Dan's Papers - February 22, 2008 - The Y-Factor with Christian McLean

Nowadays it seems impossible to come up with a legitimate reason to use a sick day. One hundred years ago, "I won't be coming in to work today because I have smallpox," or "Sorry, not going to make the conference call, my diphtheria is acting up again," would have been viable excuses. Today, we complain about the flu or maybe a hacking cough, but many of the big-time illnesses of yesteryear are just that. What the hell are mumps anyway? Back in the day, people looked forward to getting them or even measles as excuse for skipping a week of school. Chickenpox were practically a given. Kids rubbed their arms together, trying to catch the disease so they could avoid tests, and stay home drinking apple juice and watch "Press Your Luck" while wearing a pair of oven mitts. But this concept is as foreign to children as Intellivision.

In the '50s measles and mumps were rites of passage for children. Measles were usually spotted by a red or reddish-brown rash and flu-like symptoms. Since the introduction of a vaccine in 1963, incidents in America have decreased by 99%. Mumps cause the painful swelling of the parotid glands (at the back of the cheek, between the ears and jaw) and, if left untreated, could lead to swelling of the brain and other dangerous complications. Before the late '60s it infected about 200,000 people a year in the US. Due to a vaccine created in 1967, today there are roughly about 1,000 cases.

In 1995, the United States approved a chickenpox vaccine, which has all but eliminated the existence of the disease in America. While the itching of chickenpox was seemingly unbearable untreated, the illness sent 11,000 people to the hospital every year and 100 people actually died from it.

While some people still show the physical toll of childhood cases of polio, much of the world has left that disease in the past. It came in three forms. The most recognized is Paralytic polio because of the crippling physical effects on the body. The other two are Abortive polio, which has flu-like symptoms, and Nonparalytic polio, which is more severe. In 1952, the U.S. had a polio outbreak that infected 58,000 people, killing over 3,000 and leaving another 21,600 with mild paralysis. That same year, Dr. Jonas Salk tested the first vaccine. By 1955 it was administered to the public.

Modern science has basically eradicated many diseases from industrialized countries like the U.S. and has even wiped one disease off the face of the Earth. During the last century, smallpox claimed over 300,000,000 lives. The last naturally contracted case of smallpox occurred in Somalia in 1980. Now, it only exists in high-security labs in the United States and Russia for research reasons (though there are fears that it could be used in biochemical warfare - like the U.S. did to Native Americans for centuries).

While science has helped the "developed" world all but rid itself of these diseases, many areas still face a great number of them. Measles, though vaccines are becoming more available, still affects 400,000 people worldwide. Disease like typhoid fever, which is practically unheard of in the U.S., still kills about 600,000 people a year.

Though typhoid is controlled by the implementation of better sewer and waste disposal systems, many of these illnesses are controlled by the creation of effective vaccines. The first smallpox vaccines or inoculations were documented in India around 1,000 BC. They would rub infected pus into a skin lesion, and the result was somewhat effective. To understand why they gave themselves a miniature dose of smallpox, we first must define vaccine.

In the simplest of terms, a vaccine is a weakened or dead version of a virus introduced to the body, generally through injections. The immune system builds up a defense so when/if the body comes in contact with the actual virus, the virus is ineffective. But there has been some skepticism about vaccines in recent years. There are debates that vaccines can cause chronic diseases like autism, Crohn's disease and cancer. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, no correlation between the two has been definitively proven.

While the idea of a vaccine is simple, the actual creation of one that works is another story. HIV and AIDS is still without a vaccine, as are many other viruses, but science continues to push forward in developing new vaccines for other viral diseases that infect mankind and one day hopefully HIV and AIDS will be no more prevalent than smallpox.