2019

January April July October
February May August November
March June September December

January 9, 2019

Focus: Vaccine Injuries
Attendance: 171

Dear Vacciners,
I learned a valuable lesson over Christmas. Specifically, it is not necessarily wise to adhere to their request, re: making an annual password change, when the IT department is closed for the Holidays and, therefore, not available to fix an ensuing glitch re: new password not being recognized by the Emory webserver; thereby locking one out from opening VDC registration between December 21 – January 2nd. Oops. April Fools, the Festivus edition!

But Emory IT re-opened today, has now fixed the problem from their end, and we are back in bidness.

So … HAPPY NEW YEAR!
It's the first Wednesday of the month; why don't you celebrate it by registering to attend NEXT WEDNESDAY's meeting of the Vaccine Dinner Club?? (As a reminder, the first Wednesday of January always falls on the second Wednesday in January…)

Bursitis or Bust?
What the "Shoulder Injury Resulting from Vaccine Administration" (SIRVA) Data Reveal

Starring:

Elisabeth Hesse, MD

Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer
CDC Immunization Safety Office

Dear Vacciners,
Vaccines are good – I mean, if I hadn't gotten my flu shot this Fall the case of influenza I came down with while attending a funeral in Kansas City before Christmas would probably have actually landed me in the hospital out there, instead of just seriously threatening to.*

But … vaccines aren't all rainbows and unicorns. In many cases "no pain, no gain" turns out to be just as true with vaccines as it is with gym attendance. Just ask anyone who has recently gotten a tetanus toxoid jab.

Be careful not to punch them in the shoulder while you are asking though because chances are that that sucker is all sorts of tender right now. In fact, injection site reactions are a fairly common side effect of tetanus vaccine. But, so what? Nine out of 10 social media activists agree that transient shoulder pain is a pretty small price to pay to avoid dying a slow, agonizing death from lockjaw.

But what if that shoulder pain ISN'T transient? And what if it has been caused by an incorrectly administered flu shot? Is it still a small price to pay?

The problem is that if a flu jab is placed incorrectly by the person wielding the needle – too high up on the arm into the synovial tissue of the shoulder joint or into the bursa for example, instead of down in the deltoid muscle tissue where it belongs – you can end up with a pretty hefty immune reaction leading to significant inflammation and debilitating, chronic shoulder pain. Hello opioid addiction!

So, SIRVA is serious. Is it also treatable? …. Let's ask Siri.

Hmmm…. If you google "SIRVA vaccine," instead of being directed to some CDC or WebMd site on what SIRVA is, how prevalent the problem is, and what to do if the worst happens … here are the first four links:

Flu Shot Shoulder Injury? | SIRVA Help and Info | Free Consult Available
Multi-million Dollar Settlements! Experienced Vaccine Injury Lawyers are standing by to review your case for Free!

SIRVA Injury | What To Do Next | Learn More About Vaccine Court
We have won over $25 million for clients in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. Speak directly with a vaccine injury lawyer today for a free case evaluation - always. Call Us Today. Free Case Evaluations. Speak With a Lawyer Now.

Shoulder Injury from Vaccine? | Ward Black Law-Free Consult
Vaccine Injury Compensation Attorney. Time May Be Limited. Find Out If You Have a Claim.

Vaccine Injury Attorneys | National Compensation Program
We Do Not Take Autism Cases. We Do Not Provide Exemption Assistance. No Autism Cases.

So SIRVA suits are big business. And no doubt rightly so if you are one of the people suffering from it.

But how many people ARE suffering from it? And what sort of hit is the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program taking as a result of SIRVA cases? And is the VICP even the right entity to absorb the cost of these suits? After all, the problem is in poor administration of the flu shot, not in the vaccine itself.

What do the SIRVA data say? Inquiring minds want to know!!

So act on that New Year's resolution I KNOW you made (you know … that one about getting out more, meeting interesting people, and pairing cool science with hot food on a regular basis … THAT resolution) and come to the January meeting of the Vaccine Dinner Club to learn more about SIRVA.

Hope to see you for dinner at the Club on January 9,
-Kimbi

*After getting seriously symptomatic in the middle of a funeral I was in Kansas City to attend, I spent the next four days locked in a hotel room battling a high fever, chills, and all the other ick related to flu while trying to do mental math with a foggy brain --- hmmm…"If you can actively shed flu virus for 24 hours before symptoms set in and for up to 5-7 more days after that; and if I'm only here for 4 days … how big a national flu epidemic can I personally claim credit for given that I am spending significant infectious time AT AIRPORTS and ON PLANES?' And is there someone at the CDC I should be voluntarily be surrendering myself to?"

