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Welcome to our Monday night lecture here. We're at Medicino Post Hospital for our free lecture
tonight. We're in the Redwoods room and we have lectures every month. We have free lectures
on various health topics. Tonight we really wanted to present a lecture on immunizations.
We have a registered pharmacist and a business owner for many years, Jerry Karabisch, here
to provide us with a lot of information and answer any of the questions that you have.
So Jerry, thank you very much for coming tonight.
Oh, thank you for having me. Immunizations and your health. There are many things which
help our health as we look through life. There's prescriptions, there's actually nutrition,
exercise, but there's one area where we often don't think of being immunized. When I grew
up, we all got immunizations as children. In some instances that has not been carried
out in the present day and I think some of the information that I present will show you
that we should seriously consider getting a better area on immunizations. So what is
immunization and your health? Well, what is an immunization? An immunization is the treatment
of a person to create a condition of being able to resist a particular disease through
preventing the development of a pathogenic microorganism or counteracting the effects
of the organism's byproducts. This treatment makes a person immune to a subsequent attack
by a particular pathogen. Now what is a vaccination? A vaccination is the introduction of microorganisms
that have been previously treated to make them harmless for the purpose of inducing
the development of immunity. Vaccinations are non-pathogenic substances containing
antigens that stimulate an immune response. They provide protection against disease without
causing the disease themselves. They are classified either as alive or attenuated or
inactivated and both will lead to a positive immune response. Now vaccine successes have
led to disease prevention in a number of areas. The most significant success has been the
elimination of smallpox in the world. Presently there are a number of organizations including
Rotary working towards adding polio to that list. Other diseases have been eliminated
from the United States and other developed countries but you're still available in
undeveloped countries. The development of new vaccines is a definite goal of the health
care industry. Now what are some of our successes? You can see here a list of diseases. Diphtheria
the peak in 1938 of over 30,000 cases. The latest data I have is from 2007 and there
were no diphtheria cases in that year. Measles has dropped from over 750,000 which peaked
in 1958 to less than about 30 cases recently. Mumps from a little over 200,000 peaking in
64 to about 715. Pertussis which is whooping cough from a little over 250,000 in 1934 to
8,000 cases. This is one we'll talk about a little later which is a problem presently
affecting our nation especially in the state of California. Polio which many people think
of being really high. You see here really only 21,000 cases in its peak year of 1952
were down to zero at this time. Rubella half a million cases almost and the 64, 65 down
to 11. Tetanus we often hear of it only 601 cases we still had 20 in 2007. And smallpox
which peaked in the 20s at a little over 100,000 is down to zero. So you can see in many cases
we've had successes in using vaccination and immunization against some very severe diseases.
Now nearly 50,000 US adults die each year from vaccine preventable diseases and that's
really something we have to look at. Influenza and pneumococcal disease are the eighth leading
cause of death in the United States. Both can be prevented by vaccination. Hepatitis
B is a major cause of disease in the United States but only 10 to 20 percent of the highest
risk adults have been vaccinated. Again an area that could use improvement. And only
10 percent of the women have received vaccinations from human papillovirus which causes cervical
cancer. And one in three people develop herpes zoster which has the common name of shingles
in their lifetime if they have had chickenpox and many elderly people have not been vaccinated.
Vaccination rates in adults, influenza about a 42 percent rate. Influenza in people over
the age of 65 is a little better at almost 69 percent. Pneumococcal pneumonia 65 percent.
Tetanus 75 percent, 57 percent. You should get a tetanus shot about every 10 years. And
zoster shingles which I told you was not heavily used. You can see less than 2 percent of the
people who are potential candidates for shingles have been inoculated for the virus.
Misconceptions about vaccines. That these diseases were disappearing before vaccines.
There's no indication that in our lifetime diseases just eliminate themselves. In fact
we constantly are getting new ones. Some people think there's no need to continue vaccinating.
I mean this is one of the things that well we've pretty much eliminated measles and other
diseases in kids. That's because you know everybody was vaccinated at one time for them.
Now people aren't if your child has not been vaccinated for measles and somebody from a
foreign country which has not eliminated measles enters the United States they can cause a
epidemic in the area of measles. And that vaccines cause harmful effects. They don't.
