Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: Lyme vacine statis needed
From: RGINZBERG@eagle.wesleyan.edu (Ruth Ginzberg)
Date: 26 Jan 93 21:30:42 EDT
Distribution: world
Organization: Philosophy Dept., Wesleyan University
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.20In-Reply-To: time@coos.dartmouth.edu's message of 26 Jan 93 16:54:41 GMTLines: 61

In <C1H0B6.H8q@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> time@coos.dartmouth.edu writes:

> I know this comes up fairly often, but I don't recall what was said
> about the statis of a vacine is. My husband and I are going to be building
> a house on Nantucket Is.this spring and I would like the protection for us,
> the kids, and our dog if it is available and effective.

Oops.  I just answered this is rec.pets.dogs w/out realizing it was crossposted
here.  Basically, I said:

Fort Dodge is the maker of the Veterinary Lyme vaccine for dogs.  The FDA has
now approved it as safe & effective for dogs, as of July '92.  My vet was in on
some of the earliest clinical trials of the vaccine ( >5 years ago)
because we are about 15-20 miles from *Lyme, CT* (after which the disease was
named) and Lyme disease is endemic here (as it is on Nantucket Is. as well).
There was originally some concern about the long-term effects of the Lyme
vaccine in dogs;  the main concern was over whether it might provoke the very
symptoms (of "chronic Lyme Disease") which it is trying to prevent.  My vet has
been following this research closely, & is now convinced that it does not.  So
he is recommending routine Lyme vaccine now for all dogs in this area.  On the
other hand, he is quick to point out that Lyme Disease in dogs is easily
detected & easily treated (14 days of amoxicilin), so its not really any big
deal if your dog does catch it; you just have to be sure to treat it.

Unfortunately, this vaccine is not available for humans.  However, new research
from the Yale/New-Haven Lyme Disease clinic indicates that even if you are
bitten by a tick that IS infected with Lyme Disease, your chance of catching
the disease is only 1%.  This is low enough that they don't even give
prophylactic antibiotics for tick bites any more, even in this endemic area. 
They wait until you actually have Symptoms before they treat, now.  BTW, some
study locally showed that in some communities around here (I think Nantucket
Island was one of the studied areas) as many as 50% of adults show evidence of
exposure to Lyme Disease.  But not nearly that many become ill from it.  So the
new wisdom (here in Lyme territory) w.r.t. humans is: (1) Just being bitten by
a deer tick; or (2) even being bitten by a deer tick AND showing a positive
reaction on a Lyme (blood) test ... is not enough to establish a
medical diagnosis of Lyme disease.  You must have actual Symptoms of Lyme
disease in order to be diagnosed as having it.  And THAT is still (fortunately)
pretty rare, even amongst those of us who live in the thick of it.

NOTE:  This last part is the most controversial, & there are some folks who
have posted quite regularly to sci.med about Lyme disease (in humans) who I'm
sure would disagree with this approach.

I must say, from personal experience (I must have pulled at least 10 well-fed
deer ticks off of myself last fall alone) it IS a little bit unnerving to feel
as though you have to keep asking yourself, "Is this funny little [rash, bump,
sore joint, etc.] a sign that I am developing Lyme disease, or is it just an
ordinary little non-Lyme-type [rash, bump, sore joint, etc.].  I would have
rather that my doc would have given me the dumb antibiotic so I wouldn't have
had to keep THINKING about it (if you aren't a hypochondriac or obsessive
already, see how long you can check yourself for signs of Lyme Disease every
day without BECOMING hypochondriac or obsessive about it) .... but, oh, well
<sigh>




------------------------
Ruth Ginzberg <rginzberg@eagle.wesleyan.edu>
Philosophy Department;Wesleyan University;USA
Newsgroups: sci.med