filling the biological niche that the vaccine strains used to

occupy, and they are causing disease.

One strain in particular, called 19A, is big trouble. A new subtype of it

caused ear infections in the nine Rochester children, ages 6 months to 18

months, that were resistant to all pediatric medications, said Dr.

Pichichero, a microbiologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

The children had been unsuccessfully treated with two or more antibiotics,

including high-dose amoxicillin and multiple shots of another drug. Many

needed surgery to place ear tubes to drain the infection, and some

recovered only after treatment with a newer, powerful antibiotic whose

safety in children has not been established.

Pichichero refused further comment because he has submitted a report to a

medical journal. His work was paid for by antibiotic maker Abbott

Laboratories and the Thrasher Foundation, which funds projects related to

child health.

All 19A strep subtypes tend to be resistant to some drugs and have been

growing in prevalence:

--Scientists from a drug company and two labs analyzed more than 21,000

bacterial samples from around the nation and found 19A increasing. Among

children 2 and under, the portion of samples that were this strain rose to

15 percent in 2005-2006, from 4 percent in the previous three years.

--A British lab tracking respiratory infections in U.S. kids found that the

19A strain accounted for 40 percent of drug-resistant cases.

--University of Iowa researchers found 19A accounted for 35 percent of

penicillin-resistant infections in 2004-05, compared with less than 2

percent the year before the new vaccine came out.

Because these bacteria easily swap gene components to become even more

hardy, " new types may emerge that can both escape containment by vaccine

and spread throughout the world, " Dr. Musher of Baylor College of

Medicine wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine last year.

Some think Prevnar might be destined to be like flu shots that must be

periodically updated to reflect new strains causing illness. But each tweak

requires new safety studies and more expense.

Wyeth expects to finish testing its updated vaccine next year and to seek

federal approval in early 2009. Review can take a year or more, Paradiso said.

British-based GlaxoKline has a similar vaccine in final-phase testing

that targets 10 strains common in Europe and other regions.

© Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may

not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

*********

I have uploaded to my webpages - address for these letters is in 2 files

http://www.wellwithin1.com/HIBPneu1993-2006LettersA.pdf

http://www.wellwithin1.com/HIBPneu1993-2006LettersB.pdf

.............Sheri

***************

New Zealand must cancel the implementation of Prevnar, TODAY

documenting HIB, then Prevnar now MRSA

Brilliant ! And so tragic!

Started with HIB vaccine and then Prevnar, now we have MRSA

Just what many of us have been saying all along -nature abhors a vacuum.

Suppress one and another will arise.

Sheri

********

From: " " <butler@...>

Forward this where you like.

A couple of weeks ago, Ninetonoon did a programme about how wonderful

Prevnar is, and how lots of countries are using it, and that’s why we

should too.

Well, take your pick. Wednesday’s issue of JAMA details that this time,

the bug might have bit them right back on the backside. Use Prevnar, get a

new MRSA = dead children. This is what the public gets, when they sit back

and trust the medical profession, and when the questions they ask, do not

get answered in any meaningful way. (see letter to Dr Marc Lipsitch – the

answers were unsatisfactory and I’ve not pdf’d them)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/16/AR2007101601

392_pf.html

In the new study, Fridkin and his colleagues analyzed data collected in

California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, land, Minnesota, New York,

Oregon and Tennessee, identifying 5,287 cases of invasive MRSA infection

and 988 deaths in 2005. The researchers calculated that MRSA was striking

31.8 out of every 100,000 Americans, which translates to 94,360 cases and

18,650 deaths nationwide. In comparison, complications from the AIDS virus

killed about 12,500 Americans in 2005.

In the second paper, E. Pichichero and Janet R. Casey of the

University of Rochester in New York documented the emergence of an

antibiotic-resistant strain of another bacterium known as Streptococcus

pneumoniae, which causes common ear infections. Although all 11 children

identified in the Rochester area with the microbe so far were successfully

treated, five required an antibiotic approved only for adults, and one

child was left with permanent hearing loss.

The researchers attributed the emergence of the strain to a combination of

the overuse of antibiotics and the introduction of a vaccine that protects

against the infection.

" The use of the vaccine created an ecological vacuum, and that combined

with excessive use of antibiotics to create this new superbug, " Pichichero

said.

So will Pete Hodgson let New Zealand parents welcome this new ecological

niche into New Zealand, and act all surprised when in a few years, kiddies

drop dead because they can’t be treated?

You all realise, of course, that this was started by the use of the Hib

vaccine.

I attach for you a pdf containing a letter sent by me to Bill Birch in

1993, and USA’s foremost expert on this topic, Marc Lipsitch in April 2006,

with an extract from the infectious disease journal, and the revelant IAS

waves newsletter giving Bill Birch’s reply.

NOTE FROM SHERI

[i have uploaded to my webpages - address for these letters is in 2 files

http://www.wellwithin1.com/HIBPneu1993-2006LettersA.pdf

http://www.wellwithin1.com/HIBPneu1993-2006LettersB.pdf

OR

http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/HIBPneu1993-2006LettersA.pdf

http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/HIBPneu1993-2006LettersB.pdf

It was a very large PDF file, so split into 2 so it will be easier

if you are on dial up - still slow but better.............Sheri]

It is with no satisfaction that I send this.

This does nothing other than confirm my long held convictions that what I

said in 1993 was correct, and that while many of us could see it coming,

mere mothers and Dr Tony were considered luddites.

All I can say is God help the children in the future.

--------------------------------------------------------

Sheri Nakken, former R.N., MA, Hahnemannian Homeopath

Vaccination Information & Choice Network, Nevada City CA & Wales UK

Vaccines - http://www.wellwithin1.com/vaccine.htm Email classes start in

November