Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Rubella

Episode Date: March 1, 2019

This week on Sawbones we complete our three-part series on the MMR vaccine as we make you an honorary Rubella Fighter. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers

Saubones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, time is about to books. One, two, one, two, three, four. We came across a pharmacy with a toy and that's busted out. We were shot through the broken glass and had ourselves a look around.

Some medicines, some medicines that escalate my cop for the mouth. Wow, we're going to quit burping or is that going to be the whole show? For the mouth Gonna quit burping or is that gonna be the whole show? Hello, everybody and welcome to Salmons, a marital tear of misguided medicine. I'm your girl. It's Justin Macaroy And I'm Sydney Macaroy. So glad we were running tape on that one, Sid Sorry, I just wanted to know if I if myself and our listeners were going to have to put up with that for the entire episode Or was that just special for me right before? The burping you mean? Yes.

I'm terribly sorry about it. I am getting over a cold as you know. That has nothing to do. No, you had your allergies were bothering you yesterday and they're not today. You're knocking over a cold and that has nothing to do with burping. I had a fever, ma'am. You didn't. I did. It was 100.5.

Okay. Well, you did then. What's up? How do you didn't know what if it makes a fever? I don't know. Dr. McCroy. No, I didn't know that it got that hot. You checked your temperature like 40 times yesterday. I could not keep track of every-

All those 40 if you were to chart it on a chart. Oh, there's 40. One of them was above 100.4. It was 100.5. So that did get me into febrile territory. Yeah. Uh boy, this technically 100.4 is a fever. So that's all. That's what I said. I mean, you don't have to be above it. 100.4. Now you're getting into semantics. No, I'm just saying and also again, you took your temperature so many times, Justin, when he sick will sit on the couch and just take his temperature every few minutes

to just see how things are going. I was very, I thought I was very brave yesterday. I like, help with the kids the whole time and I didn't get to, I wasn't a baby about it until they were asleep. That's true, right? That's true. I was really trying to be able to have that.

We were brave little toaster. All right, then. Fine, if you're not gonna give me any, uh, poor Justin, you're fine today. Saturambun for me. Okay. Anyway, uh, what are we, uh, what are we talking about this week, Sid? Well, as promised, I wanted us to round out the, the R of the M-M-R. So far we have things that make you go mmm and now we're gonna have things that make you or That's nothing

That's nothing Yes, so we have talked about measles a long time ago not recently and then we stopped there and then we remembered That we are serious our series had a brief And then we stopped there and then we remembered that we forgot. Our series had a brief, a couple of your highness. Two of your highness. And then we talked about mumps and now it's time to talk about Rubella, which I think is the one maybe.

It is the prettiest name easily. Like if it weren't a disease, I could see that as a name for a little girl or boy for sure. Rubella. Do you know what? Rubella means. Pretty. Rett.

Pretty red, red pretty. Your clothes, little red. Little red. Little red. Little red. Yeah. But yes, and I would say, Rubella is probably the part of the triumvirate

that people know the least about maybe on average. I mean, some people certainly do, but on average. Probably a good thing, right? I mean, any... Well, goodness knows, I wish they were all diseases of antiquity at this point. Ah, yes. Because that would be good, but you know, you got to get those vaccines. Thank you to everybody who recommended this, Darcy K. Ashley, Christina, Rory, Greg, Marilyn,

and Michelle. Rubella was first described in the mid-18th century, and it's one of those, so Rubella, I'll get into what it looks like, but it causes a rash. And so when you get into things that cause red spots, the timeline of when exactly we figured it out is always kind of shaky, because a lot of things caused red spots. The timeline of when exactly we figured it out is always kind of shaky because a lot of things caused red spots.

