Vaccines: A Brief History

It’s hard to believe that vaccines have been around for only two centuries! Here’s a brief history on how vaccines started, and how they are made:

The year 1796 marks the birth of the world’s first vaccination when Edward Jenner realized that pus caused by cowpox could be used to prevent smallpox infections. In a time when smallpox was rampant epidemic, he found it strange that a majority of milkmaids, who normally had cowpox, did not get the disease. He hypothesized that the pus in the milkmaids’ blisters (caused by cowpox) somehow protected them from contracting smallpox. He tested this by inoculating an 8 year old boy using the pus from a cowpox lesion; his hypothesis proved correct when despite being exposed to the smallpox virus, he did not become infected. In 1840, the British government made the smallpox vaccine available; in 1980, the World Health Organization (WHO) labeled smallpox as an eradicated disease. Jenner’s method of producing the smallpox vaccine laid the groundwork for scientists in the future to create vaccines for other previously debilitating – now nearly eradicated – diseases such as polio and measles.

The road to vaccine production and distribution is not an easy one. Problems can range from funding and manufacturing to safety concerns and deep concerns about live inoculating agents in some vaccines. Although the CDC states on its website that “Prior to approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), vaccines are tested extensively by scientists to ensure they are effective and safe”, they admit that “no vaccine is 100% safe.” Such was the case in 1955, when 200 children contracted polio after receiving the vaccine, which contained a “wild-type polio virus that was manufactured by Cutter Laboratories in California.” Another incident involving vaccine safety concerns was the Swine Flu Scare in 1976, in which several hundred people, after being vaccinated for the Swine Flu, developed Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare but serious disorder in which the body’s immune system attacks its own nervous system. It’s still unknown exactly how the 1976 vaccine caused the disease.

In 1986, as a response to claims of injuries caused by vaccines, Congress passed the Childhood Vaccination Injury Act (NCVIA), which created the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, the National Vaccine Program Office (which deals with vaccine policy), and Vaccine Information Statements (a form that describes the vaccine itself, as well as the risks and benefits, and must be given to patients prior to vaccination).

In the last decade, vaccine safety has become a central issue for our society. As a result, older, potentially dangerous vaccines are being either changed or replaced with safer vaccines. For example, the vaccine DTP, used to protect children from diseases like diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (whooping cough) has been replaced with DTaP, a more purified vaccine with milder side effects. In the late 1990s, people began connecting thiomersal, a preservative used in vaccines, with the sudden rise in children reported in autism. In 2001, thiomersal was removed from vaccines given to children 6 years and younger. However, there is no current evidence that proves a relationship between thiomersal and autism.

Although vaccines are considered much safer than they were thirty years ago, side effects and bad reactions still can and do happen, albeit rare. A very recent example of this is the case of Desiree Jennings, who after getting a seasonal flu shot in her local grocery store this past August, was put in the hospital for seizures. She was diagnosed with dystonia, a neurological disorder characterized by uncontrollable muscle spasms. Her doctors speculate, and Desiree herself believes, that the disease was triggered by the vaccine she received. After being contacted, the FDA stated that they have not received any other reports of adverse effects from the batch that she received. Some medical experts have speculated that Jennings’s dystonia may actually be a psychogenic disorder, meaning cause of her symptoms is psychological.

Resources:
http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/24/3/611
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/basic/history.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/09/health/09vaccine.html
http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/health/101309_woman_disabled_by_flu_shot_reaction_dystonia
http://www.examiner.com/x-13791-Baltimore-Disease-Prevention-Examiner~y2009m10d16-Woman-claiming-she-acquired-dystonia-from-a-flu-shot-may-have-it-all-in-her-head