Vaccines Are For All Of Us

Americans are largely attentive to the use of vaccines in children but many do not recognize that the need for immunization continues through adulthood.  The National Foundation for Infectious Diseases estimates that illnesses that could be prevented by vaccines account for 50,000 adult deaths a year, more than breast cancer, HIV/AIDS and traffic fatalities combined.

Millennia ago, the Greeks knew that people who survived an outbreak of diseases we now term “infections” frequently became protected from further incidents and there is evidence that Middle Eastern and Asian cultures employed a form of “vaccination” long ago.  But as the Victorian anthropologist, Sir Francis Galton avowed: “In science credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not the man to whom the idea first occurs.”

Looking Back

Preparations that can provide immunity for different diseases may not have been new but they were first introduced into western medicine in the late 1700’s when the major terror was Smallpox.

In a well-documented study, British physician Edward Jenner, observing the disease’s similarity with cow-pox, scraped samples from sores on the hands of milkmaids and transferred these to an open wound on a young boy he had purposely exposed to Smallpox.

To the surprise of many but not Jenner, the lad did not develop the disease and the era of vaccination had begun.  Today Professor Jenner would surely be in jail for doing this experiment.

Smallpox vaccine quickly became widely used and not unlike today, there was resistance from some claiming its mandatory use was a violation of civil liberties, showing once again that nothing is really new.  Perseverance however prevailed and in 1979, Smallpox became the first contagion to be fully eliminated world-wide.  Skeptics aside, no further cases have been identified.

Vaccines Emerge

As scientific understanding grew, new vaccines joined the list:  Rabies, courtesy of Louis Pasteur in 1880’s and by the end of WWI, diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough were not the inevitable killers of the generations previous.

Some other illnesses proved more difficult. Professor John Snow had cleverly (but illegally) established the source of cholera but a century and a half later a long-term defense still eludes us, as sadly we have seen in Haiti these past few years.

Some attempts (Plague and Yellow Fever) have been less than optimal.

Vaccine scientists have challenged Tuberculosis, Scarlet Fever and Malaria but with marginal results to date.  Thankfully, we do have antibiotics and other remedies to treat patients while efforts continue.

Simultaneously we are now confronting diseases that were once limited to faraway places: Rift Valley Disease, Dengue and Chikungunya Fevers, three illnesses all transmitted by the same genus of mosquito that is also the vector for Yellow Fever.

Clever little bugs aren’t they?   And there are no vaccines.

Clever does not describe what certain bacteria and viruses accomplish:  they mutate, creating changes in their genetic material, sometimes spontaneously.  These modifications may at times appear random yet other times appear outwardly pointed to counter efforts at treating the diseases they cause.

Going Forward

The time-frames for these viruses to alter varies greatly.  Polio immunization was introduced in 1955 and no mutation was identified until 2014 and it was not widespread.  Other viral-caused diseases are known to mutate quickly and often.

There are currently five recognized classes of Hepatitis (A through E) and there are similar groups and sub-types in the viruses that cause HIV.

On the good side, Measles, Chicken-Pox, Mumps and Rubella are no longer seen as “normal childhood diseases,” a term that is certainly incongruous.

To the credit of Doctors Salk and Sabin, the dreaded scourge of Polio was defeated in most of the world and by the end of this decade should go the way of Smallpox: eradicated.

Recent progress had led to vaccines for Hepatitis A and B, Influenza, Meningitis, Rotavirus,  Pneumococcal Pneumonia and Human Papillomavirus.  Now Shingles has yielded to a new preparation.

Logic dictates the elimination of a threat and thus the basis for vaccine research remains the eradication forever of diseases which maim and kill so many.

This goal is achievable and vaccines are among the principal weapons of choice.

Somewhere Jenner and Pasteur are smiling.

by Thomas Ignatius Hayes

Published in ACT TWO Magazine

October 2015
http://acttwomagazine.com

Twenty First Century Detention Camps In America

A week ago I attended a conference on immigration issues at the University of South Florida (St Pete) and learned about a law that I found very troubling.

Under a congressional mandate enacted in 2007, 34,000 people must be maintained in custody at all times by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a component of the Department of Homeland Security. A legislated and mandated quota of people to be held in custody, something that seems at first glance to be impossible but it is real.

Are those being detained dangerous? The original intent was that holding orders (detainers) were critical for ICE to be able to identify and ultimately remove criminal aliens currently in federal, state or local custody. That sounds like a good idea. If someone is convicted of a criminal act and is found to be in the country illegally he or she should indeed be deported as soon as possible.