So chicken pops. Sorry, I said pops chicken pox. Measles, cool eight accidents. Yeah, yeah, you blow in too hard with this. Yeah, you blow in too hard with this Don't tell me that our daughter has not like she had one yesterday from candy necklace Just like coated her face with red. I thought she was having an allergic reaction to the candy necklace It turns out she was having a chromatic reaction to the candy necklace and it just as designed kids get red spots for lots of reasons And and the thing is a lot of the time these rashes, like as physicians will look and go, hmm,

appears to be a viral exam, which means I don't know, they got a rash. It's probably a virus. It'll be fine. And most of the time it is. Most of the time, it's not a big deal. And that was kind of the way Rubella was probably regarded. And so when you find diseases like that, it takes a while to get them actually named and distinguished because there were probably cases of measles

that were actually rubella, but if you just if you're spotty who knows? And in fact by it was in 1814 that George Dimiton first figured out that you know what there'sles, there's scarlet fever, and then there's this other thing, which at the time was just called German measles. Hmm, I'm not sure if they weren't crazy about that. Because a lot of the physicians who were figuring this out and distinguishing these from each other

were all German. And so that was a German. What was that disease we talked about a while ago where every country was naming it after another country. Was it syphilis? No, I don't remember. Someone will treat it me and let us know. I don't know. You're what I'm referring to.

Yeah, no, and wherever it was, they just named it after that. After whatever country they didn't like. So, initially, Rubello was just called German measles because it looked sort of like measles. It was seen to be like a milder form of measles, generally, but it kind of seemed similar. It wasn't until 1866, there was an outbreak in India and Henry Ville, who was an English royal artillery surgeon, started calling it Rebella. And that's where we finally see the word Rebella, which, as I said, little red, comes from. By the end of the 1800s, people figured out, yes, this is its own thing, Rebella.

It is not a German form of measles, although you will still hear people refer to it as German measles. I don't know if you ever heard. No, I never heard that. My mom, I remember when we were talking about this one, said, you mean German measles. Well, no, we don't. Well, I mean, it's not an offensive thing. It was just that's what it was called for a while. And so there were a lot of, by the end of the 1800s, everybody was like, yes, this is

Rubella, it's a certain thing. It's not a form of measles. Yes, it closes red spots. And we know which virus, or we know that it can be passed along. By the 1930s, there were two scientists, Hero and Tosaka, who took filtered nasal washings. Filtered nasal washings, what could that be? So you squirt some water up a nose and let it come back out and fall into like a cup

or whatever, some sort of collecting device. And then you filter that. Okay. I guess to get like chunks out or whatever. And then, now they were passing it through a filter to see if it was a virus. The size of the filter can help you determine if something is a virus of bacteria because viruses are smaller. So if it, I mean, we're talking, we're not, you're not thinking of filter in the way these

filters look. Okay. It incredibly small filters, incredibly tiny, tiny like holes in the filters. And so then you pass it through a filter with very small holes, and if then the stuff that you get, if you give it to another kid and the kid gets sick, then it's a virus. Okay, is that makes sense? The only thing I found interesting about this is that they were definitely giving it to other kids.

Take back kids. And then seeing if they got sick and I kept trying to dig into this research to figure out like what how Where who it's one of those you can only get once right and oh Yeah, but still Still yeah, this was research Listen, there's no arguments. We don't usually see this. I'm not saying it was nice We're pretty, but I'm saying those here kids deserve to be recognized for willingly signing up for that government program They gave them I don't know probably in those days a hoop and a stick Like that to let them get measles not measles

German measles fine German measles, fine. German measles, Rubella. Yeah, and I mean, it's fair to say that like, yes, for it is typically a very benign course in terms of diseases, but still, I kept trying to find this and I found this exact same reference like and then they passed filtered nasal washings onto other children and they got sick

and they proved it was a virus. And I'm like, but tell me more. This is the beginning of a story, not the end. I don't know there. I'm sure there's a very interesting, maybe upsetting story there. Maybe that's why it's hard to find. Yeah, let's look away. So as I have alluded to, Rubella is a virus. It is typically mild. And you can get it from people either through direct, like, it's not, you know, or sharing of food and drink, like saliva, sharing saliva, making out, you know,

that kind of stuff. I'm just sure sharing a trumpet. Also it from droplets, so like if somebody sneezing or coughing or blowing their nose or whatever nearby. They cough into their trumpet and then they use it. So it's not that's not anything that spread that way through droplets is not terribly difficult to get, you know, you can, it's easy to to spread. It's, you get the rash, which is what we call like a maculo

