Resurrecting the 'yuppie vaccine'

[Martian]

Source: http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v20/n7 ... 4-698.html

Resurrecting the 'yuppie vaccine'

Cassandra Willyard

Nature Medicine 20, 698–701 (2014) doi:10.1038/nm0714-698

Published online: 07 July 2014
Corrected online: 22 September 2014
Correction (October, 2014)

The only vaccine ever approved to protect against Lyme disease was pulled off the market in 2002, and drugmakers have yet to offer an alternative. What's taking so long? Cassandra Willyard investigates.

[Lorima]

http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v20/n7 ... 4-698.html

Ultimately, the group decided to go with three different recommendations, depending on risk. But even for those in the highest risk group, the committee stopped short of a full recommendation, advising instead that the vaccine “should be considered.” “We thought better to be on the cautious side,” says Chinh Le, a retired infectious disease physician who was on the ACIP at the time. “We could always upgrade the recommendation.” Although LYMErix seemed effective and safe, the committee pointed out that individuals have other ways of preventing Lyme disease, such as wearing insect repellent and checking for ticks after being outside. What's more, they noted, Lyme disease is mild, readily diagnosed and easily treated even in its late stages. Some on the committee seemed to view the vaccine as a luxury for the anxious affluent rather than a public health necessity. [/color]At the ACIP meeting in June 1998, pediatrician Samuel Katz of Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, commented that LYMErix was “as 'yuppie' a vaccine as I've ever heard of.”

[Margherita]

I knew it and I've always known! That in all those years my family practioner thought he was dealing with a patient suffering from yuppie disease when seeing me! But fortunately, after almost 20 years of untreated Lyme disease, it seems he finally believes me as I now look like a Junky!
Lucky me!

[ChronicLyme19]

Martain, interesting, thanks for posting. This is a good overview to shed some context on the new vaccine that was just announced.