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Biotech / Medical : North American Vaccine -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Don W Stone who wrote (307)	2/25/1998 11:39:00 AM
From: David Bogdanoff	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 507

Don; Regarding your meningitis posting and the death of that youngster, I will share with everyone our families experience in Brazil in 1974. When we arrived there we found out that there was a meningitis epidemic in full swing in and around the city of Sao Paul, population 8 million at that time. There were approximately 50 deaths a day, officially, and ambulance sirens could frequently be heard taking peoople to the hospital. My wife often went to the open air market for shopping; one day she noticed that a particular vendor was no longer in his usual spot. It seems he had contracted meningitis and died within 24 hours. After months the government brought in a vaccine from France(sorry, don't know any details) and proceeded with mass inoculations. Each city had one designated day in which teams of vaccinators arrived and the population lined up at designated public places for a shot. fortunately they were not painful. Of course, there was no discussion in the media of side effects, efficacy, etc. The vaccine was in limited supply and the public got just one chance at vaccination. Anyone who wanted one later would typically find that there was none available. Eventually, the legislature passed the "Law of Meningitis" which required a certificate of vaccination against meningitis for many government benefits, such as public employment or gov't. housing loans(the only kind available). Certificates were not passed out during the vaccination process and the only person I know who got one was an American who understood the system well enough to anticipate that he might need one and asked for one when he was vaccinated. Fortunately, the law was never enforced. The epidemic disappeared, probably with the passing of winter. I never heard of any results as to the effectiveness of the program. Such issues in that country were very political. David