Dr. Peter Hotez - 1 in 20 Americans Has This Parasite and Doesn't Know It!
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What parasitic diseases are already common in the U.S. and why are they being missed?
Parasitic infections and related tropical diseases are widespread in the US. Most of them are being missed and not being diagnosed.
Do you think that it's more important now than ever to be able to identify these things early and often?
The other problem with a lot of these parasitic diseases, the diagnostic tests for those, which we'd love to do, but we don't have the funding. And the other problem is the specialty tests are not done every week. Physicians also just don't bother because it's a lot of extra work.
How are we in this position at this stage of medicine?
Our vaccine, which is quite innovative, works on the fact that we over decades worked out the pathway by which hookworms degrade the hemoglobin. If we could take the protein components involved that the worm uses to feed, make a vaccine out of that, it induces an antibody response. And now we can make our vaccine, we think, for probably $2 to $3 a dose.
There's a recognition that science is imperfect and always evolving and that we can change the hypotheses and things get proven right and things get proven wrong. But there was a respect. There is a lot of frustration with this, the idea of experts and the level of distrust. Do you think there's a way to restore trust?
This has become a big issue right now. And unfortunately, it's going to get worse before it gets better because
Dr. Hotez, welcome to the show.
Thank you, Dr. Lyons. Great to see you. Great to see you, too. And feel free to call me Peter.
You know, I have been thinking a lot about your work. And as I was preparing for this episode, I called my mentor, Don, and I said, Don, okay, so we're going to be talking about this. And he said, you know, my question is, is that when he was growing up, so he's in his 70s, he said we had three or four vaccines. Now, by the time a child is no longer a child, they've had, what, 75 vaccines?
When I was a house officer resident in Boston in the 1980s, we vaccinated kids against eight illnesses. It was diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, polio, measles, mumps, rubella. And I believe we were giving influenza vaccines at that time on an annual basis. We were vaccinated against eight diseases. So what was my worst nightmare as a house officer, as a resident in Boston at that time? It was admitting kids with bacterial meningitis, either Hib meningitis, they're called Haemophilus influenzae type B, it was pneumococcal meningitis, and it was two forms of meningococcal meningitis. And I can't tell you how much time I spent with parents after doing the lumbar puncture, the spinal tap, and doing the gram stain, and seeing the bacteria under the microscope, and getting a confirmatory diagnosis in the lab, and admitting them to the pediatric ICU.
And knowing that a significant number of those kids will die, a significant number of those kids, even if they survive, will have permanent neurologic injury. And one of the better outcomes is deafness, right? And then what happened? We added the four vaccines for the four forms of bacterial meningitis. And now those diseases are gone. So, are those the ones you want to add back? So, now that brings us from eight to 12 diseases, okay? And then we started vaccinating against two forms of cancer, cervical cancer caused by human papillomavirus. And now Australia is actually going to eliminate cervical cancer by 2035 because the uptake is so high. And we're going to vaccinate against liver cancer from hepatitis B. So that brought us to 14.
And then we added the rotavirus vaccine. That was a leading cause of hospitalization in the winter. We added varicella vaccine. And I think it was hepatitis A. So that brought us to 17. So we went from 8 to 17 diseases. And you could say, OK, which one do you want to take out? So it's not 75, right? And right off the bat, that 75 number comes from assuming you do an influenza vaccine every year for 20 years. So that brings you right down. What they would say is 50. But in fact, it's about 25 to 30 immunizations.
Okay, so thank you for clearing that up.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What parasitic diseases are already common in the U.S. and why are they being missed?
0:00–9:50
2
How did vaccine history and myths (like '75 vaccines') get distorted and what is the reality?
9:50–20:36
3
Why was the speed of COVID vaccine development controversial and how should science communication change?
20:36–25:54
4
What is toxocariasis and how can it cause asthma and developmental delays?
25:54–38:19
5
Why do standard parasite tests often come back negative and which tests should clinicians request?
38:19–45:31
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from The Dr. Gabrielle Lyon Show
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