blueash |
09-09-2021 09:23 AM |
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MandoMan
(Post 2000864)
Before it was standard to give antibiotics for Strep Throat, many people who got that then got Scarlet Fever, which sometimes led to an infection of the heart that could kill or could damage one or more valves permanently. One of my aunts had to have a heart valve replacement forty years after Scarlet Fever damaged her heart. I remember one of my. Fourth grade friends having heart damage because of it in 1964.
Last summer I talked with my 92 year old dad about how scary polio was for parents when I was little and how liberating it was when we kids were able to get vaccinated. It was like emerging from under an umbrella of fear. What I remember is fighting and crying over getting a shot, and how happy I was when the next polio vaccine came on a delicious sugar cube.
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I suppose I am nit-picking a little, even if you don't have lice... but that's not how strep works. Strep includes a large number of different strains, like Covid does. Some of those strains not only cause sore throats but also produce a toxin that causes the typical rash and strawberry tongue of scarlet fever. Some strep strains cause sore throats and do not produce the toxin.
Those strains which make the toxin are not more likely to lead to heart complications [rheumatic heart disease] than those that do not produce the toxin. Only about a dozen strains of the over 200 strep variants produce almost all the cases of rheumatic fever. Having strep throat from one of these strains does not mean you will get the complication. The others simply are not rheumatogenic.
Your explanation of the heart disease is wrong.
The strep bacteria does not infect the heart. Rather the body produces antibodies to fight off the strep throat infection. In rare cases these antibodies errantly also attack the heart valves. So it is your own immune system that gives you the complication.
The events you describe of a person having a strep infection then developing heart disease are accurate. This is one of the reasons why strep throat is treated with antibiotics, to prevent heart and other rare complications. Viral sore throats should not be treated with antibiotics.
History details. The injection for polio was available beginning in 1955 and the oral vaccine in 1962. The unapproved experimental injection was tested on school children in the largest such study ever done, with some media warning parents that the shot was dangerous and could kill your kids. One batch in fact was errantly manufactured and contained live virus and killed. But Americans understood that the benefit outweighed the risk not only for their own kids but as a community health measure to stop disease spread. Pop culture figures helped by showing themselves being vaccinated, publicly getting a shot, not secretly. Polio at its worst was killing a few thousand a year
Done nit picking.
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