This is a good example of how quickly and without any basis the vaccines are exonerated since there is no way they could know there was “no effect on her unborn child”. - SM
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/hsn/20010822/hl/wildlife_rabies_vaccine_infects_woman_1.html
Thursday August 23 02:38 AM EDT
By
Neil Sherman
HealthScoutNews Reporter
WEDNESDAY, Aug. 22 (HealthScoutNews) -- In what health officials say is the first
documented case of its kind, a pregnant woman from northeastern Ohio was
infected by a rabies vaccine used in a wildlife bait program, the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (news
- web
sites) (CDC) reports.
The illness developed three days after the 28-year-old woman was bitten by
her pet dog, which had been chomping on a chunk of rabies vaccine bait. The
bait, scattered by public health officials to prevent the spread of rabies in
wild animals, contained a genetically modified oral vaccine called
vaccinia-rabies glycoprotein virus.
The woman experienced fever, swelling of the arm and inflamed red skin and
was given antibiotics and had the infected wound surgically drained. She
suffered no adverse effects, the researchers say, and there was also no effect
on her unborn child.
The incident happened last September and the woman had been pulling the bait
out of her dog's mouth when the animal bit her finger and grazed her arm, says
Dr. Charles Rupprecht, chief of the CDC's rabies section and author of the case
report that appears in the Aug. 23 issue of the New England Journal of
Medicine (news
- web
sites).
"She washed her bitten finger very well, but where the dog grazed her
arm, she probably did not pay as much attention," he says. "And
that's where the virus impregnated the skin. And so we have the first
documented infection with this recombinant virus."
Rupprecht says the dog must have punctured the packet of vaccine hidden
within the bait.
"The vaccine is enclosed in something like a ketchup packet within the
bait, which looks like a charcoal briquette. It uses a polymer, which binds
together fish meal and fish oils that attract raccoons. Most carnivores, in
fact, are attracted to the bait," he notes.
The genetically modified virus was developed in the 1980s as a way to orally
inoculate raccoons and foxes against rabies. It was used successfully in Europe
before it was field-tested in the United States in 1990.
The Food and Drug Administration (news
- web
sites) approved the rabies vaccine bait in 1995, and since then planes have
dropped tens of millions of these packets in wildlife areas throughout the
eastern half of the United States.
"There are a number of firsts with this oral vaccine and bait,"
Rupprecht says. "It's the first vaccine to be used for an oral vaccination
program against rabies in the United States, and it's the first bait ever used
to control the disease in raccoons. It was the first wildlife vaccine ever used
in the U.S., and it was the first release of a genetically modified organism in
the world."
Dr. Michael Auslander, public health veterinarian for the state of Kentucky,
says the case is an anomaly.
"We've had extensive experience with this bait, and this is the first
known case of transmission from vaccinia," he notes. "Handling the
bait has always been safe, and it's been going on for 10 years in Texas, which
has the most experience."
Auslander says the bait is "used where there are naturally occurring
epidemics of rabies in foxes and raccoons. These animals can pass rabies on to
cattle and dogs, and that's what we are trying to avoid -- the spread of the
disease from wildlife to domesticated animals or to people."
In 1999, there were 7,067 reported cases of rabies in animals in the United
States, an 11 percent drop from 1998. Rabies in raccoons was virtually unheard
of before the 1950s, but has spread since the 1970s. Last year, five Americans
died of rabies; four of them came into contact with bats and the fifth was
bitten by a dog while traveling in Africa.
The case study presents "sort of a mixed message," Rupprecht says.
"It shows the relative safety of this vaccination approach, since this is
the first case [of infection] we've been able to document in 10 years. And
remember [the use of these baits has] been going on in Europe since 1986, where
it helped to eliminate rabies in foxes in France.
"The mixed part of the message is that every year we've been putting
out more and more doses in more geographic areas as part of a national
plan," Rupprecht continues. "And we have data showing that the
vaccine bait is controlling rabies." The report, for instance, says that
no rabies cases were found among raccoons in 2000.
Rupprecht says that when public health officials scatter the bait, every
effort is made to alert the public. "It's usually accompanied by a whole
media campaign -- press, radio, letters to public health officials and
veterinarians. But we've been doing it for 10 years, and the news starts to
become old hat."
What To Do
"We don't want to become cavalier, and we want to remember the things
we learned in childhood, such as washing all animal bites with soap and
water," Rupprecht advises. "And contacting our primary care provider,
if illness results."
For more on the oral rabies vaccine bait and control of the disease in wild
animals, see the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention, which also has information on rabies.
Another place to go is the New
Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services.