Vaccines Past, Present and Future

IMAGINE A WORLD without vaccines. For those living in affluent countries today, it is difficult to envision life — or more accurately, the increased illness and death that would be part of life — without this preventive benefit. But, prior to the dawn of bacteriology and to rapid developments in the 1930s of antitoxins and vaccines against infectious diseases, this was the world that existed. Our feature The Value of Vaccines explores the transformative role immunization has played in our world. Yet statistics show that more Americans die each year from vaccine-preventable diseases than from car accidents, breast cancer or AIDS.

While vaccines have proved to be the greatest public health achievement of the 20th century, vaccine complacency could become the greatest public health crisis. Couple our lack of personal experience with the infectious diseases that immunizations have eradicated with misinformation or simply lack of education, and the real epidemic may become non-vaccine compliance. The need for the medical community to educate and advocate on behalf of vaccine awareness, safety and efficacy has never been more urgent.

We have noted a surge of news on this topic, and have included a piece in our BioNews section regarding a survey of healthcare professionals that shows a majority of their office visit time is spent answering concerns about child vaccinations. While many doctors will ask parents to sign a waiver, others simply choose to refer them to another practice—essentially “firing” non-compliant patients. With documentation of onceeradicated diseases beginning to make a comeback, this may not be as rash as it first sounds. According to an article published in January on the Homeland Security Newswire, the 2010 California whooping cough outbreak, which was the worst whooping cough epidemic since 1947, may have been the result of decreases in vaccinations among children.

In this issue, we also take a close look at global access to vaccines. It used to take as long as 20 years for a vaccine that was available in affluent countries to become available in developing countries. That timeline has been significantly compressed, and today it is estimated that increased access to vaccines globally has saved more than 20 million children.With the collaboration of vaccine manufacturers, world partners and individual countries, the hope is that one day vaccines may be introduced simultaneously around the world.

As we traverse from the past to the present, we cannot help but also look forward with our feature Vaccines: A Paradigm Shift. It is exciting to see the broadening role of vaccines beyond prevention, to their use as a diagnostic tool to evaluate immune-deficient and autoimmune diseases, as well as a new treatment option for a host of diseases.

And beyond vaccines, biopharmaceuticals that save and sustain lives deliver their own magic. Our feature IG: The Evolution of the Manufacturing Process explores the modifications in the steps and ingredients of the manufacturing process of immune globulin since the first generation of IVIG was made commercially available in the U.S.

We know that reimbursement is a hot topic in our industry, and we hope you find our Reimbursement FAQs in each issue helpful. I am very pleased to announce our new Reimbursement Unraveled blog that debuted in June. This blog is an interactive forum to provide information, as well as for you to ask questions and share information and experiences on the critical reimbursement issues that impact you and your patients.

We hope you find this issue insightful and helpful to you and your colleagues.

Helping Healthcare Care,

Patrick M. Schmidt

Publisher