Most vaccines are attenuated in such a way that they themselves do not cause the diseases
that they prevent. And that multiple vaccines overload the immune system. Totally a
misconception. When I started my work in the pharmacy I had to get vaccinated and I got
four vaccinations the same day. And absolutely didn't even have a sore arm. So that's not
a problem. Vaccine preventable diseases. Vaccines protect patients against numerous
diseases because they contain antigens that evoke an immune response resulting in an immunological
memory and this protects the patient from getting the disease. Now what I've done is
I've put together a number of slides listing the diseases that can be prevented by vaccines.
First one is influenza. Many of us are familiar. This is the common flu. It affects patients
of all ages and new strains of virus are common. Every year there are different viruses that
cause this particular program. During a pandemic the disease spreads quickly and mortality
is usually significant. Examples of pandemic flu occurrences in the United States. We had
the Spanish flu right after World War I, 1918-1990 caused over 675,000 deaths in the United
States. Asian flu more recently in the late 50s, 70,000 deaths. Hong Kong flu in the late
60s, 34,000. Swine flu and H1N1 flu which are the most recent ones. We do not have the
death dated available at this time. Influenza, again, effective prevention by an annual
vaccination. In this particular case it does require an annual vaccination. There is no
long-term effect. 200,000 individuals are hospitalized annually leading to more than
30,000 deaths. These deaths, again, can be prevented by vaccination. The makeup of the
annual flu vaccines varies based on the type of viruses that are most likely to cause an
outbreak. This is obviously something that the disease center does take a few guesses
at because they have to figure out what viruses are going to be infecting us. And then they
develop the vaccine accordingly. The vaccine is an inactivated flu vaccine. It cannot cause
flu itself. One dose is what you need annually and the flu season usually runs from December
through March in the United States. This year there are actually two levels of flu vaccines
which were made available to the public. There was a regular dose for people under the age
of 65 and there was an accentuated dose for people over 65. As you age your immune system
may not respond as quickly or as actively as a younger person's. So the idea was to
create a vaccine that had a little more oomph to it to give you the protection.
Pneumococcal disease, which is pneumonia, it exists year round and is most common in
winter and spring. 175,000 patients are hospitalized annually and it can result in
pneumococcal meningitis leading to an 80% death rate in elderly patients. I'm sure many
of you in the audience know of an elderly person contracting pneumonia who ended up
dying. If that person possibly had been given a pneumonia shot when they were feeling
better or before they were hit by pneumonia, this could have been prevented. Drug resistant
strains have increased, therefore prevention by vaccinations becomes important. Many of
the bugs that create pneumonia no longer respond to the normal antibiotic therapy that is
available because they've developed immunity to those particular diseases, those particular
drugs. So patients, especially the elderly, should receive a dose and this you only need
a dose every five years. So whereas flu vaccine is an annual event, if you get a pneumonia
shot it will last for five years. Tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis, the reason I lump
them together is because when you get this shot they're all in one shot. Tetanus often
called lockjaw as the majority of cases result from injuries occurring indoors and at home,
most of them from things at home. The disease results in severe muscle spasm and is fatal
in 10% of the reported cases. Diphtheria, generally this disease affects the pharynx and tonsils
but can lead to myocarditis and neuritis. The overall death rate is 10%. And the last one
in this one is pertussis, which the common name is whooping cough. Now whooping cough
is extremely contagious, affects all ages and is easily transmitted to children by their
family adult population. What has happened recently because of the epidemic in the state
of California is parents and grandparents should be vaccinated. In the pharmacy I've
vaccinated many grandparents who were encouraged or almost ordered by their children to get
vaccinations before they would actually babysit their grandkids because they were potential
carriers and adults don't suffer the same severity that children do and it can cause
death in the very young. So if you're a grandparent and visiting young children you should get
a shot. And on this one you need a booster shot every 10 years for everyone over 11 years
old. And I said this shot would have all of the DPT not just the pertussis and those again
you should try to figure out when you got your last shot and if it's been more than
10 years you should get another shot. These first three shots that I mentioned which are
the flu and the pneumonia and the DPT can all be obtained through your local pharmacy.
