Look at his loss, make it your gain

I read the article, "Look at his loss, make it your gain," by Diane Flacks. She interviews John Kach about his experience with bacterial menigitis. John contracted bacterial menigitis type C when he was a freshman in college. This caused John to go into a coma for six weeks and eventaully the loss of a few fingers and his leg. The doctors thought he would have severe brain damage, but he survived and has now found his purpose in life.
The author wrote "Kach knows it's only luck that spared his life, which makes him determined to use that life well. "This happened to me. I'll take one for the team, that's fine. But now I have to try and prevent others from having to go through what I and my family did. I lived for a reason. I shouldn't be here. I have to try to help other people."
John is now doing everything is his power to help promote the menigitis vaccine. It's so amazing that he's willing to take his trials and turn them to help others. He's already doing a lot of good things- meningitis vaccines are now required (or a waiver can be signed) for incoming college freshman in 24 states. For more information, click here

John Kach

Could vaccines be a solution to cancer?

Check out this article! The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine is working on a vaccine to prevent colon cancer. Wouldn't that be amazing if we could prevent this third leading cause of death? Scientists are making great strides with vaccines.

Vaccine To Prevent Colon Cancer Being Tested In Patients
ScienceDaily (Mar. 19, 2009) —

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have begun testing a vaccine that might be able to prevent colon cancer in people at high risk for developing the disease. If shown to be effective, it might spare patients the risk and inconvenience of repeated invasive surveillance tests, such as colonoscopy, that are now necessary to spot and remove precancerous polyps.

Colon cancer takes years to develop and typically starts with a polyp, which is a benign but abnormal growth in the intestinal lining, explained principal investigator Robert E. Schoen, M.D., M.P.H., professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh. Polyps that could become cancerous are called adenomas.

In a novel approach for cancer prevention, the Pitt vaccine is directed against an abnormal variant of a self-made cell protein called MUC1, which is altered and produced in excess in advanced adenomas and cancer. Vaccines currently in use to prevent cancer work via a different mechanism, specifically by blocking infection with viruses that are linked with cancer. For example, Gardasil protects against human papilloma virus associated with cervical cancer and hepatitis B vaccine protects against liver cancer.

"By stimulating an immune response against the MUC1 protein in these precancerous growths, we may be able to draw the immune system's fire to attack and destroy the abnormal cells," Dr. Schoen said. "That might not only prevent progression to cancer, but even polyp recurrence."
According to co-investigator Olivera Finn, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Immunology at Pitt's School of Medicine, MUC1 vaccines have been tested for safety and immunogenicity in patients with late-stage colon cancer and pancreatic cancer.

"Patients were able to generate an immune response despite their cancer-weakened immune systems," she noted. "Patients with advanced adenomas are otherwise healthy and so they would be expected to generate a stronger immune response. That may be able to stop precancerous lesions from transforming into malignant tumors."

About a dozen people have received the experimental vaccine so far, and the researchers intend to enroll another 50 or so into the study. Participants must be between 40 and 70 years old and have a history of developing adenomas that are deemed advanced, meaning they are greater than or equal to 1 centimeter in size, are typed as villous or tubulovillous, or contain severely dysplastic, or abnormal, cells. After an initial dose of vaccine, the participants will get shots again two and 10 weeks later. Blood samples will be drawn to measure immune response at those time points as well as 12 weeks, 28 weeks and one year later.

People who develop advanced adenomas undergo regular surveillance with colonoscopy so that recurrent polyps, which are common, can be removed before matters get worse, Dr. Schoen said.
"Immunotherapy might be a good alternative to colonoscopy because it is noninvasive and nontoxic," he noted. "And, it could provide long-term protection."

Colorectal cancer is the third leading cause of cancer death in the United States. In 2008, the American Cancer Society estimated that there were more than 108,000 new cases of colon cancer, nearly 41,000 cases of rectal cancer, and almost 50,000 deaths due to both diseases.
Pitt's colon cancer vaccine is sponsored by the National Cancer Institute and The Nathan S. Arenson Fund for Pancreatic Cancer Research. Its adjuvant component, which enhances the immune system's ability to respond to the target protein, was developed and provided by Washington, D.C.-based Oncovir, Inc.

For More information about colon cancer, click here

Autism anti-vaccination fears

I read this article OPINION: Kids Dying Because of Autism Anti-Vaccination Fears by Kevin Leitch. He talked about how the rate of individuals being vaccinated has decreased due to fears of autism. The population becomes vulnerable because of this. This article focused specifically on the increase in cases of whopping cough and the resulting deaths.

