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In 1977, after a cluster of cases in a small New England town, clinicians identified what would become an emerging disease for surrounding states, today infecting tens of thousands annually.And the township in question, its name now carrying a measure of infamy, was Lyme, Connecticut.


Dr.Todd Hatchette is a microbiologist and infectious disease physician with the Nova Scotia Health Authority, possessing a professional interest in the disease’s progress since the 1970s.Lyme disease is what we call a zoonotic infection, as he explained over the phone in early June, the sort of ailment which originated in animals and has since leapt to human beings.It spreads by way of the blacklegged tick, known also as the deer or Ixodes tick, once restricted climatically to the northeastern United States.


In 2002 alone, 23,763 cases were reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the U.S, even though the pharmaceutical community rose to this challenge a decade earlier.In fact, two vaccines made their way to the forefront in the early 1990s, their stories chronicled in a 2006 paper entitled The Lyme Vaccine: A Cautionary Tale.


Of these vaccines — LYMErix and ImuLyme — only the former made its way to market on Dec 21, 1998, shown by exhaustive clinical trials to be 76 per cent effective against the growing threat of Lyme disease.By 2001, more than 1.4 million doses had been administered to the public.



Vaccines are a modern miracle, standing among our most powerful tools in the prevention and even eradication of diseases mild or deadly.And while LYMErix wasn’t perfect, extensive study demonstrated its safety and effectiveness.But for as long as we’ve used vaccines in defence of public health, portions of that public have greeted them with distrust.LYMErix, sadly, was no exception.


Within a year of its release, people began claiming adverse effects from this vaccine, the 59 cases of arthritis standing out, culminating in a 1999 lawsuit against the vaccine’s manufacturer, SmithKlineBeecham.Without going into the post-market studies undertaken by this company as well as the Food and Drug Administration in response to these concerns, it’s enough to say that rates of arthritis among vaccinated individuals were the same as those who weren’t vaccinated at all.Nor was there a spike in arthritis diagnoses following the vaccine’s release.With a great deal of effort and after an FDA advisory panel meeting in early 2001, the vaccine’s safety was reaffirmed by both government and industry.


We humans are passionate creatures, more easily swayed by personal stories than by cold, hard data.We’re also excellent at recognizing patterns, even where none exist.That some people would develop arthritis around the time of vaccination is a matter of probability — inevitable given the sample size — but to claim their arthritis was caused by the vaccine requires that cold hard data we talked about which, in this instance, didn’t support these claims at all.


But unfortunately the damage was done.It’s easy to distrust pharmaceutical companies and government, even easier to side with perceived victims on the front page.In spite of all the evidence, public opinion turned against LYMErix and many people stopped vaccinating, so in the face of poor demand and an impending lawsuit, the manufacturer discontinued their vaccine on Feb. 26, 2002.


It’s ironic that the withdrawal of our first and only vaccine against Lyme disease would coincide with the ailment’s arrival in Nova Scotia.According to our own branch of Communicable Disease Prevention and Control, there have been 701 cases across the province from 2002 to 2015, and that number continues to climb.


Dr.Hatchette says originally Nova Scotia was too cold for the blacklegged tick, but with the unwelcome progress of climate change they’ve been able to expand their range northward, conveying this disease from their guts to our shores.


Already our counties have been divided into categories of high risk (Yarmouth, Shelburne, Queens, Lunenburg, Halifax and Pictou), moderate risk (Digby, Hants, Colchester, Cumberland, Guysborough and Antigonish), and low risk (Annapolis, Kings, Richmond, Inverness, Cape Breton and Victoria) for encountering infected ticks.


While she wasn’t speaking directly to the demise of LYMErix, infectious disease specialist Dr.Shelly McNeil discussed this longstanding assault on vaccines in April.


“It’s unfortunate there are these vaccine myths out there but there’s more evidence by far for their safety than for everything else people are given in hospitals,” said McNeil, who has worked, among other things, as an investigator with the Canadian Centre for Vaccinology.


She and Dr.Hatchette both explained that vaccines go through three phases of study before ever reaching market: the first on animals, the second on humans and the third on control groups numbering in the thousands, all three to determine safety and effectiveness, typically over years.Even after market release, when sample sizes reach millions, studies continue.Few of our medicines are examined with this sort of rigour.


“Overwhelmingly our followup studies show, time and time and time again, that vaccines are safe,” McNeil said. “There’s no question in my mind that vaccinations are safe.”


And yet, the doubts among many of us have spread more widely than the diseases we’re trying to prevent.So while LYMErix would likely be recommended to citizens of our high-risk counties right now, we instead go without, the unfounded crusade down south leaving us regrettably disarmed.