Originally posted on FairWarning
The virus that causes childhood chickenpox doesn’t fade away with youth. It haunts people later in life in the form of shingles, a disease affecting more than one million Americans a year that can cause excruciating pain, lesions, vision impairment and other severe symptoms.
As The New York Times reports, about five years ago the U.S Food and Drug Administration thought help was on the way when it approved a vaccine called Zostavax. Research has shown it can reduce the outbreak of shingles by 51 percent and, for patients with the disease, it can alleviate symptoms.
But so far there is little progress in beating back shingles.
[Note from SaneVax: It’s pretty bad when the medical system is willing to accept a failure rate of 49% and still recommend the vaccine. One would hate to think it has anything to do with the fact that this particular vaccine is the most expensive adult vaccine on the market.]
Leave a Reply