That last thought came to me as my still-symptomatic self was sardined on an airport train headed to baggage claim back in Atlanta during the height of the holiday flying rush. I was fighting gravity in the middle of the train car, trying hard not to cough on or touch anyone, when a kindly looking woman put her hand right on top of mine, to steady me. You'd think the mask I had on would have been a clue, but no… "You are SO going to regret that ma'am," I muttered under my breath, "Merry Christmas!"

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February 6, 2019

Focus: Vaccine Technology; Crystal Balls
Attendance: 223

End of the Vaccine Era?
Why Nextgen Antibody Technology will Disrupt the Legacy Vaccine Enterprise

Starring:

James Crowe, MD

Director, Vanderbilt Vaccine Center
Vanderbilt University

Dear Vacciners,
We all know how vaccines work. You give someone a shot/spray/drink of something that is pretending to be a bio-terrorist (i.e. immitating a dose of biolethal influenza, chickenpox, diphtheria, etc) and the next thing you know that person's body has totally fallen for the ruse and mounted a protective antibody response to the pretend terrorist. Which will come in mighty handy as soon as the real deal shows up.

That shot/spray/drink might contain a weakened version of the real deal (e.g. measles, tetanus), a killed version of the real deal (e.g. polio), or just some essential bits and bobs of the real deal (e.g. whooping cough) but, in all cases, the underlying goal is the same … to use a pretend bad guy / outside agitator to prompt your body into becoming a highly efficient factory capable of churning out buckets of antibodies on a moment's notice.

But what if, instead of going to all that trouble to create active immunity by prodding a person's body into pumping out oodles of antibodies against Dread Disease du Jour (DDdJ), you made passive immunity your goal and simply injected them with oodles of antibodies to DDdJ?

Would that even work?

Well, yes….

Assuming that you ever spent time as a fetus, you know from personal experience that passive immunity works just fine since you yourself were born chock full of antibodies your bio-mom handed you in utero (#bestbirthdaypresentever).

But passive immunity only lasts a few weeks/months post birth so how often would someone require a top-up of new antibodies to keep their adult-acquired passive immunity working?

And how would you even go about growing antibodies in vast enough quantities for the commercial market?

Oh, and if those hurdles are overcome does that mean that passive immunity is getting ready to Uberize vaccine technology and doom the poultry industry*?

Interesting questions all.

If the basic science needed to address these questions and pursue the answers interests you – and why wouldn't it? – come to the February meeting of the Vaccine Dinner Club and hear more about it from Dr. Crowe!

Hope to see you for dinner at the Club on February 6,
-Kimbi

*the poultry industry LOVES the vaccine industry because most traditional vaccines are grown in eggs

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March 6, 2019

Focus: Global Health
Attendance: 297

Dear CDC Vacciners,
No guarantees that you will be able to access the registration form again this month. The problem is solely occurring to people at the CDC, but not to EVERYONE at the CDC so we are having trouble isolating the problem. Definitely a gremlin in the works. So, as has become the norm, please let me know if you can't access the form and I'll register you myself from my end.

Out, Out Damn Spots!
Global Measles/Rubella Control / Elimination / Eradication(?) Efforts

Starring:

Alan Hinman, MD

Consulting Senior Advisor
Center for Vaccine Equity
Task Force for Global Health

Clubhouse Location:
WHSCAB Plaza & Auditorium
Agenda:
6:00pm — wine, cheese, networking
6:30pm — meeting convenes
7:45pm — casual buffet dinner, more networking

Dear Vacciners,
In epi-speak, an "outbreak" happens whenever you have more cases of something icky than a particular area is normally expected to get. The more common the disease, the higher the number of cases have to have been identified before an outbreak is declared; conversely, the rarer the disease, the smaller the number of cases.

In the United States, it only takes THREE cases of measles in a single city to constitute an outbreak.

Bad news … We currently have five outbreaks of measles active in the US. As of Valentine's Day 2019 there were 61 cases of measles in Clark County, Washington, 73 cases of measles in Brooklyn, New York, and 135 cases in Rockland County, New York.

What's up with that? Why so many cases in a country in which measles was supposedly eliminated way back in Y2K.

