Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, November 27, 1993 TAG: 9311270130
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Doctors are predicting a rush for the vaccine - not because parents know the disease kills about 90 people a year, but because they think it is such a nuisance.
"Some people have wondered if the gain is worth the cost of a vaccine for chicken pox," said Dr. Samuel Katz, a pediatrician at Duke University Medical Center. "But parents are knocking on the door saying they want this vaccine."
About 3.9 million Americans, mostly children, get chicken pox every year. Caused by the highly contagious varicella virus, it typically just causes severe itching and rash.
But about 9,000 people develop complications ranging from blood infections to brain damage. An average of 92 died each year from 1987 to 1991. Children with weak immune systems and adults are most at risk.
Christopher Chinnes, 12, was one of those victims. The steroids the North Carolina boy was taking for a severe asthma attack suppressed his immune system, allowing chicken pox to shut down his organs one by one.
"It would have been kinder to shoot him in the head than the way he died," said his mother, Rebecca Cole, who has lobbied for vaccine approval since Christopher's death in 1988. "If we had had a vaccine, he would be here today."
Cole's lobbying may pay off soon. The Food and Drug Administration is in the final stages of investigating Varivax, a chicken pox vaccine developed by Merck & Co. An advisory committee is writing its conclusions now, and FDA could approve the vaccine by spring.
by CNB