popular rash. And I was trying to describe this to Charlie the other day. I taught her the, I tried to try to try. Yeah, I taught her the word macular. Yeah, I taught her the word macular. Okay. Which was the ask her to say a unique child. It's it's fun. Anyway, so it's like a red bumpy, but not all bumpy rash. Some of them are red flat spots and some of them are red bumpy spots. That's it. You get in large lymph nodes, you're going to get a fever. Usually the rash is going to start on the face. That's always helpful when we're trying to figure out all these various body things, you know, where the rash starts and what direction it goes. That can kind of help us help us figure that out. In about a day, it's the rash is all over you after it starts on the face and it lasts around three days. It can be a little bit longer, a little bit shorter. Is it itchy? I don't believe it is particularly itchy.

Do you guys have a technical term for itchy? Pyridic, paritic. Paritic? Paritic itchy. Itchy is good though. You guys should have stuck with itchy. It doesn't sound as, you know. It's off-for-ble.

Thanks. Anyway, so for most people, actually, this is kind of interesting. So the lymph nodes that get enlarged, I don't know, I think this is interesting. Can be the ones behind your ears or the ones at the back of your neck, like at the base of your skull, in particular, can get enlarged. I just think that it's interesting to,

those are not lymph nodes. You think of very often as like, I'm sick and then you fill behind your ear and you got enlarged lymph nodes behind your ear and then on the back of your head. I don't know. No, it was good. I just didn't, I don't think I have all the context I need to make that interesting. A quarter to a half of infections are asymptomatic.

So it's not, so for like a lot of people, it's not a big deal. You get sick, you get better. It nobody bothered to figure out what you had because you were better almost before it mattered. Right? There are serious complications though. In people who get sick who are not pregnant, they can get things like arthritis. They're very rare complications where like the numbers of certain parts of your blood, the platelets which help with clotting can drop. You can become very, those will get very low as a result. You can get infection or inflammation, I should say inflammation of the brain.

These are very rare complications. They do happen, and so it's better not to get it. Right, preferable. But for most people, this was considered just like one of those normal diseases of childhood. The same way that people of our generation probably thought, think of chickenpox. Everybody just just got rebella and then they got better. And that was it.

And that wild I think the next generation won't. They don't, yeah already. They don't think of chicken pox that way. Did Riley get it? Did Riley get chicken pox? Yeah. Which she been older from the vaccine. No, she got the vaccine. So when the problem with rebella, the big problem, because all this, a lot of people will argue that if you hear this, and this is what you hear some people who are against vaccine

say is like, but what's the big deal? Chickenpox is always the example. They don't use rebella very often, because I don't think most people remember it, as well as they do chickenpox. But you might hear that and think, what's the big deal about rebella? Why do we bother getting a vaccine if it's just a no big deal thing? Because when Rebellion infection happens while a person is pregnant to the pregnant person, the results for the baby can be very serious. This is why Rebellion is a big deal and something

to worry about. Is that if you become infected with Rebellion, especially during the first trimester of your pregnancy, anytime canbella, especially during the first trimester of your pregnancy, any time can be a problem, but the first trimester is the worst. You can have very serious consequences. One, you could miscarry, so you could lose the pregnancy. And then two, you can have severe birth defects if you don't miscarry. The most common things you'll see are congenital cataracts. So the baby is born with cataracts, hearing loss, or hearing impairment.

The, if you get rebella in your first trimester, you actually have an 80% chance of miscarriage. Oh my gosh. And then almost, or I'm sorry, miscarriage or congenital rebella syndrome. So one of the two happening, I'm a spoke so 80% chance that either you'll lose the pregnancy or there can be these severe birth defects that occur. And in addition to hearing issues and visual impairment, you can also have delayed development and kind of global issues as a result. So it is a, it's a severe.

