The Mumps Make a Comeback and an Interview with a “Vaccine Skeptic”
On March 13th, IE University’s academic offices coordinated the release of a statement concerning rumors of mumps present on campus. The story was out though, with cases being reported throughout the undergraduate and masters degree programs.
Mumps is a viral infection which causes the saliva glands to swell. Common side effects of mumps include muscle pain, headache, and fever. In 1967, American scientists created a cure for mumps called the Jeryl Lynn strain, which essentially eradicated mumps as a common disease. Although not usually a lethal disease, before the implementation of the vaccine, mumps were one of the main causes of deafness amongst children worldwide. In the United States and Western Europe, mumps cases have dropped by 99%, an attestment to the success the Jeryl Lynn strain. Although the mumps vaccine is very effective, it has a success rate of 93%, people can still catch mumps although they were vaccinated.
According to Masters in Management (MIM) student, Hubertus Neuhaus, the mumps case
originated in his program. Although he wasn’t sure on exact details of who brought it in, other stories from students all pointed to the MIM program. Unfortunately the case of mumps was not isolated to IE, other universities throughout Europe experienced similar outbreaks.
The BBC released an article on March 31st entitled “Why Are University Students Catching Mumps.” An investigation of Nottingham Trent University and the University of Nottingham found 223 suspected cases and 40 confirmed cases of mumps. Although IE’s case of the mumps was certainly less severe, it demonstrates the potential extremes of a mumps outbreak.
Although the vaccine has a 93% success rate, not everyone is convinced of its benefits. 4th year International Relations Student, Alex Blankenstien describes herself as a “vaccine skeptic”. She finds fault in both the pharmaceutical industry’s intense lobbying pressure and questions the health benefits of vaccines. When it comes to wrongdoing by big-pharma, Alex points to potential conflicts of interest when it comes to board members of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the agency responsible for regulating prescription drug and food standards in the United States.
“It’s like a revolving door, all the people who are on the board of the FDA all had previous jobs in the big-pharma industry”. The Federal Statute authorizing the FDA states that 4 of the board members should come from industry, three from academia, two from consumer or patient advocacy organizations and one from the health provider community. Four spots are then left unfilled to be appointed by the board to whomever it views as necessary to furthering the expertise of the board members.
When asked about specific vaccines which Ms. Blankenstien views as a threat, she stated that the HPV vaccine had caused 275 deaths and was responsible for numerous cases of blindness and paralyzation. From December 1, 2014 to December 31, 2017, the FDA tracked 29 million doses of Gardasil-9 (the most common HPV vaccine) and found that seven people had died, although their causes of death could not be tied to Gardasil-9.
Figures from The World Health Organization (WHO) show that 311,000 women died from HPV in 2018 alone. 311,000 deaths compared to seven potentially unrelated deaths cannot be viewed as an impediment to the success of preventing HPV.
WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom stated that three million people die worldwide from a lack of vaccinations while 24 million fall into poverty due to the cost of becoming sick. This trend is especially apparent in developing countries, where effective medical care is difficult to find. Dr. Adhanom believes that education campaigns concerning the impact of vaccines are the only way to ensure that the public truly embraces the effectiveness of modern medicine.