Three reasons:

  1. Measles is really, really, REALLY contagious. The risk of catching HIV from a single exposure (during unprotected sex) is 0.08%. The risk of catching measles from a single exposure (by walking into a room that a measles-infected person vacated several hours ago) is >90%.
  2. Measles is sneaky. You can spread the measles for FOUR DAYS before you even start to show symptoms.
  3. The Wright Brothers invented the airplane. We may have eliminated measles in the US but it is still very much rampant in other parts of the world and unvaccinated travelers have gotten into the bad habit of bringing measles back as a souvenir from their trips abroad. Stop that!!

Measles … the gift that keeps on giving.

Are you interested in hearing more about the good, the bad, and the ugly of our efforts to contain, to eliminate, and to exterminate one of the most contagious diseases on the planet from a public health hero who has been working towards that goal for decades? Of course you are.

Register now.

Here's hoping to see you for Dinner at the Club on Wednesday, March 7
-La Goddess

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April 3, 2019

Focus: Vaccination on the Front Lines
Attendance: 264

Helping Where it Hurts:
Vaccination Under Fragile and Humanitarian Conditions

Starring:

Ronald Waldman, MD, MPH

George Washington University

Dear Vacciners,
Those of us in public health have been consumed recently with exciting (and fruitful!) efforts to enlist lawmakers and the public in increasing vaccination rates – even as officials take serious (WA) and unprecedented (NY) steps to prevent unvaccinated people from posing a risk to themselves and other in areas that are experiencing new and worsening measles outbreaks.

It has been daunting, to say the least. In fact, the lessons we are learning these days about just how deeply rooted vaccine refusal can be – for example, the Oregon family who refused to vaccinate their child against tetanus (or anything else) even after he had spent >60 days in the hospital with life threatening tetanus (47 of those days in the ICU) have been sobering.

But at least those people in the US who want to be vaccinated can be.

That is not uniformly true around the world.

In fact, there are many areas of the world in which people seeking to receive – or administer -- vaccinations have to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles to doing so because of manmade (war) or natural (earthquakes, floods, famine) disasters.

The April VDC speaker is an expert in that.

During his career Dr. Ronald Waldman has worked to institute, implement, maintain, and/or expand public health initiatives in Bangladesh, Somalia, Haiti, and Pakistan – among a lot of other places -- while each of those countries were undergoing catastrophic turmoil. He is also the founding director of Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health Program on Forced Migration and Health.

So this is a speaker knows from disaster.

Are you interested in learning what he has to say about vaccination under fragile and humanitarian conditions? Of course you are!

Register now.

Here's hoping to see you for Dinner at the Club on Wednesday, April 3
-Kimbi

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May 1, 2019

Focus: Increasing vaccination uptake in a challenging climate
Attendance: 186

10th Annual Meeting of the "Mahy Seminar".
The Mahy Seminar is an annual lecture featuring the globe's top virologists. It honors the outstanding career of Dr. Brain Mahy and acknowledges his unparallelled role in expanding the field of virology at the CDC and beyond.


HPV Vaccine:
Science, Policy and Program

Starring:

Lauri Markowitz, MD

HPV Team Lead, Division of Viral Diseases
CDC/NCIRD

Dear Vacciners,

Did you ever wonder if there are any differences between Australia and the USA beyond:

Well, here's another one…

AUSTRALIA:
HPV vaccination rate: >70% of girls vaccinated with all three doses
Outcome: 93% decline in diagnoses of genital warts in women under 21

UNITED STATES:
HPV vaccination rate: ~37% of girls vaccinated with all three doses
Outcome: Percentage of unvaccinated girls at age 13 with at least one missed opportunity for HPV vaccination; year 2000 birth cohort: 83.7%

And another …

AUSTRALIA:
What their politicians say about HPV vaccines:

UNITED STATES:
What our politicians say about HPV vaccines:

The good news is that despite the dispiriting political rhetoric in this country, some USA kids ARE getting vaccinated and the percentage who are has been slowly but surely climbing every year (although the recent surge in vaccine hesitancy is showing signs of affecting that too). With luck, this is just a temporary hiccup as the vaccine clearly works ... new HPV infections have dropped by more than half in female teens 14-19 years old since the vaccine was introduced in 2006.

So just think how much better it could be if we matched Australia's HPV vaccine coverage rate. Or, even better, Rwanda's (93-95% coverage of 6th grade girls in 2011)!!

Some people seem to think that its all about sex. But IS it? Is queasiness over talking about sex really the main reason that politicians, and pediatricians and parents aren't pushing for more HPV coverage?

What role does Science, Policy and Practice play in HPV vaccine uptake?

Inquiring minds want to know!

Interested?