Like Zika, then it's not a big deal to get it, but it is a big deal for you to get it well. That's a good corollary. I think everybody, yes, that's a good way to think about it. Because Zika, everybody is more aware of since it was more recent and for you as someone who is not in I don't think we'll ever be pregnant. For you personally, Zika would not be a big deal, but had I gotten in while I was pregnant it could have been a big deal for our child. So this is why it matters is because we want to prevent congenital rebella syndrome known

as CRS. We figured out, this isn't kind of interesting. We figured out that CRS was an issue because before you knew about and made that link with congenital rubella syndrome, it wouldn't be. Why would you even bother doing anything about this? Like we figured out, there's rubella, we gave it to some kids. Yeah. That'd be hard to figure out too, right?

Because you get sick and then you're better long after. I mean, like the baby, you may not even connect it. So it's so it exactly and it took a while. It was the link was established by an Australian ophthalmologist named Sir Norman McAllister Greg. He was seen, he was actually a pediatric ophthalmologist and he noticed he was seeing patients, it was around the start of World War II, he was seeing a lot of patients with congenital cataracts,

babies born with cataracts, which is not, I mean, it can just happen unrelated to rebella, but it's uncommon, and he was seeing a large number of patients, and that seemed unusual, that's not usually what he was seen a large number of patients. And that seemed unusual. That's not usually what he was experiencing. And so he started trying to think, like, why all of a sudden am I seeing so many babies born with cataracts, what could be going on? And he actually overheard some of the moms in the waiting room talking about the fact

that they both had rubella while they were pregnant. And so he overheard this and he started thinking about like, could that, could that mean anything? Actually, I think he asked some of the other moms and he started noticing a trend. So he did a study and he found that 68 of 78 cases of congenital cataracts, the babies had been exposed to Rubella and Guterov. So that seemed like a pretty, pretty strong link. There had, and this matched with the fact that there had been an outbreak of Rubella in some of the Australian army camps in 1941.

And then of course, when everybody would go home, they would spread that to their families and to the communities. So he published a paper initially, while in Australia, this was kind of embraced as all this makes sense. We got to get on top of this now We figured this out it took a while for this to like spread to the rest of the world Initially a lot of places outside of Australia the doctors like I don't know about that data I'm not sure this doesn't make sense. I've never heard anything about this. I feel like this is anytime Somebody makes a brilliant discovery. A lot of people have to say no.

It's the worst thing in the world though. I mean, it's good to be skeptical, but he had pretty decent data. And I say that he had decent data because his research was basically gone over by a mathematician, professor Oliver Lancaster, who then published a paper saying like, yeah, this looks pretty good. data because his research was basically gone over by a mathematician, Professor Oliver Lancaster, who then published a paper saying like, yeah, this looks pretty good. Yeah. No, nothing's pretty good. And then everybody went, okay, well, I guess the followers said so.

Yeah. Of course, that point, it's like, well, everybody, let's all agree just to not get rebuild anymore, I guess. Well, that's the, well, that's the problem, right? So now, and maybe that's, maybe it's super scary. Another thing we have to be super scared of, we just also were at war with Germany. It's a cool few years.

All the A-bombs I was done. Cool. You gotta imagine this was a very, maybe that would even increase resistance. You know, humans don't like to hear things that are bad news and submit. And so we tend to not embrace it as quickly if it's bad news.

And when they're telling you, okay, it turns out, Rebello, which we thought was this no big deal. You get sick for a few days, whatever, miss a day of work, miss a day of school, you get better, no big deal, infection, can have these really severe consequences. Also, we have no idea what to do about it. It's hard to distinguish from other viral illnesses.

We don't know when you have it. We have no treatment for it. We have no cure for it. We have no way of preventing it. So good luck. Yeah. So even after they figured this out, nobody knew what to do.

There were, and this reminded me again of chickenpox. Some parents started having rubella parties. So if a kid in the neighborhood would get rubella, they would invite all the other kids over, especially anybody who could become pregnant. They would invite all of them over to get rubella. I don't know, that usually involved like sharing Wally pops and stuff, I think.