That might be the intention but the application is very different. What has emerged is a situation where the majority of individuals being held are simply un-documented immigrants who may or may not be subjects for deportation. The process has evolved whereby individuals arrested for a suspected violation of law and who for any reason cannot prove at that moment their legal status find themselves reported to ICE. The agency then issues a detainer application to keep the individual in custody for 48 hours pending a determination by ICE as to deportation status. Often the detention period is extended by local authorities until ICE makes a decision.

The suspected violation that started all this can be as marginal as using someone else’s name to get a job or a traffic violation like driving without a license (in Florida only citizens or registered immigrants get licenses). Once ICE takes custody of the individual they become detainees, subject entirely to the processes of that agency and in general not given the benefits that are normally provided by established legal process.

Why would ICE even bother to take such seemingly draconian steps? They had an interested partner. The Congressional appropriations language covering ICE’s detention budget includes a statement that “funding made available under this heading shall maintain a level of not less than 34,000 detention beds.” The problem arose when ICE, encouraged and urged-on by some members of Congress, chose to interpret the language as “maintain and fill not less than 34,000 beds.” Thus, we have the situation at hand.

To a universe of law enforcement agencies, the concept of legislatively mandated detention quotas is a major deviation from long-held practices. Additionally the actual use of holding orders (detainers) rightfully raises serious constitutional concerns of depriving individuals of freedom without due process of law, of their right to a speedy trial, and at times cruel and unusual punishment. All this and in many cases without probable cause for the original suspected violation.

Rather than help ICE, the bed quota prevents the agency from exercising discretion and expanding more efficient alternatives to detention (ATD’s) that would allow individuals who pose no risk to public safety to be released back to their families while awaiting immigration court hearings. Criminal justice systems in many states use such measures as an effective and far less costly methodology than detention. 

The blame for this appears to rest not in DHS the cabinet parent of ICE but within the halls of Congress. It is they who have made the rules and who have over the years voted to let these measures continue.

The bottom line is that despite all efforts to remedy the unusual harsh interpretation of the law, the fact remains that thirty four thousand individuals are in fact incarcerated at all times. That number is not a target; it is an absolute minimum. This was evidenced when the Homeland Security Committee Chairman in the House of Representatives advised ICE officials that they were “in clear violation of statute” when the reported detainee population fell to  less than 34,000 after 2,200 were released to save money.

The logical question: why did Congress take such actions? The easy response is that politically it is beneficial to tell the folks at home that we are keeping pressure on deporting people who are here illegally. Even if this were the case and recalling the well-documented overcrowding of jails, where do we keep these supposed threats to our national security?

The answer was stunning: they are housed largely in privately run units managed by companies such as Corrections Corp. of America, Geo Group Inc. and other for-profit prison operators. These are companies who actively lobby congress and who generously support congressional re-election campaigns. That also gives reason for measures to remedy the situation failing to garner sufficient votes.

What is the cost of all this? The budget report shows a daily amount of $120 per detainee, or $4 million a day. Annually that amounts to a staggering $1.5 Billion. Still, that figure does not include the administrative costs within ICE that is needed to supervise the program. 

ICE reports indicate about $2 billion annual spending on detention, dollars principally allocated to those politically powerful high donor companies who provide the needed detention facilities. Two billion dollars to detain 34,000 human beings, most of whom who post little or no threat at all and none of whom can challenge their status quo.

Eliminating the bed mandate would not eliminate all immigration detention nor would it eliminate the mandatory detention provisions in current immigration law. ICE would still detain individuals where it can show that they have not complied with hearings and/or final orders. In the absence of a mandate, the agency would be able to shift its resources to community-based ATD’s reducing the disruption and harm that detention causes to families and communities and by doing so saving the taxpayers billions.

There is hope: a number of law enforcement departments have taken the position that unless the ICE can provide probable cause, such as a warrant or legal deportation order, the individuals will not be held but rather released back to the community as would normally occur.

But the mandate is still the accepted law of the land and as such 34,000 of our fellow human beings who do not know what the next day or week or month will bring and who have little chance of being heard remain in detention camps.

I wonder if when this is finally over whether we will someday apologize as we did to the thousands of Japanese we housed in detention camps in the 1940’s.

Thomas Ignatius Hayes

St Petersburg FL

7 March 2015