Hope to see you for dinner at the Club on May 1st,
-Kimbi

This email was hand woven from 100% organic recycled letters and punctuation marks. As such, slight variations in spelling and grammar are to be expected and should not be considered to be flaws or defects.

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June - August, 2019

Summer Vacation
starring
The VDC Membership

Focus: Rest and Relaxation
Attendance: 3,368
Clubhouse du jour: The World

Wherever there is a vaccine to develop, describe, or disseminate, a vaccine preventable disease outbreak to examine, or fun to be had with friends and family -- VDC members will be there in force!

 

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September 4, 2019

Focus: Public Health
Attendance: 725

Contagion!
How Biosafety Level 4 Labs Help Save the World from High-Consequence Pathogens

Starring:

Stuart Nichol, PhD

Distinguished Consultant for Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers
Division of High-Consequence Pathogens and Pathology
National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Victoria Olson, PhD

Branch Chief, Poxvirus and Rabies Branch
Division of High-Consequence Pathogens and Pathology
National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Dear Vacciners,

As evidenced by the now daily sightings of school busses in the wild, VDC's summer hiatus is almost over. In fact, in less than one month we will be gathering together to celebrate the opening of the 2019-2020 Vaccine Dinner Club season (Yay!).

So here's your end-of-summer to-do list:

  1. Forward this message to new colleagues / ESI officers / post-docs / students / friends / neighbors / anyone else who moved to our region over the summer and might be interested in the VDC
  2. Think about all those thousands of water bears who probably survived their recent crash landing on the moon.
  3. Consider applying to be a "bacon intern" for Farmer Boys foods. $1,000 for one day's work. Application deadline: 8/20/19.
  4. Review Colin Nissan's 2018 "Tick Check" article in the New Yorker in which he asserts that checking yourself for ticks after going outside may be the only way to see what your body looks like covered in ticks.
  5. Read this CDC fact sheet and then watch this 2 minute video trailer for the movie Outbreak.
  6. Register NOW for the 2019-2020 VDC season opener. (During registration you will be given a chance to provide your guesses about what Hollywood got wrong about BSL behavior in that Outbreak movie trailer).

Dear Current (and Future) Vacciners,
This season the VDC is 21 years old; which means that our Club is finally able to drive, drink, and vote in all 50 states. So let's get together and celebrate over two decades of Hot Food and Cool Science by learning new things about how high containment labs handle bugs which are unusually adept at creating mortality, misery, and mayhem for one and all and for which there is no treatment or vaccine. Good times!!

To prep for that, try this multiple choice test:

2019 is the 50th anniversary of:

  1. Matt #1 or Matt #2
  2. Danny #1 or Danny #2
  3. Woodstock, Altamont, Stonewall, Sesame Street, Chappaquiddick, Abby Road, email, the first moon landing (which did not, by the way, involve water bears), and the CDC's BSL 4 lab.

High Consequence Pathogens:

  1. Belong to the 1% and split their time between the Hamptons, Cabo San Lucas, and Vis, Croatia
  2. Is a gated-community halfway between Elephant Butte and Truth or Consequences, New Mexico
  3. Include highly lethal viral, bacterial, prion, and related infectious and diseases of unknown origin

The Vaccine Dinner Club:

  1. Is a 3,800+ member organization that exists to facilitate networking, dialogue, and collaboration between researchers, clinicians, policy makers, and historian/journalists who are interested in vaccine need, history, policy, discovery, development, testing, deployment, use, and/or evaluation.
  2. Has two missions: To advance the practice of vaccine science by stimulating the intellectual and research productivity of the vaccine research community in the Southeast and to have a really good time at our monthly meetings
  3. Is THE place for inquiring minds to be on the first Wednesday evening (usually) of every month during the academic year
  4. All of the above

Answer key: C, C, D

Which is not only "CDC" – home of our September meeting panelists – spelled sideways, it is also a subliminal prompt urging you to check out an opportunity to exercise the other side of your brain on Friday nights this year by dancing with the Chattahoochee Contra Dancers (CCD) at the Decatur Recreation Center. Neither partner nor previous experience required.

Register Now.

Hope to see you and your guests for Dinner at the Club on September 4th,
- Kimbi Hagen
VDC Director/Goddess

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October 2, 2019

Focus: Public Health
Attendance: 353

Please Note: Our speaker, Paul Rota, has sent some links he wants on your radar:
• Measles and Rubella Surveillance Data (from WHO)
• MMWR on Measles: Oct 4, 2019



Also note that that, for this month only, the first Wednesday of the month actually falls on the second Thursday.