Gross. Yeah, gross. But the hope was that you could get everybody to get rubella get over it while they were young. And so that then when they became older, if they became pregnant, they didn't have to worry because they were immune. So they did things like that, but there was no, there was no real way to prevent it other than that. So how did we? Yeah, tell me I'm ready. Till. Go ahead, you do it, drop it on me. Well, I'm gonna tell you after the billing department. Ah, Sydney. No.

You already know it's gonna be vaccines. Sydney. You already know I'm gonna talk about vaccines. Let's go. The medicines, the medicines that ask you let my God before the mouth. So you wanna hear about vaccines? Always said.

Always. So that's what we're really, that's the hero in this story is the rubella vaccine. So we didn't know how to treat it. We didn't know. It was hard to diagnose. The best way to take care of something like this, a viral illness that spreads rapidly,

and there is no treatment for us to prevent it on the front end. And this became especially important during what we now know as was the last major Rubella epidemic, although you have to assume nobody knew that at the time. Nobody called it that. Nobody called it that. But there it is. Turned out. We're in the middle of the last major. It's kind of like people calling it World War One. Like, oh, no, what happens after this? So from 1964 to 1965 in the US, it is estimated that about 12 and a half million people got Rubella.

And again, the consequences of that are that 11,000 pregnant people lost their pregnancies as a result of Rubella 2100 newborns passed away from Rubella and there were 20,000 babies born with congenital Rubella syndrome from that last major epidemic 1964-1965 in fact, I thought this was an incredible statistics One percent of all babies in New York were affected by, born in New York were affected by, Rebella. So scientists were already working on a way to prevent it,

but I think this epidemic probably really accelerated the speed at which people started to figure things out. Now, you may remember, Dr. Maurice Hylman from our, yes, months of the sode, yes. Now you may remember Dr. Maurice Hyalman from our... Yes. Mumps. Last episode, yes. I guess it's two episodes ago. I mentioned that he developed a lot of different vaccines

and among the vaccines that he developed was... Rubella. Rubella, that's right. He worked on measles, he worked on mumps. You gotta get the, gotta get all three. Gotta go for the trio. The hat trackumps, got to get the, got to get all three, got to go for the trio. The hat trick.

Yeah, got to get the rubella. He was already actually testing his own vaccines because of the epidemic in 1964 and 2005. He was working on stuff from that epidemic to make his own vaccine. But federal regulators got involved and said, Hey, we're working on this vaccine. Will you work on it? We think we're close. And he said the first one that they brought him was very toxic.

It had a lot of side effects. He wasn't thrilled about it, but he worked on it. He worked on it. He worked on it. And by 1969, it was a safe enough. No, no, I'm not going to give you that one. But 1969, it was safe enough to get FDA approval and prevent another Rubella epidemic. Thank goodness.

So, he, and then by 71, he'd already added it to the vaccine for measles and mumps. At first, in 69, it was just its own Rubella vaccine. And then it got put into the MMR in 71. But this is the, this is the really cool corollary to this. So as I mentioned, he was not, and we've talked about Dr. Haum and before, he was not a guy who liked to do things. I can't say a bad word, half-butted. Half-butted. half-butted.

He liked to do things right. He wanted things done well. Uh, he was a perfectionist. He had extremely high standards. He was not in it for the glory. He was in it to make sure that the job got done well. And as I mentioned, he was not initially thrilled with the vaccine that he had been given to develop for her belly. He felt like he could do better. Like there could be one that would provide a little more immunogenicity. Immunogenicity. I don't know why you couldn't easily put on that burn here for sure. Something that would slip off the tongue. Something that would be better at making people immune. Okay. Ensure that you would become immune. So he wanted that, and he also wanted one that had less side effects.

Well, in 1978, he discovered that another physician, Dr. Stanley Plotkin in Philadelphia, had made his own rebella vaccine, and he compared the two and went, this is better than mine. And in the scientific world, like you tend to think of all as scientists, maybe, maybe you don't, but I think that there is a perception

that we might be nerdy and like timid and probably nice. But if you've made a groundbreaking vaccine that can prevent this congenital rebalis syndrome, this terrible outcome, and then all of a sudden you find out that this other guy has made a better one. That's a hard pill to swallow. And there are not a lot of scientists who would be eager to let the world know that there's a better vaccine. But Dr. Mori's hymen was not like that.