Most pharmacists do offer that service. Then we have varicella which is chicken pox in
the young and shingles in the old. And basically this is a relatively new vaccine. Most of
us in this room probably over the age of 40 had chicken pox. Maybe even over the age of
30 had chicken pox. Well if you had chicken pox you are a candidate for shingles. One
in three people who had chicken pox as a youngster are candidates for shingles. Shingles is
not a very nice condition. It is extremely painful and it can lead as I mentioned on
the bottom here to post-epatic neuralgia which is a chronic pain condition which is really
not treatable in any sense except locally and it could last the rest of your life and
is not very pleasant condition. So again for children they should be vaccinated for chicken
pox. Every adult over the age of 60 who has had chicken pox should be vaccinated for shingles.
Now we have the human papillovirus vaccination and this particular disease is a commonly
sexually transmitted disease. There is over 6 million new cases annually. It is an etiological
agent for cervical cancer, genital warts and other diseases such as vulva and vaginal cancer.
So it prevents some very serious conditions not that everybody who gets the human papillovirus
is going to get those cancers. The vaccination will reduce the possibilities of these cancers
and 50% of sexually active individuals will get their HPV in their lifetime. Vaccination
should be given especially to all females 9 to 26 years old. It will not cure an existing
condition and in most cases vaccines cannot be used to treat an existing infection. Hepatitis
A, people most at risk are international travelers, men who have sex with men and users of illegal
drugs. It is spread by a fecal oral route and contaminated food and water. Travelers
should receive a dose of the vaccine at least two weeks before they travel. Travelers to
Canada, Western Europe, Japan, New Zealand, Australia generally do not need to be immunized
but if you are going to any third world country it is a good idea to get a hepatitis A shot.
These also can be obtained at your local pharmacy. Hepatitis B, this is a blood borne pathogen
commonly transmitted by exposure to affected blood and body fluids and asymptomatic patients
can affect other people. So you might not have it but you can pass it on to other people.
The acute illness often involves jaundice. It is especially a problem in infants supporting
data that indicated birth doses are recommended. Obviously when we're talking about dosing
to very young children this is something that probably would be done either at the hospital
or at a pediatrician's office. This is not something that the average pharmacy is set
up to do. And it is the second known cause of cancer after tobacco use which is something
I imagine most of you don't realize. And everybody dealing with blood and body fluids
including sexual contact should be vaccinated. Obviously if you're giving vaccinations,
especially when I took my training to give vaccinations, I did get a hepatitis B shot
because what it does is protects me if I come in contact with body fluids such as blood
during a vaccination of another individual. Measles, mumps, and rubella. Probably again
this is something, especially on the measles, mumps, a good percentage of the people 40
and over probably had that as a child. Rubella also was very common at that time. Measles
was always considered one of the most contagious diseases known to humans. And some people
considered a very minor thing. But it can cause diarrhea, otitis media, pneumonia, and
in some cases it leads to encephalitis and death. Mumps is an inflammation of the parotid
glands and also has complications of meningitis, testicular inflammation, and deafness. There
are some cases where mumps can make a male sterile. So it again is something that should
be handled on a younger basis. Rubella causes maculopopular rash, that's redness. Complications
are abortion, fetal death, and premature delivery. This is obviously especially true in women
of child bearing age. They should be vaccinated for rubella. So and should really the recommendation
is vaccinated all children greater than 12 months and women before pregnancy. Meningococcal
disease, the leading cause of bacterial meningitis in children and young adults. And again here
despite antibiotic therapy where we're often running into bugs which are immune to the
antibiotic, we got a death rate of 9 to 12 percent and up to 40 percent of the bacteria
actually enter the bloodstream. It can cause hearing loss and neurological damage. Target
vaccination groups are adults 11 to 18, college freshmen living in dormitories, maybe it's
because of close living, military personnel, and travelers to third world countries which
many of us probably do take in our time of vacations. Hemophilus influenza type B, this
can cause significant morbidity and mortality in children under five and is a leading cause
of bacterial meningitis in this age group. Again here is a particular vaccination that
has to be done early in life and the target audience is all infants and is not generally
given to children aged five or older. So this is definitely something given very early in
life. Polyomyelitis which is a well known disease, many of us grew up in areas where we were
actually quarantined in the summers of the 50s because of the spread of polio. Polio
destroys the anterior horn cells of the spinal cord leading to flaccid paralysis. Interestingly
only about 1% of polio infections actually result in severe paralytic disease. It has
been eradicated in most of the world by oral vaccine which was licensed in 1963 and vaccination
