Apathy and Ignorance: False Prophets of Autism and the Anti-Vaccine Movement

This chapter highlights the story of autism, the widespread acceptance of its incorrect cause, and the impact on use of vaccines, all stemming directly from deliberate, false reporting. The basic conflict is twofold. First, involvement of a scientific method that must be reproducible, be reliable, and possess substantial proof is in conflict with common/personal beliefs. Second, doctors, scientists, and public health workers, despite their mandate to listen to parents and patients concerning their opinions, must base medical conclusions on evidence that validates the outcome of each patient’s health issue. It is in this milieu that autism and the anti-vaccine groups still do battle. In 1998, Lancet, a usually respectable and reputable English journal, published Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s opinion that the measles, mumps, rubella (German measles) vaccine injected into the arms of children caused inflammation, leading to harmful chemicals entering the bloodstream through the gut (intestine). These factors, he said, traveled to the brain, where the harmful chemicals/toxins caused autism. In the face of this “fake news” about the source of autism and measles, the vaccination rate for measles dropped in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Hepatitis Viruses: Oysters, Blood Transfusions, and Cancer

This chapter studies the history of hepatitis virus infection. Hepatitis and/or jaundice were recorded in the fourth century BC by Hippocrates and over 1,000 years ago in the ancient Chinese literature. By the end of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, the association of a virus infection with jaundice and liver disease was made. The major hepatitis viruses are hepatitis A (HAV), hepatitis B (HBV), and non-A, non-B or hepatitis C (HCV). HAV is transmitted almost always by fecal–oral routes but occasionally by transfusion or inoculation of blood obtained during the transient stage of viremia that occurs during the HAV incubation period. While there is currently no effective vaccine for HCV, an effective vaccine exists for HBV. A problem with the HBV vaccine is individuals refusing to be vaccinated. Nevertheless, recent progress made on the understanding and treatment of these viruses has led to the World Health Organization planning that by 2030 hepatitis infections will be reduced by 90% and deaths by 65%.

Poliomyelitis

This chapter addresses how polio was first discovered and then controlled, the problems with its elimination, and the argument for continued vaccination to ensure control. Polio was not defined as a specific disease entity until the late seventeenth century. Meanwhile, paralytic poliomyelitis epidemics first became known in the nineteenth century. Whether or not sporadic outbreaks of paralytic poliomyelitis occurred earlier is less certain and a matter of disagreement. The chapter then looks at the three main personalities who were fundamental in developing the vaccine for poliomyelitis: Jonas Salk, Albert Sabin, and Hilary Koprowski. Jonas Salk and his colleagues chemically inactivated the poliomyelitis virus with formaldehyde and provided a vaccine that produced immunity and dramatically lowered the incidence of poliomyelitis. However, this immunity waned over time. Additionally, administration by needle made vaccinations of large populations difficult. For these and other reasons, Koprowski, Sabin, and others independently worked on the development of a vaccine with live attenuated viruses. Without such combined efforts, the vaccine would never have materialized.

A General Introduction

This introductory chapter provides an overview of how viruses have caused geographic, economic, and religious changes. Smallpox alone, in the twentieth century, killed an estimated 300 million individuals, about threefold as many persons as all the wars of that century. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, smallpox killed emperors of Japan and Burma as well as kings and queens of Europe, thereby unseating dynasties, altering control of countries, and disrupting alliances. In addition to propelling the establishment of Christianity in Mexico and Latin America, viruses played a role in enlarging the African slave trade throughout the Americas. In contrast to viruses such as smallpox and measles which are now harnessed by the innovations of healthcare, new viral plagues of fearful proportions have appeared. These include HIV/AIDS, sudden acute respiratory syndrome, Ebola, Zika, and bird flu. This book looks at the history of viruses and virology, which is also the history of the men and women who have worked to combat these diseases.

Conclusions and Future Predictions

This concluding chapter explains that as viruses like human immunodeficiency virus, severe acute respiratory syndrome, Zika, and West Nile evolve and emerge, humans are faced with new challenges. Simultaneously, perceptions about new infections and new plagues continue to change. What can and should be done? One must now consider the possible return of smallpox and its use as a weapon of bioterrorism. Meanwhile, even as the march to contain measles and poliomyelitis viruses continues at an impressive pace, bumps and setbacks have been encountered along the way, especially with measles having recurred in 2019 at the time of writing this book. Ultimately, the history of viruses, plagues, and people is an account of the world and the events that shape it. In the end, the splendor of human history is not in wars won, dynasties formed, or financial empires built but in improvement of the human condition. The obliteration of diseases that impinge on people’s health is a regal yardstick of civilization’s success, and those who accomplish that task will be among the true navigators of a brave new world.