He went to Stanley Plotkin and said, your vaccine's better than mine. And I want to put it in the MMR. Is that cool? What? And he said fine. Yeah, of course. He said he was stunned because it was such a humble thing to do. But then, but he, of course, he said yes. But then Maurice gets back to the lab. He's like, oh my God, I have a hundred thousand gallons of this junk. What am I going to do? I got to sell this at discount prices. And that's why folks. If you call right now, you're gonna get a gallon of this stuff. We can't give it away.

It's highly toxic. It was not highly toxic. No, no, do not perpetuate those myths. It wasn't highly toxic and it wasn't effective. This other vaccine was just better. But that's a cut rate thing. If you maybe are trying to save a few bucks, get my stuff. I made a lot of it and I got to sell it. So he, so, and it's been stored at my wife's pottery room where she's supposed to be able to do pottery and she's mad. So please buy my bad vaccine.

You got to understand too. He was working for Merck at this point and Merck was making the vaccine. So this is like a really expensive thing for them to have to do to go in and replace this component of the vaccine. But he did it because it was the right thing to do. And that was his big concern was he wanted the MMR to be as effective and as safe as it possibly could be. And so in 1979, the final version of the MMR was released with this new strain. Just in time for upcoming superstar,

just in McAroy to be born in 1980, wanna make sure you had a smooth ride. Now, you know, you were born too late for the Rubella Fighter membership cards, though. In the late 60s and early 70s, if you were vaccinated against Rubella, you got this membership card. It's a really cool look at little card that says were vaccinated against Rubella, you got this membership card. It's a really cool look at little card that says you're a Rubella fighter.

That's very cool. It's a little kid holding an umbrella and it says that they're under the Rubella umbrella now. It's very good. So join the Rubella umbrella campaign and become a Rubella fighter. That's a good idea. Awesome. In Australia, the initial, I thought this was an interesting point since it was initially

an Australian physician who figured out the connection with congenital rebella syndrome. In Australia, the initial vaccine effort was actually targeted for rebella, was targeted only at school age girls with the idea that they will get pregnant maybe if they want to. And so they're the ones who need this. But this was obviously not the most effective method of protecting everybody, which they figured out over time. And so in 1989, they switched to the MMR for everybody. You get a dose when you're like 12 to 15 months, and then you get a booster dose around

four to six. So they switched to that later, which is the same vaccine schedule we have here in the US, because vaccinating both people who can become pregnant and people who can be part of the pregnancy occurring. Part of the pregnancy occurring. Oh, sorry, but it's the romantic talk. Very white. What I'm saying is, Hey, whether you got tonight, I'd like to be part of a pregnancy occur. Whether you got sperm, or me play my role in this pregnancy, you should be coming to pass. And I mentioned this because again, I think it's another good corollary to the HPV vaccine, Gardasil. Initially, we only targeted girls and women.

It was initially young people, girls, but then women, with the thought that anyone with a cervix is who needs this. Basically, if you have a cervix, you need this so you don't get cervical cancer. And then people finally start thinking, you know, it would probably be better since people without cervixes can also get the virus and spread it to everybody else through sexual contact.

Why don't we vaccinate everybody? Doesn't that seem like a better idea? I think it's vaccine better. Yeah. And so now we vaccinate everybody and not just people who have cervixes. We run it. You and I didn't get them because we were too old. Can I get it now? I mean, it could.

You never know. Thanks. I mean, yes, we could. We'd have to pay for them though, because they're not approved for all these. Actually, that may have just changed, but we still probably don't pay for them with our insurance. Anyway, so everybody got the MMR. The vaccine's possible. Here's the happy end.

Once the vaccine became available and everybody started using it, you saw the rates of rubella in the United States drop. I mean, just dramatically. And less than 10 people in the US are reported as having your Bella each year. And that's all cases where people have come to the US and brought Rubella strains from outside the US, but not like naturally occurring within the United States. This is like we could eradicate it.

