Vaccines: a preventative lifeline throughout history
Baby Boomers may be the last generation to have a living memory of the toll that infectious diseases like polio and measles had on families, from crippling physical disabilities and blindness to brain damage and, in many cases, death.
There was a time, within living memory for some Canadians, when smallpox and diphtheria wiped out entire families, but the advent of vaccines changed all that so profoundly that most Canadians now take it completely for granted that we no longer need to worry about these diseases. And yet, there are few scientific breakthroughs that have had as profound an impact on human survival than vaccines — and, with continued investment in R&D, the hope is that vaccines will continue to protect the population from new infections and diseases.
We need only look to the past to see just what might be possible in the future. For example, the smallpox vaccine was introduced around 1800 when the overall mortality rate from the disease was 30 per cent, according to the U.S. National Institute of Health. It now ranks the global eradication of smallpox in the 1970s among the greatest achievements in human history.
In the 19th century, scientists introduced vaccines for rabies and cholera. Twentieth-century innovation was much more prolific, with vaccines developed for tuberculosis, diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), tetanus, influenza and yellow fever during the 1920s and 1930s. From the 1940s to the 1970s mumps, polio, measles, rubella and meningitis were virtually eradicated through the introduction of vaccines.
To underscore the importance of these breakthroughs, consider the impact of the measles vaccine. MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) statistics indicate that between 2000 and 2016 alone, there was an 84 per cent decrease in deaths from measles globally as a result of vaccines. (That translates into 20.4 million lives saved.)
For nearly as long as we have known about the power and potential of vaccines, Canadian research and innovation has been at the forefront of progress in eliminating disease.
In 1941, Canadian company Connaught Laboratories — now Sanofi Pasteur — developed a method of combining diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus vaccines in one shot. A method of growing polio vaccines at a high enough rate for mass production was called the ‘Toronto technique’ and, more recently, in 2000, Dr. Peter St. George-Hyslop at the University of Toronto developed a promising immunization against Alzheimer’s in mice.
The quest for vaccines continues as a means to stem the tide of other infectious diseases. In recent decades, we’ve seen significant strides in developing vaccines to address diseases such as HPV (human papillomavirus) and HBV (hepatitis B) that have been linked to cervical, anal, vaginal and liver cancer.
While some diseases have been virtually eradicated, the role of vaccine research continues in addressing more recent public health threats that have emerged, such as hepatitis C and HIV.
Other recent R&D efforts have been in developing vaccines for clostridium difficile and drug resistant staphylococcus infections. These potentially deadly antibioticresistant bacterial diseases — each, according to the CDC, responsible for 29, 000 and 11,285 deaths in recent years respectively — have been declared urgent public health threats by governments and funding agencies.
The role of vaccines has not diminished in any way since the 1800s. The significance of that impact has just been lost in an age where so many common, deadly infectious diseases have been eradicated. Likewise, just as it was generations ago, the research at the core of these life-saving discoveries is being made possible by innovative medicine companies.
“Canadian research and science has played a significant role in combating some of the world’s deadliest diseases, for example, polio and ebola,” says Andrew Casey, president and CEO BIOTECanada. “Without the contributions of Canadian scientists, researchers and companies, many of those advances would have happened much more slowly, at an unacceptable cost of life around the world.”
Researchers have made great gains in ground-breaking treatments for a number of complex diseases today, but it is prevention through the use of vaccines that will stop potential epidemics in the first place, allowing people around the globe to live longer, healthier lives. As we pause to consider the role that vaccines have had in helping us stay healthy, it is important to consider how many of these gains were made thanks to Canadian research.