Anti-vaccine influencers like to use mortality graphs to trick folks into thinking that vaccines don’t work. They also use them with non-vaccine preventable diseases, like scarlet fever. I guess their argument is that since those diseases went away without a vaccine, then polio, measles, and smallpox must have too.
Let’s see how many ways they are wrong…
How Did Scarlet Fever Go Away Without a Vaccine?
If you are a true skeptic, the first thing you hopefully recognized is that scarlet fever hasn’t been eradicated. There has been no “100% decrease.”
“Since September 2022, there has been a significant outbreak of scarlet fever in children in Europe, and more recently, there have been documented increases in cases in the U.S. This outbreak has been unique in that it first appeared out of sync with typical seasonality and has come with higher mortality rates than normal. For example, the outbreak began in late summer and has killed 13 children under 15 in England since September. Between September and November 2022, public health agencies in England reported 4,622 cases of scarlet fever, a value significantly higher than the previous 5-year average of 1,294.”
Scarlet Fever: A Deadly History and How it Prevails
We still have cases of scarlet fever.
So scarlet fever hasn’t really gone away.
How Did Scarlet Fever Get Under Better Control?
Still, while it hasn’t gone away, it certainly is under much better control than it used to be. We see far fewer cases than we did one hundred years ago and those cases we do see are typically not life-threatening.
So why is that?
First, you should understand that scarlet fever is caused by pyrogenic exotoxin-producing strains of group A strep, the same bacteria that causes strep throat and impetigo.
And now that you know that scarlet fever is associated with strep, what do you think happened in the past one hundred years that might have helped control them both?
“Gabritschewsky in 1907 prepared a vaccine from the killed scarlet fever streptococci and produced a symptom complex resembling scarlet fever in a few hours by subcutaneous injection. His experiments have been repeated, chiefly by Russian and Polish physicians, and the results confirmed. The most important result obtained seemed to be a prophylactic immunity of about two years’ duration. This vaccine was available commercially in the United States until 1917 but did not become popular.”
Immunization Against Scarlet Fever
No, it wasn’t a scarlet fever vaccine…
Several scarlet fever vaccines and a scarlet fever toxoid vaccine were made, but none were routinely recommended because they caused frequent local and general reactions.
But if it wasn’t a vaccine, then what was it?
“But it was not until 1928 that penicillin, the first true antibiotic, was discovered by Alexander Fleming, Professor of Bacteriology at St. Mary’s Hospital in London.”
Discovery and Development of Penicillin
Could it have been the invention of penicillin?
That’s a good guess, but most of the scarlet fever deaths dropped way before the invention of penicillin…
“Scarlet fever mortality was sharply reduced after 1880 in parallel with falling wheat prices suggesting that the remarkable period of high scarlet fever mortality (1840-80) was dependent on poor nutritive levels during that time.”
The dynamics of scarlet fever epidemics in England and Wales in the 19th century
So that wasn’t it.
What Happened to Scarlet Fever?
One theory is that a series of deadly epidemics in the mid-19th century got under control as nutrition improved.
“Between approximately 1820 and 1880 there was a world pandemic of scarlet fever and severe severe epidemics occurred in Europe and North America.”
Scarlet fever epidemics of the nineteenth century
But that doesn’t necessarily explain why scarlet fever became so deadly in the first place, does it?
“In contrast, in our microcase study, as many as half of the victims we have surveyed thus far come from families that would not appear to be at risk of under- or malnutrition and whose families could have provided the best level of nutrition and care available at the time.”
Scarlet fever epidemics of the nineteenth century
So what happened?
Many experts believe that we simply saw more virulent strains of group A strep during the times of those deadly scarlet fever epidemics.
“By the 1890s some medical officers, such as James Niven of Manchester, had come to believe that isolation hospitals helped to reduce the virulence of scarlet fever through hospitalization of severe cases, which reduced the opportunities for severe strains to propagate themselves. Across the Atlantic, where American epidemiologistis were witnessing a similar decline in the virulence of scarlet fever, this argument was also current.”
The epidemic streets : infectious disease and the rise of preventive medicine, 1856-1900
And then, both a decrease in these virulent strains through isolation and evolution of the strains occurred.
“For no disease was isolation more common than for scarlet fever.”
The epidemiology of milk-borne scarlet fever: the case of Edwardian Brighton
That’s right, they simply began isolating folks who were sick with scarlet fever, so that they couldn’t get other people sick.
That still doesn’t leave a good reason for why the strains became more virulent though, does it?
Could raw milk be the answer we are looking for?
It is well known that raw milk can become contaminated with group A strep bacteria, causing outbreaks of scarlet fever.
“From 1840 to 1860, several factors were primarily responsible for the decline that occurred in the wholesomeness of cow’s milk, including the dairy industry’s expansion during urbanization as brought about by the Industrial Revolution. This expansion was accompanied by a departure from traditional small dairy herds housed relatively close to consumers, often in open areas of cities, e.g., the Boston Common with its limit of 70 cows. The new dairy herds of the Industrial Revolution were large, with as many as 2,000 cows confined in cramped urban quarters. A major economic factor in this transition was that these larger dairy herds were exclusively fed “slop house” distillery waste in the notorious “swill dairies” (see below). At this time, other contributors to the decline in the wholesomeness and safety of cow’s milk were inadequate refrigeration, the absence of milk processing standards, and fraudulent practices such as mixing in additives to allegedly “salvage” or “enhance” the increasingly poor quality of milk available to infants and families.”
A Brief History of Milk Hygiene and Its Impact on Infant Mortality from 1875 to 1925 and Implications for Today: A Review
And the introduction of pasteurization helped stopped these outbreaks!
“In 1889, Abraham Jacobi, a German physician working in New York City (NYC) and considered the father of American pediatrics, became an adamant and vocal supporter of the virtues of pasteurizing milk in the home and endorsed the use of the Soxhlet apparatus with sealed nursing bottles.”
A Brief History of Milk Hygiene and Its Impact on Infant Mortality from 1875 to 1925 and Implications for Today: A Review
What does any of this have to do with vaccines?
Nothing.
It certainly doesn’t explain why other diseases, like diphtheria, measles, tetanus, or polio, etc., didn’t go away at the same time, which is what you would expect if vaccines don’t work and the answer instead is just improved hygiene, sanitation, and nutrition.
But maybe we have some idea for why scarlet fever is coming back – all of the folks once again drinking raw milk!
More on the History of Scarlet Fever
- Another Chart That Shows Vaccines Work
- Charts That Prove the Polio Vaccine Work
- About Those Charts That Show 60 Years of Failing Flu Vaccines
- A Chart That Shows the Rubella Vaccine Works
- Scarlet Fever: A Deadly History and How it Prevails
- Discovery and Development of Penicillin
- Scarlet fever epidemics of the nineteenth century
- The epidemic streets : infectious disease and the rise of preventive medicine, 1856-1900
- Fifty years in public health : a personal narrative with comments / by Sir Arthur Newsholme.
- Fever Hospitals and Fever Nurses A British Social History of Fever Nurses: A National Service
- Immunization Against Scarlet Fever
- The epidemiology of milk-borne scarlet fever: the case of Edwardian Brighton
- A Scarlet Fever Outbreak Due to Raw Milk
- Facebook post makes harmful claims about treating scarlet fever without antibiotics
- Who first suggested that milk be pasteurized to make it safer for consumption?
- Raw Milk in Modern Times
- Raw Milk is Bad
Last Updated on July 31, 2024
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