That's a great question. I was going to mention that. Yes. Rubella only occurs in humans. Yes. So it could. It could be humans out. No, it could be eradicated.

Stuff that occurs in animals and can be passed back and forth from animals to humans, that's all a lot more complicated because then you got to vaccinate all the animals too. And it's a lot harder to do. Stuff that only occurs in humans, like smallpox, which has been eradicated, could theoretically be eradicated. And that is exactly what there is a global effort to work towards.

The Western hemisphere is currently Rubella free. Yeah. Australia eliminated Rubella last year. It was eliminated from Australia last year. But there's still a lot of places where Rubella occurs. And so there's still a lot of work to be done. And the way that we're going to do this is by vaccinating everybody.

That's really the big push. It rebelles the third disease to be eliminated from the Western hemisphere after smallpox and polio. Wow. Two interesting points that I thought I would bring up. One of the people who suggested this topic Kate Also wanted us to know did you do you read a lot of Agatha Christie?

Yeah, you know me. Did you read the mirror crack from side to side? I have not read that one Okay, there's a big what do you want me? Oh, I'll ruin it. This will spoil it Don't do it. Don't do it here. I rebella's a plot point. Okay. There. There it is read that book if you want to find out more Sorry, Kate. I was gonna share your interesting fact, but I don't is. Read that book if you want to find out more. Sorry, Kate, I was going to share your interesting fact, but I don't want to ruin that book for Justin. One other interesting point, we've talked a lot about vaccines and some of the anti-vaccination movement, some of the things that they will, the half-truths and untruths that are perpetuated

in order to try to prevent people from getting vaccines. I'm going to call them something different, by the way. I'm not calling them the anti-vaccine movement anymore. I'm calling them the pro-preventable diseases. Sure. I'm fine with that. Okay. The BBB.

Okay. So one thing to know is the MMR vaccine, since we've covered all parts of it, the measles month through Bella vaccine was really the one that Andrew Wakefield took aim at with his whole vaccines cause autism myth, which is as we have talked about over and every and is not true has been disproven was completely a lie. But there you go. The MMR was one of the big vaccines named in this. It's weird because the same people will tell you that it's because of thymarousal and mercury. Thymarousal is a preservative of vaccines that helps to prevent bacteria and fungus from growing in vials of vaccines that have multiple doses. So like a vial that you would draw a dose out

and give it to somebody and then draw another dose out and give it to somebody as opposed to the single shot vaccines. Thymarousal used to be used in vaccines. It hasn't, it is not in any childhood vaccines period now. It's not there. Your kids aren't getting Thymerisol. It's not in there. Even when it was, it was still safe.

It was still fine. It was mercury containing, but it's actually a safer form of mercury than the mercury in the fish you eat. So if you eat fish, that is higher risk of mercury to you than the Thymerisol that used to be in vaccines and isn't anymore for your kids and childhood vaccines. But all that being said, thymarisol was never used in the MMR,

ever, not at any point ever in history. I don't know where this stuff comes from. Mercury was not in it. It wasn't in it. Thymarisol was not used in the MMR. All right. It was used in multi-vile flu vaccines and it's not used in any vaccines we give children now.

And it still wouldn't matter if it was because it wasn't dangerous. There you go. There you go. I wanted to unwind that because I hear that a lot, and it's very frustrating. It's nothing to be afraid of. If you eat fish, that's scarier mercury. Got it.

And the only other point that I think is worth mentioning, a lot of people will ask about the use of human cell lines in vaccines, in like the development of vaccines. Not they're not in vaccines, but they were used to help develop some vaccines. And this is true, particularly when it comes to Rubella, since that's what we're talking about today, there were cells from aborted fetuses used in the initial discovery and creation of the rebella vaccine. That is a true story. This was from the 60s.

So these were abortions that occurred in the 60s. I don't know if there are some stances or any of that. You can discover all that. You can look at that up if you want to, if you feel so inclined. And these cells were then used to help develop these vaccines. And so the argument is made by some that you can't get any vaccines because that research was done in a way

that is not compatible with their own beliefs. And this is what I would say, first of all, that this isn't an ongoing thing. I think that sometimes if they say like, well, these vaccines are made from aborted fetuses, that gives you the impression that this is like an ongoing thing that scientists are doing in order to make the vaccines. And that's not true. This happened during the development in the 60s.

