The unbearable invisibility of working solutions

[oursin]

I had an o sancta simplicistas moment yesterday via bsky, where somebody was posting, somebody's post from Some Other Social Media, saying that as somebody whose job is entering up medical codes, for A Long Time Now they have never had to input the codes for polio, pertussis, measles, rubella, mumps, etc and really doesn't know why they are bothering to vaccinate for these defunct ailments anymore....

(I also saw something about one of the last people to still be in an iron lung as a result of polio pre-vaccines, and this is still, at least for us Olds, living memory.)

Admittedly, I also saw somewhere somebody going yay Ozone Layer Hole is fixed Nature is Healing but I find that Scientists are Sceptical, or at least cautious in their optimism over that and that perhaps it is All More Complicated than simply doing away with CFCs (and the wildfires and so forth have Not Helped).

Massive improvement in fighting the Invisible London Pertiklers of the present day: London Ulez averts more air pollution than that caused by capital’s airports, report shows:

The London mayor, Sadiq Khan, said: “The decision to expand the Ulez was not something I took lightly but, when confronted by the evidence, it was clear that clean air zones like these are the most effective way to cut toxic air and meaningfully protect people’s health.
“In a few short years the Ulez has prevented tens of thousands of tonnes of toxic nitrogen oxide emissions from being released and the London-wide expansion is enabling 5 million more Londoners to breathe cleaner air.”
Khan said that non-transport sources still contributed half of the deadly emissions produced in London, and called on the government to provide the necessary funding and powers to allow the capital to tackle other sources of air pollution.

Public health schemes such as London’s Ulez can be traced back to the study that found an association between air pollution and mortality.

I am reminded, somehow, of the Disasters That Did Not Happen Because Preparedness... (Y2K, e.g.).

Comments

[lilysea]

I know someone who got pertussis (whooping cough) as an adult in Australia in 2003

She was very very sick for weeks, and permanently lost some lung capacity

She was fully vaccinated as a child, but had not received the recommended adult boosters in her 20s/30s

[oursin]

I knew people more or less my contemporaries who had had polio and recovered a reasonable degree of functionality but then went down with Post-Polio Syndrome in midlife.

[castiron]

One of my kids caught pertussis at daycare as a preschooler despite being vaccinated; the pediatrician said "yep, that batch of vaccine turned out to be less effective than usual".

Fortunately kid's case was mild -- we wouldn't have thought to take them in if there hadn't been an announcement that there were other cases at the daycare -- and responded quickly to antibiotics. But yep, these diseases are by no means gone.

[weofodthignen]

You're supposed to get a booster? Whoops, that's what I get for moving to the US ... plus by the time I was in uni I was actually being told that appointments with my GP were reserved for old people, go away, luckily the stomach pain went away, but there's why I have never had an annual physical that I know of). According to my parents, I actually got whooping cough, shortly after getting the shot: whooped once, then stopped as they were debating whether to take me to A&E. My current doc says this is impossible, so maybe I had some other potentially deadly disease. But if true, I think that gives me an almost complete set of the childhood diseases: all but polio. (I got the sugar cube; had one schoolmate who had had it, everyone else I knew was a couple of years older.)

That person seems unaware of global travel.

[lilysea]

That person seems unaware of global travel

Yes: a lot of Australians go to Indonesia for cheap holidays

a disturbing number of them bring measles back with them to Australia

there are public health announcements about measles exposure sites, and they are always Australian travellers who just got back from an Indonesian holiday

[princessofgeeks]

"polio, pertussis, measles, rubella, mumps, etc and really doesn't know why they are bothering to vaccinate for these defunct ailments anymore...."

OMG the stupid. It burns. OMG.

Like they don't even bother to check on Wikipedia to see WHAT IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING. AND HOW THESE ARE NOT DEFUNCT AILMENTS.

Not enough headdesk available.

[oursin]

'Gather round, children, and let a historian of STIs tell you about the Return of Syphilis, and the recurrent saga of gonorrohoea developing resistance to whatever antibiotic had been the Miracle Cure....'

Admittedly - in my years in history of medicine - I think the claim about the outbreak of leprosy in I think it was Elstree was a local moral panic about Those Movie Types and did not actually happen.

[marymac]

If she's not entering for mumps then she works for a practice without late teen/early twenties cohort, because the mumps component of MMR notoriously wears off just as kids enter communal living situations like college, university and national service...

[redbird]

Oy vey.

Does this person really not understand that the various viruses and bacteria are still around in the wild?

I assume they don't know that part of why they're not being asked to input the code for whooping cough is that adults with the hundred-day cough usually don't go to the doctor, and even if they do the doctor may not order them tested for that bacterium. Especially now, with the covid-denying people saying "it's just a cold" and not even testing for what's known to be going around.

[coth]

Measles endemic now in London I believe, with levels of vaccination well below what's needed for herd immunity.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/measles-epidemiology-2023/confirmed-cases-of-measles-in-england-by-month-age-and-region-2023

[oursin]

Damn you, Andrew Wakefield.

[movingfinger]

I've seen community alerts about all of those except maybe rubella in the past seven or eight years. Polio is waiting for its breakout comeback moment, due to lack of vaccination in certain religious communities, and mumps runs around a few college campuses every year. Maybe parents would be more attentive to mumps if they knew about the potential side effects in adult male patients.