Human Immunodeficiency Virus: AIDS, the Current Plague

This chapter explores acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a lethal disease cause by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Of the more than 75 million people HIV has infected in the 36 years (1983–2019) since the initial case report, nearly one-half of them have died. Not only the victims of this infection but also their families, communities, countries, and even continents endured years of suffering as AIDS proceeded on its long course of physical destruction. Today, however, the enormous advance in antivirus drug therapy has dramatically reduced the death rate and altered the portrait of this disease from an acute lethal disease to a chronic persistent infection. In 2019, the combination antiretroviral therapy has enabled those infected to survive at roughly the same rate as the general non-infected population. However, this increased longevity includes an upsurge in the former group’s medical problems caused by the side effects of antiretroviral therapy. Despite an outlay of $1 billion per year for AIDS research, no vaccine is on the horizon for preventing this medical catastrophe.

An Overview of Newly Emerging Viral Plagues: The Hemorrhagic Fevers and a Newly Mysterious Suspect of Viral Disease, Acute Flaccid Paralysis

This chapter highlights three of the recently identified viruses: Lassa fever virus, Ebola virus, and hantavirus. All three are equally lethal infectious agents, but they are members of different viral families. They share the ability to cause hemorrhagic fever. Once infected with any of these viruses, the victim soon suffers profuse breaks in small blood vessels, causing blood to ooze from the skin, mouth, gastrointestinal tract, and rectum. Internally, blood flows into the pleural cavity where the lungs are located, into the pericardial cavity surrounding the heart, into the abdomen, and into organs like the liver, kidney, heart, spleen, and lungs. Eventually, this uncontrolled bleeding causes unconsciousness and death. There is currently no established vaccine to prevent these potential plagues, although several are in various stages of development, and an Ebola vaccine is currently undergoing trial in Africa. The chapter also considers a newly emerging and undefined but serious disease of children, which arose primarily in 2014. Based on clinical observations, the disease is identified by the signs and symptoms of acute flaccid myelitis.

Measles Virus

This chapter explores the origin and infectivity of the measles virus in the course of human history. How measles first came to infect humans is not clear. Definitive proof is hard to come by since measles virus infection was once nearly impossible to distinguish from smallpox virus infection. Consequently, both had been lumped together as a single entity. As early as the tenth century, the Arab physician Abu Becr first attempted to distinguish between the two. However, it was not until the seventeenth century that English physician Thomas Sydenham actually documented the clinical entity of measles infection. Once it was understood that infection with measles virus confers lifelong protection from the disease and that humans are the natural host, interest turned toward developing a preventive vaccine. The chapter then considers the purported evidence that measles virus vaccines may be harmful. Such misinformation is often propagated for personal reasons yet greatly affects public health and individual lives.

Smallpox: The Geopolitical Impact of Smallpox

This chapter looks at selected events throughout the course of history in which smallpox has played a decisive role. The story of smallpox is interwoven with the history of human migrations and wars, dramatically favoring one population or army over another. Smallpox actually changed the course of history by killing generals and kings or decimating their enemies. That history is presented as context for the chapter’s second part, which assesses whether or not there is a need to revaccinate today: the issues, risks, and benefits involved. Despite the eradication of smallpox as a disease, could the virus return? Since the virus does not linger in the form of a persistent infection, it is amenable to permanent eradication—that is to say, removal from the world. However, because the virus no longer circulates in any community, the numbers of never-vaccinated or never-infected susceptible individuals increase continually. Further, complete or efficient immunity of those previously vaccinated is believed to wane in 10 to 20 years. Consequently, the pool of highly susceptible individuals continues to expand enormously.

Introduction to the Principles of Virology

This chapter defines what a virus is, how it replicates, and how it causes diseases. Peter Medawar, a biologist awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology in 1960, defined viruses as a piece of nucleic acid surrounded by bad news. Viruses cannot multiply until they invade a living cell. However, viruses can enter all cellular forms of life from plants and animals to bacteria, fungi, and protozoa. As opposed to plants and animals, which are made up of cells, viruses lack cell walls and are therefore obligatory parasites that depend for replication on the cells they infect. The attachment or binding of a viral protein to a cell receptor is the first step that initiates infection of a cell. The type of cells with such receptors and/or with the ability to replicate a given virus often determines the severity of illness that a virus can cause, the distribution of areas in the body that can be affected, and the host’s potential for recovery.