is recommended for all children starting at two months and there is a schedule that you
do and you continue it until they're four to six years old. Routine vaccination of adults
is generally not recommended. So again this is an interesting thing that should be done
earlier. Again most polio myelitis vaccinations are not done in pharmacies. Rotavirus is the
most common cause of severe gastroenteritis in infants and children usually between six
and 24 months. Interestingly enough prior to taking my course in vaccinations I didn't
draw this linkage but when my second son was born he ended up with a severe diarrhea, ended
up having to go into the hospital and was there for quite some time. He had lost so
much body water that if you pushed on his skin it would actually leave a hole in the
skin. So severe diarrhea, dehydration, electrolyte imbalance and if you don't catch it in time
can cause death. The disease results in more than 500,000 childhood deaths in the developing
countries. We happen to control it a little better in this country but you know you're
rolling your dice. It's another disease where infants should be vaccinated for it. Rabies
transmitted to humans from the bite of an infected animal. Usually it's from a dog or
domestic dog or cat but it can be if you get involved with skunks or raccoons or something
who are infected and it indicates that it's the only vaccine that may be overused and
why do I say that? Well what happens is if you get bit and you report this it seems that
you will be treated as if you really did get rabies especially if they can't get the animal
and test the animal for rabies. They figure that even though the rabies shots are not
a very pleasant thing they are much less of a hazard than the death that comes with the
relative not treating the disease. So again recommendations post exposure prophylaxis
should include prompt cleaning of the wound followed by the administration of both rabies
vaccine and rabies immune globulin and you should be referred to experts in the field
of rabies. Now if you travel internationally there's a couple of other diseases which you
can probably prevent by getting vaccinated. Yellow fever which is transmitted by an infected
mosquito. Typhoid fever which is a food and water borne disease and Japanese encephalitis
which is also a mosquito borne viral endemic and these vaccines should be obtained when
traveling into area where these diseases are prevalent and you can check with the CDC to
find out if an area you're going to could possibly have these diseases. You might say
well how come malaria isn't on there? Well there is no vaccine for malaria. So what you
do with your traveling in that area there are actually oral medications that you can
take as a malaria preventative but there's no vaccine at this time. Now there are such
things as bioterrorism agents and while these agents that cause smallpox and anthrax are
not readily available and the diseases have been basically eliminated from the world the
threat remains that the agents causing these diseases could be used by terrorists. You
remember a number of years ago there was the anthrax which was being sent through the mail
to various people and there are stores of smallpox vaccines available under guard but
you know that if this could fall into the hands of a terrorist and since smallpox vaccination
is not as prevalent anymore most of you over 50 have a little ring on your arm which is
done by smallpox maybe even if you're younger than that but I understand that in many cases
it's not vaccinated against because supposedly it's over with but again it could come back
if something happened with a bioterrorist problem. So what's the conclusion? Vaccines
have been successful in preventing a broad range of infectious diseases but we're armed
with both the knowledge and availability of these vaccines. It is however your responsibility
as citizens to put this knowledge to use and to prevent these preventable diseases not
only for yourself but for your family members. And how can you help? You can talk to your
doctor and or pharmacist about the vaccines that can help you. You can take the responsibility
to educate yourself and other family members about the advantages of immunization and do
not assume that you and your family members are immune to attack by viruses that cause
the disease. You should be safe and not sorry. Now one of the things that has come up in
recent years there is a product called thiomerosal which was used as a in vaccines to just stabilize
them and there was a major publication on thiomerosal leading to autism. The physician
in England who authored that particular information has been proven to be a charlatan and the
information of thiomerosal leading to major problems in autism there is no linkage. There
is actually very little linkage between vaccines and other problems. If you feel that you're
allergic to eggs you should not get a flu shot because the flu vaccine is actually developed
by and grown on eggs. So there are some things that you should watch when you're using
vaccines but in general they're very safe. I've been giving vaccinations at the pharmacy
I work at and have had very little if any reaction to any of the vaccines I give which
have been primarily flu, pneumonia, DPT and shingles. So shingles in some cases can cause
you to have a sore arm. I remember I got a typhoid shot early on when I was traveling
that caused me a sore arm but you know that particular situation lasts for a couple of
days and then goes away. So my recommendation is to make sure that you understand the benefits
of vaccination and immunization and that it definitely can improve and keep you healthy.