Yeah. It's not still being done. If you're going to start avoiding medical treatments at some point during their development, had some whack crap involved with it, there's a lot of medicine you're going to miss out on. As we've talked about, there's been some bugs in the road.

There's a lot of stuff we've done that I think we could all agree was unethical or inconsistent with our morality um... regardless of how you feel about abortion per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per per I think that has been done at some point in time. The second thing that I thought was interesting is that I was researching this particular aspect. I found a letter from the Vatican, and now I know all of the religious opposition to vaccines isn't Catholic. It's not born of Catholicism. But I thought this was an interesting point

from one religious perspective. It was kind of a meditation on this problem. What is the final word as per, if you're interested, here's what the Vatican thinks of it. And basically what they came down to was that, well, yes, we would prefer the vaccines not have been made this way, clearly. And we would encourage scientists to continue to work on vaccines that aren't made this way, an alternative, a vaccine that is not made with the, you know, like make a vaccine a different way. Make a new vaccine. Definitely use that one. Yeah. They're not made with the war. No, again, but make

but make a new vaccine that was never history. Right. If you can do that, we would prefer that. But all that being said, we also realize that the alternative would be to expose and possibly allow your children to die from preventable diseases, and that that is a morally unacceptable alternative that we do not believe anyone should choose. So, the word from the Vatican is that even though these, and let me be clear, they do use these same cell lines. There are lots of cell lines that we use that are derived from cells that we got decades ago. Right. As we alluded to on the show before, like the Henry Adelaques cell line, the Helus cells. Those are cells we obtained a long time ago. But we are, but not new abortions are not providing these cells. Does that make sense? I just want to, I know this is a sticky subject,

so I want to be very clear, but what I'm saying. So even the Vatican is saying like, all this aside, while yeah, we wish there were different vaccines and we prefer this wasn't the case, until there are, you should get the vaccines, because it is, from their standpoint at least, morally wrong to allow your kid to die from a disease that you could prevent For this cause there you have it folks, so I don't know that's way outside my realm. I'm not gonna speak for any any religious

Professionals I don't know any experts in that area, but if that's your concern there's there it is Get your vaccines get your MMR We've eliminated rebella from the Western hemisphere. Let's not bring it back. Yeah, let's keep it off the charts. Yeah, and the best way to do that is by getting an MMR, you're 12 to 15 months, get a second MMR between ages four and six, and if you're concerned at all, you can always get titers drawn. You can go and they can check

your antibody levels to see if you're immune Specifically if you do become pregnant they'll actually check you for this you can't get an MMR while you're pregnant But after the pregnancy they'll give you another booster Just to make sure Because you want to keep those antibodies against your Bella high. Yeah But they you can be checked for this if you're curious if you're concerned, you might not be immune. Folks, that's going to do it for us. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you to the taxpayers for the use of our song, Minnesens, their song, not our song.

That's the intro and after our program. Thank you to Max from Fun Network for having us as a part of their extended podcasting family. And thank you to you for listening. Oh, there's a new couple pins, sobbing pins at mackelroymerch.com. If you head over there, that's our merchandise store. You can find these cool little, they're like ether and snake oil pins that you can get. They're very cool. Somebody mentioned they would make great earrings. Oh, yeah, I don't know. That's, can can get, I think they're really cool. They're very cool. Somebody mentioned they would make great earrings. Ooh, yeah, I don't know if that's, can you know pins? I don't know.

I mean. I think these are glittery, for whatever it's worth, I think these are glittery. I don't know if that changes anything for you. They're glittery? Yeah. Why would that change? They're desirative earrings.

It's not a related earrings, I would just mention they're glittery, interlaced earrings. Thank you so much for listening to our show. You've been a great audience. It is something I almost said, but we thought it because this is a podcast. But until next week, my name is just Macro. I'm Sadie Macro. As always, don't drill a hole in your head. Alright! Maximumfund.org

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