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One of the concluding slides in my default pandemic flu Powerpoint presentation is a reminder to get your PPV vaccine.  The PPV vaccine, or Pneumoccal Polysaccharide Vaccine, has been available for many years and helps ward off some 23 types of pneumoccal bacteria.

I mention this because the latest issue of NewScientist magazine has an excellent article about new findings from the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic.  It is almost a matter of Scripture now that pneumonia was the real killer in 1918-19, and the flu virus paved the way for a rapid and often lethal insertion of pneumoccal bacteria into the lungs of otherwise healthy young adults the world over.

The conclusion drawn from this report, as espoused by one government expert ts to gird for the next influenza pandemic – bird flu or otherwise – and stock up on antibiotics, says John Brundage, a medical microbiologist at the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Of course, all flu pandemics will be "bird flu," so that is kinda redundant.  But the message is quite clear.

We have spent countless hours talking about magic bullets such as prepandemic vaccines (ask homeless Poles how they feel about that!), H5N1 vaccines that do not survive the inevitable antigenic drift that H5N1 is so notorious for, and quibbling over dosages of antivirals whose distribution in a pandemic will be a massive logistical cluster-you-know-what.

We have certain tools in the shed, arrows in the quiver, that we need to engage today.  And when it comes to PPV, we need to rethink the threshholds for injection.  I got my PPV prior to age 50 because I have a history of pneumonia (there -- a self-inflicted HIPAA violation!).  My nurse practitioner -- who is more pessimistic about bird flu than I! -- also gladly gave me the shot.

In light of college students dying from bacterial meningitis, and in light of the thousands who die from complications from influenza every year, shouldn't we be stressing the need for PPV vaccination at every level possible?  I believe we need to revisit those age threshholds for PPV vaccination with the intent of getting people vaccinated at the youngest age considered medically safe.

Last year, I wrote a blog titled "Influenza is baseball."   Let me continue to work that metaphor.  Influenza preparedness is also baseball.  Defense in depth is what is most important.  You do a whole lot of things well, most of which cost very, very little, and watch the cumulative result for the good.

Mike Coston yesterday posted a blog on the British claim that vaccinating all of Britain's schoolchildren would cut seasonal influenza by 97% in all populations.  Those results are supported by research done here in the American South that support the herd immunity theory.  Yet there are those new "Flat-Earthers" who believe every vaccine is deadly and every jab is a potential death sentence.  Look at the growing numbers of parents who opt out of "mandatory" vaccinations for their school-age children because they fear the Worst Case Scenario more than the most likely one.  By their actions, these new Flat-Earthers are placing all kids at greater and greater risk of disease. 

Again, homeless Poles would disagree with me today, and to them I would admonish and remind that the H5N1 vaccine that killed some of them was experimental and not an everyday, tested, certified and widely available vaccine.  And that they consented to the testing; I do not believe some kind of Polish Tuskeegee Experiment was performed upon them, right?  Someone please correct me if I am wrong.

While I agree in the strongest of terms that research is needed to find the source of autism, I am much more inclined to believe in an environmental or genetic trigger -- or both -- than to think one jab caused that terribly debilitating disorder. 

Those who are repelled by vaccines the same way Dracula is repelled by garlic and wolfbane clearly do not watch nor play baseball.  Otherwise, they would know that you take necessary risks and avoid unnecessary ones.

An unnecessary risk is not getting your PPV vaccine.  Getting that vaccine takes you further down the road of pandemic preparedness -- perhaps much further, courtesy of NewScientist.