Thank you.
Thank you. I have some questions. I had a co-worker ask me today to ask you, her son
was not immunized for pertussis and he's 25 years old now and she wanted to know if it's
too late what you should do to have him immunized. Well again as I mentioned you don't just get
a pertussis shot you get a DPT. If he hasn't had the whole range he should definitely get
them. He had the TD. Oh he only had diphtheria and tetanus? Parents at one stage and I remember
this we were just getting the TD or the D they were doing the whole DPT thing. They were
avoiding the pertussis because of fears of fevers or whatever it was that they were getting
excited about. As a 25 year old he himself the symptoms would be like an extreme cold
or something like that. The term whooping cough was given its name because young people
have their throats constricted when this disease hits and so the and it sounds like whooping.
Adults your vocal and neck is stronger it doesn't constrict as much so you think you
might just have the flu but you actually do have whooping cough. Now what's the negative?
The negative is that this 25 year old comes in contact with his 4 year old in the family.
He can pass this disease on which is much more fatal to anyone under the age of 5 than
it is to people who are adults. So the word to her would be that if he contracts the disease
he's going to be more of a risk to the young people the nieces and nephews or maybe his
own children if he's 20 by the time he's 20 and he has children and infants and he
has the disease he could pass this on. That's right. That's more of a he's not going to
the chances of an adult dying from pertussis or whooping cough are minimal. So that doesn't
mean you can't. Right. It depends on your whole immune system and how it reacts to it
but if he has a well developed immune system he's just going to be sick and then he'll
get over it. But he can pass this on to somebody else. And like I said there's no reason that
he just shouldn't get all three of them and boost up his tetanus shot again. Diphtheria
is as I said they showed there's no cases in diphtheria. Tetanus is still prevalent
in a possibility and obviously whooping cough right now is endemic in California.
What about the meningococcal vaccine? Now that's the one for the kids that are going
off to college. Is that? Yeah and basically I think you know the information I got was
that this was a group which you know should be vaccinated. I think it's because they do
lots of things together and yeah they share things. Yeah and therefore you know what you're
saying is it's easy to pass things on. That also becomes in the sexually prevalent diseases.
You know our society today is much more sexually active and I think you know the problem of
passing on diseases which are potentially sexually transmitted is greater and if there
is a possibility of using a vaccine which will reduce the effects of the transmission
or not the effects of the transmission but make you immune to a disease which can be
transmitted that way that you should take care of it. The cost to the you know country
in medical expenses in treating these diseases is much greater than the cost of preventing
them through vaccination. So how long has this vaccine been out? I know that I've known
about it for about 10 years. How long has it been out? I'm not sure. You know again
vaccines as I said it's always something that is coming out. The you know the shingles
vaccine is less than 10 years old probably and there's a number of other ones that are
fairly recent. Like the HPV is more recent. Yeah so they're constantly doing this but
yeah and many of the ones like I don't think you know when my kids were little I wasn't
told anything about the rotavirus that I should get a you know shot but I think you know
looking at it now that's what my son had. Now again I think when I grew up and maybe
when my kids even grew up which is they're in their late 40s early 50s now so it was
much more common to have your children inoculated on a regular basis for whatever was available
and you know like I said they said you know even polio has only been around for about
40 years polio vaccines have only been around for about 40 years. So prior to that you know
you always had a chance. I grew up in Milwaukee and in the summer of something like 55 or
something like that I was the whole city of Milwaukee was put under quarantine. But when
you showed those numbers the outbreak or the cases was relatively low compared to say something
like measles or mumps. Right right but it was a more dramatic I mean that's why I said
people say oh measles that's you know everybody gets measles there's nothing serious about
measles but you get polio you get paralyzed you know I mean so there's a difference in
so it has nothing to do with numbers it has to do with the fear of getting the disease.
