Rona writes:
Dear Dr. Griffin and Racaniello
There was some discussion on the April 9 Wednesday office hours about the number of people who die every year because of penicillin anaphylaxis in America.
Can you please comment on this.
Here’s the background:
A commenter tonight wrote that 500 to 1000 people die in America because of their penicillin allergy. I thought that was too high. Dr. R also quickly looked at the internet and confirmed that’s what the internet says.
I found that hard to believe considering I’ve been listening to the American Academy of allergy asthma immunology updates which warn of the harm in over labeling penicillin allergy. The AAAAI says that greater than 95%of the people labeled with penicillin allergy are in fact, when tested, NOT found to be allergic.
This inaccurate label can be harmful because when people are not treated with penicillin, they are often given other antibiotics which could be ineffective or stay in hospital longer and even lead to increased death.
Because I was incredulous to this “500-1000 annual penicillin anaphylaxis deaths” I tried to find the source while Dr R did the mini lecture.
The source seems, to my reading, to be a 24-year-old paper. The paper https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/646961
theorizes that based on allergy prevalence (from before 2001 labeling) we would see a 500-1000 person annual incidence of penicillin anaphylaxis. This is a model and not actual fact though it seems to be the first thing one reads when asking google today.
Dr Griffin, do you know how many people die every year in America from penicillin anaphylaxis?
Thank you,
Rona
Ellen writes:
Hi Daniel,
Here in Asheville the few places that did carry Novavax (Publix, CVS) ran out and didn’t reorder, the one at CVS expired March 31. Why do they (the famous they) seem to be slow-walking or underprivileging Novavax? Is the small uptake of ‘boosters’ across the board going to affect the availability of any Covid vaccines?
And, entirely separate question:
My daughter was born in 1984. I don’t recall if she ever had measles (German measles I do remember when she was 8). Would she then have gotten the single vaccine? Should she get an MMR vaccination just in case?
Thank you thank you,
Ellen
Chuck writes:
Hi Daniel,
Long time TWIV listener here. I always enjoy your clinical updates. My question is why don’t we just put H5N1 vaccine into the yearly flu vaccine now. I know that we vaccinate for four different strains of flu each year, so what’s the harm of going ahead and adding one more to our quadrivalent vaccine, just to be proactive?
Is there a concern the H5 vaccine would have a different set of side effects than the normal flu strain vaccines we already use?
Best,
Chuck
Kasey writes:
Hello TWiV!
I have a measles question for you:
My mother is a non-responder to the measles vaccine. I have had a full course of the MMR vaccine, but have never been checked for a response, is this something I should look into? Is vaccine non-response hereditary?
Thank you for all that you do and for explaining things so clearly.
Best regards,
Kasey
PS the bow ties really make some of the more disheartening updates a lot easier to handle <3
Marie writes:
Hello, and thank you for all that you do to educate me on how to stay safe in this world today. I was a little shocked today, as I went to a CVS to get my 6 month Covid vaccine (I am 72 y o) and I mentioned something about the measles outbreak to the pharmacist I asked him if he saw on upsurge in people getting a measles vaccine. The pharmacist, who has been working for Cvs for at least 26 years, surprised me by his reply. He said that it’s just with this news cycle now that we’re making such a big deal about measles outbreaks. He said we’ve always had measles outbreaks. And in the good all days, we had measles parties. I was disturbed by his reply. I wanted to confront him about his misinformation. I did tell him that in Ontario, there’s over 600 cases of measles now and that measles can wipe out one’s immune memory. And then I just left the store. Sorry to say, it just wasn’t worth getting into it with him. I was going to recommend your podcast to him as I recommend it to a lot of my friends, but then I figured he wouldn’t listen anyway. I really appreciate all that all of you do to keep me safe because, until we’re all safe, no one is safe.
Warm regards,
Marie from Media, PA