THURSDAY
October 10, 2019

Measles:
The Virus We Love to Hate

Starring

Paul Rota, PhD

Chief
Viral Vaccine Preventable Diseases Branch
Division of Viral Diseases
National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Manisha Patel, MD, MS

Team Lead
Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Herpesvirus and Domestic Polio Epidemiology Team
Viral Vaccine Preventable Diseases Branch
Division of Viral Diseases
National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Discussants

Alan Hinman, MD, MPH
Consulting Senior Advisor
Task Force for Global Health

Walter Orenstein, MD
Professor and Associate Director
Emory Vaccine Center
Emory University

Dear Vacciners,
This month's program is going to be Alice in Wonderland-level atypical, as fully befits a meeting focusing on a disease that is supposed to have left our shores 19 years ago:

It will be held on October 10
Why? Because of schedule movement due to speaker travel and Yom Kippur, in 2019 the first Wednesday in October will actually fall on the second Thursday.

The program will be from 6:30 – 7:45pm
Why? Because we were unable to secure ANY venue space for wine & cheese (before) or dinner (after) on the new date. But, never fear, since that is a very bad Trick to play on you, we will send you on your way after the program with a goody bag of halloween-themed Treats instead

We are asking that, this month, you enter and exit WHSCAB by the ground level outside door, next to the fountain between WHSCAB and the School of Medicine building. (The door into what looks like a petrified nuclear silo)
Why? Because there is going to be someone ELSE's event going on upstairs in the Plaza during our meeting And it would be rude to make their attendees super jealous that they have to be their event instead of at our way cool Vaccine Dinner Halloween-themed Treats Club (VHtTC) meeting

And now, on with the show...

In epi-speak, an "outbreak" happens whenever you have more cases of something icky in a particular area than that place is normally expected to get. The more common the disease, the higher the number of cases have to be identified before an outbreak is officially declared. Conversely, the rarer the disease, the smaller the number of cases.

For example, given that influenza made almost 49 million people sick in the USA last year (THIS IS THE PERFECT MONTH TO GET YOUR FLU SHOT) you'd have to have several tens of thousands of cases pop up in an urban area before a flu "outbreak" would be declared. On the other hand, measles [used to be] so rare in the USA after it was decreed to have been eliminated from our shores in 2000 that it only takes THREE cases of measles in a single area to constitute an outbreak. But that is changing rapidly. In the first five months of 2019 we had already had more total cases of measles in the US than we had had per year for the past 25 years. And as of the end of September, the US total was somewhere north of 1,200 cases (within 22 separate outbreaks).

And things are even worse in other parts of the globe. In the same time period (i.e. through the end of July 2019) 182 countries reported 364,808 measles cases to WHO. This is a 150% increase over the previous year in Europe, a 230% increase in the western Pacific, and a whopping 900% increase in Africa.

So what's up with that? What's behind the Massive Measles Mess?

Four things:

  1. Measles is really, really, REALLY contagious. The risk of catching HIV from a single exposure during unprotected sex is 0.08%. The risk of catching measles from a single exposure by walking into a room that a measles-infected person vacated several hours ago is >90%.
    • Here is how you avoid catching the measles

  2. Measles is sneaky. You can spread the measles for FOUR DAYS before you even start to show symptoms.

  3. The Wright Brothers invented the airplane. Unvaccinated travelers have gotten into the bad habit of bringing measles back to their home country as a souvenir from their trips abroad. Stop that!!

  4. Fear is powerful. Check it out.

Are you interested in learning more about the most contagious disease on the planet? Of course you are!

Register now.

Here's hoping to see you for Halloween-themed Treats at the Club on Thursday, October 10
-La Goddess

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November 2019

Focus:
Attendance: N/A 

No Meeting This Month

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December 4, 2019

Focus: History, Advocacy, Public Health
Attendance: 316

Dinner & a Movie Night
In Honor of World AIDS Day 2019

5B


From the website: "5B is the inspirational story of everyday heroes, nurses and caregivers who took extraordinary action to comfort, protect and care for the patients of the first AIDS ward unit in the United States."

"5B is stirringly told through first-person testimony of these nurses and caregivers who built Ward 5B in 1983 at San Francisco General Hospital, their patients, loved ones, and staff who volunteered to create care practices based in humanity and holistic well-being during a time of great uncertainty."

"The result is an uplifting yet candid and bittersweet monument to a pivotal moment in American history and a celebration of quiet heroes, nurses and caregivers worthy of renewed recognition."

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