So yeah they're only like you said the data showed that the highest number in the late
50s was like you know what was it 21,000 or something like that for polio and yeah half
million for measles. Well you know like I said measles everybody gets measles but you
don't want to get polio. They don't understand like measles can affect the heart and there
can be people later on who get heart murmurs and heart problems and it can trace it back
to having measles when they were a child. Oh dear. You know we all had them. And you know
and there was no measles vaccine when I grew up you know so I mean I got measles. I got
it. I got chickenpox. I got whooping cough. I didn't get whooping cough but I did get
mumps. I do have a question I've heard a lot of controversy about the HPV because it is
so new. Where could a person go to learn more as far as. The CDC yeah if you go to the CDC
website which is down in Atlanta they have an outstanding information on every vaccine
related disease. So that that's probably your best source and you know you know years ago
you have to find well where is it written up but now it's written up on your computer
screen all the time. So you can find out more about it than you'd ever want to learn. How
about scarlet fever. Yeah well yeah scarlet fever is not again is can't be treated with
the vaccine. It's just like I mentioned you know with the malaria. So you know it isn't
part of this particular thing. I had scarlet fever when I was about five and I was treated
almost like polio. I was put into an isolation ward at a hospital to overcome scarlet fever.
My daughter had scarlet fever and we just treated her at home. She was losing her skin
on her fingers. I mean my wife would you know put ointment on her fingers and put gauze
gloves on her fingers and it was it was not a pleasant but she overcame it. But that again
has other effects. It is cardiovascular effects that you can have. I've got sort of an abnormal
heartbeat. Maybe it's the result of the scarlet fever I had when I was five. So far it hasn't
affected me in any other way but you never know. Different people react to you know not
only you know diseases because of your own body. Your own body is the best thing to protect
you. All you're doing when you're doing vaccines is you're giving your body like an additional
little help to overcome that. Your body will develop you know that's what happens. Your
body develops a vaccine itself if you want to look at it that if you get this disease.
But it also has other negative side effects. What happens is when you use the vaccine the
same item or will cause the body to recognize that there's this foreign body but the foreign
body will not cause the disease. It just causes the body to develop the immunity to the disease.
Well many people who get a disease don't get it a second time because they develop an immunity
to it. But it's much easier to take a shot than get the disease which could cause you
many more problems. I was kind of wondering about diphtheria since you mentioned the DPT
and you mentioned that it affected the tonsils and I was thinking about all the cases of
the people of a certain age that had tonsillitis, tonsillectomies. You don't hear of that anymore.
Is that do you is it possible that though many of these cases were in fact they had
contractile? Well that also but also the development see tonsillitis is the tonsils were sort of
a reservoir which the body used to fight off infections. And now if you start to get an
infection and you're going to a physician he treats you with an antibiotic which then
prevents the disease from centralizing and causing the tonsils to expand. You don't have
any tonsils. Yeah I had my tonsils out when I was 11. I had my appendix out also when
I was young. But I think nowadays with antibiotic therapy we end up never getting to severe
tonsillitis and having to remove the tonsils. I mean the tonsils actually help fight off
disease. That's what they're there for. Oh well just one other thing I grabbed this out
of the Chainsore Pharmacy News which sort of indicated the top vaccines account for
over five billion dollars in sales right now. So this is a fairly large and profitable area
that the pharmaceutical companies you know there are some times when things don't get
developed you know and one of the reasons is that it doesn't seem to be a profit motive.
Our country is very motivated by profits and so vaccines because it takes a long time to
develop them and they are protected they do turn out to be something worthwhile which
then means that the industry will strive to bring out more and more vaccines if it can.
Well like the pneumonia vaccine. Right. I'm thinking you know how many seniors I know
that have pneumonia that are hospitalized. Yeah. They have this long hospitalization.
They'd rather not be here. We would like to prevent them from being here. Right. It's
not good for anybody. Right. And in pneumonia and older people it's because as you age your
immune system does not work as well and therefore what you're doing by getting the
vaccination is you're helping your immune system respond quicker and better to control
the disease. So seniors that are visiting their doctors regularly would be advised
they're on a schedule. Their doctors would be checking for that do you believe now?