In the article, the author stated that, "How terribly sad and tragic that the same situation is playing out across so much of the affluent world – kids dying of vaccine preventable disease – because a few idiots think they know best and are willing to put the lives of others children at risk, when in the third world countries people are still dying by the tens of thousands from vaccine preventable disease and are desperate to get a hold of vaccines."

* I would like to know your thoughts on this issue. How can we make parents aware of the dangers of not being vaccinated, while at the same time dispelling myths?
*For more information, Here's a great article by the CDC.

Autism and vaccines

In my infectious disease class, my professor gave us this article about actress, Jenny McCarthy, and her autistic son. The article is by Sam Wang, a professor of molecular biology and neuroscience at Princeton University. He attempts to explain in this article why people still blame autism on vaccines when there is no scientific evidence to back up that claim.

It is important for people to be critical of the information that they are receiving via the media. As it says in the article, people suffer from "source amnesia." We need to be weary of rumors or other information that doesn't site valid scientific evidence.

Autism myth lives on
Why people continue to blame vaccines, despite evidence to the contrary.
By Sam Wang

As the brother of an autistic person and a brain scientist, I have been hoping that the increased focus on autism in the news would lead to a greater public understanding of this disorder. Instead, I am angry that this coverage is spreading dangerous myths.


My sister, Karen, is autistic. In the 1970s, my parents wondered why she behaved so differently. At the time, a prevalent idea was that an emotionally distant mother could somehow prevent a child from understanding emotions or relating normally to others. Our parents had a simpler idea, that they might have hurt Karen's head during a bath.

Both these ideas are wrong. Autism is a neurological disorder, and its signs appear by the age of 1 or even earlier. It is highly inheritable. In identical twins where one is autistic, the chance that both are autistic is greater than 50-50. Even non-identical twins and siblings are at increased risk. In short, I dodged a genetic bullet. Now I worry about my daughter.


A link that isn't there

Recently, celebrities such as Jenny McCarthy and other activists have taken to the airways to repeat the myth that autism is linked to vaccination. Although peer-reviewed scientific evidence overwhelmingly opposes their views, they have attracted attention. In a recent discussion on Larry King Live, three pediatricians invited to make the case for science were no match for McCarthy's star power. Situations like this could mistakenly persuade parents to leave their children unvaccinated and vulnerable to contagious diseases.


Speculation about a vaccine-autism link began with a 1998 uncontrolled study of a few autistic children. But the conclusions were later retracted. Subsequent speculation focused on the compound thimerosal. But removing it from all routine childhood vaccines in the USA, Denmark, Sweden and Canada has not decreased autism rates.

What are McCarthy's credentials? She is an actress and comedienne — with an autistic son. Her career took on new life after she wrote a best-selling pregnancy guide. Like all parents of autistic children, she wrestled with the question of what caused his disorder. She recalled that her son was vaccinated about the time his symptoms first appeared. Aha! That's it. Here is an example of her reasoning: "I believe that parents' anecdotal information is science-based information."

How we're wired


Although her concept of evidence is flawed, I don't blame her. The error highlights how our brains are wired to think. Like the authors of the 1998 study, she concluded that two events happening around the same time must be linked. They used the principle that coincidence implies a causal link. But there was no coincidence for her son: He was born in 2002, after thimerosal was removed from vaccines.

The problem is compounded by "source amnesia," in which people are prone to remember a statement without recalling where they heard it or whether the source was reliable. Presidential candidate John McCain might have fallen prey to source amnesia when he repeated the vaccine-autism myth last month. Recollection is more likely when the "fact" fits previously held views; parents might already dislike vaccinations based on their kids' reaction to shots. But when it comes to a complex issue such as autism, such errors of reasoning hinder us from distinguishing real causes from coincidences.


Out of sight of the cameras, increased research funding is spurring efforts to find autism's causes. Scientists are vitally interested in possible environmental influences. But the vaccine story is a dry well. Working on it further wastes valuable time and resources. It's time to dig elsewhere.

As I watch my beautiful 10-month-old daughter grow, I wish that preventing autism were as simple as withholding a few injections. But along with my wife, a physician, I understand the vital importance of vaccination, not only for maintaining our baby's health but also protecting our community from infectious diseases. Our daughter's next shots are in two months.


Sam Wang is an associate professor of molecular biology and neuroscience at Princeton University. He is a co-author of Welcome to Your Brain: Why You Lose Your Car Keys But Never Forget How to Drive and Other Puzzles of Everyday Life.
Posted at 12:15 AM/ET, April 16, 2008
For information about the safety of vaccines, visit this site.