The Plague, The Flu and You

This article is being reprinted with permission from the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, October 27, 2009
 

Shots or Not?
The Plague, the Flu, and You

(OMNS, October 27, 2009) Swine flu. Bird flu. The media has everyone worrying about epidemics and pandemics. Yet there is nothing said about one of the great communicable diseases of all time: the plague. The Black Death. No, it is not extinct. There are new cases of plague in the United States every year, totaling over 400 cases since 1950.

And yes, there is a vaccination for it. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00044836.htm

So have you had your plague shot?

You haven't?

Why isn't your doctor urging you to get one? Do you know anyone who has had a plague vaccination? Then why is there no plague epidemic? And why is vaccination supposedly the only way to stop a flu epidemic?

One proffered explanation is that the diseases are dissimilar, because influenza is viral, and plague is bacterial. But tetanus is bacterial, and we aggressively vaccinate against that. Indeed, the CDC http://www.cdc.gov/ncird/dbd.html specifies a considerable number of Vaccine Preventable Diseases http://www.cdc.gov/ncird/dbd.html#meningvpd which are bacterial. These include, among others: anthrax, bacterial meningitis, diphtheria, Haemophilus influenzae serotype b, and, of course, pertussis (whooping cough).

Plague is not even on the CDC's list. Wait a minute! The Black Death, the disease that killed at least a quarter of Europe, hasn't even made the list of Vaccine Preventable Diseases?

Worldwide, there are over 2,000 cases, and hundreds of deaths, every year from the plague. In the United States, human plague cases average about 10 to 15 per year. http://www.dhpe.org/infect/plague.html Most cases are in the Southwest. http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/plague/plagwest.htm CDC states that "persons who have regular contact with wild rodents or their fleas" in areas in which plague has occurred should be vaccinated. That's right, it isn't just rats that carry the fleas that carry the plague. Squirrels, mice, rabbits, coyotes, woodchucks, cats and dogs all carry fleas. Fleas are found everywhere. Then why isn't plague everywhere?

One explanation is that plague is climate related. This map shows plague distribution in the US: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/plague/plagwest.htm If incidence were related merely to the heat of the day, we might expect a fair share of plague cases in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Alabama. But there aren't. If plague is temperature-dependent, it is a confusing illness to say the least: how come almost all USA cases are in the warm, dry Southwest and yet plague decimated Europe in the 1300s? Most of Europe is a lot cooler than the American southwest. Indeed, too warm a climate may actually stop the spread of plague. http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSL24636220080902

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Comments

[elgatovelludo]

This is just silly. Comparing the Black Plague to Flu is like comparing coconuts to grapes, which are both foods.