Yeah. But it still is an option. I mean you know I work in the pharmacy and I talk to
people somebody comes in and getting an antibiotic and I got the flu. I said you get a flu shot?
No I should have gotten a flu shot but I did. Maybe next year I'll get a flu shot. I said
you know this was like say in January and I said get a flu shot now. You can get a flu
a second time. Different bug you know. Something like that. So talk to somebody who complain
now shingles vaccines are quite expensive. Many insurances don't pay for it. So they
could be I think the price is around $215. A gentleman in my rotary club had a shot and
it was sort of like complaining to me about the cost. But he also mentioned that his father
had gotten shingles. I said would your father have paid $215 after he got the shingles to
get rid of the shingles and he said yes. Very much have paid the $200. So it's like buying
insurance. And the nice thing about shingles insurance you only pay for it once and you
don't have to worry about your premiums going up.
With the shingles vaccine do you get a light case of the shingles? Could you get very sick?
No. High fever? No. I had a shingle shot probably about six weeks ago and I had a sore arm for
two days right here where the shot was. That's one person but studies we could look at CDC
to see what the percentage is. You do not get a shingles. You'll get a localized reaction
to the shot but you don't get shingles.
Question number two, I apologize for being late but the TB vaccine, why are they not
giving the TB vaccine in the United States like they do in Australia?
TB again was one of these things they thought they had totally licked and it was actually
being handled primarily by antibiotics. Now the TB what they're giving you to the best
of my knowledge because we didn't study it at all in my training because they didn't
talk about it. It is trying to see if you're susceptible to TB or if you have it in a low
level because TB you can have it and it's latent. So when you get that shot it tells
you it's not really a vaccination.
You're talking about the TB test.
Yeah.
I'm talking about the TB vaccine where you come from the Philippines.
You actually get a TB vaccine?
The people that come here that get their tests are always positive and they said oh well
we were vaccinated with the TB vaccine that was required.
Well I don't know. Like I said the text that I used to get qualified to give shots which
is about that thick did not even go and didn't mention tuberculosis at all.
Very interesting.
But I know that the tuberculosis test that they give you in this country sometimes is
not a vaccination. It's basically saying what your susceptibility or whether you're a carrier.
And the problem is that the original antibiotics that were developed were very able to handle
tuberculosis and eliminated in this country. I mean if you go back into the 19th century
there were millions of deaths in this country from tuberculosis. What got rid of that was
the antibiotics. And now what we're finding is that many of the TB bacilli are not, are
able to protect themselves against the antibiotics. They have mutated so that the normal antibiotics
don't work and so they're constantly trying to develop new antibiotics.
We are an over-medicated society and one of the negatives of that is that especially in
the area of antibiotics and not only over-medicated but in animal and food development we use
antibiotics to get better yields, to get better cows and beef and pork and that. So we build
up the potential of bugs which are immune to the common antibiotics. And therefore there's
always new antibiotics coming out, hopefully, which the bug won't have an immunity to.
But the more they're misused, the more they are like, for example, when people come into
the pharmacy and get a prescription for an antibiotic it always, basically always, we
always say till gone. We're supposed to take them three times a day till gone. I can't
do this by any data but I would imagine there's a lot of antibiotics sitting on people's
shelves at home because they stop feeling bad. I figure why should I continue taking
this? Well, there is a possibility that you were dancing around the ring and jabbing the
guy and you never knocked him out and then he comes off the canvas and he gets hurt a
little bit and knocks you out. So that's what could happen in our society. We develop bugs
which come off the canvas and hit us and now are immune to us, knocking them down again.
So it's better to take your medications the way they're prescribed and not guess. If you
get 12 antibiotic capsules to take, take all 12 of them. Don't put four of them away for
a case I get sick again. Any other questions?
What about fungal immunizations? Are there any anti-fungal immunizations?
No, there's no immunizations for fungus. That's all topical. There are many topical drugs
which will attack fungus and now they even have developed oral medication which attacks
fungal infections. But then again, a fungus is totally unrelated to a virus. Most of your
immunizations are viral type diseases. So you can go after and develop immunizations
against viral diseases. To go after fungal diseases is not that easy.
Any other questions?
No, thank you very much for having me.
That was really good.
And go out and get vaccinated.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you.