The complex end of the vaccine for Lyme disease

Public perception of a vaccine's danger, even if wrong, can doom the vaccine and poses a broader threat to the nation's health.

By Susan J. Landers, AMNews staff. April 22/29, 2002.

Washington -- As tick season begins, physicians in areas where Lyme disease is common will find they have one less weapon in their arsenal against it. A precipitous drop in sales has caused the only manufacturer of Lyme vaccine to remove the preventive tool from the market.

Although the vaccine wasn't perfect -- it had about an 80% efficacy rate and boosters were probably needed -- it did afford protection to many people who live in areas where the illness is most common.

"From a public health perspective, it's too bad," said David Weld, executive director of the American Lyme Disease Foundation.

"We consider it a setback in terms of preventing the disease," said Gary Wormser, MD, director of the Lyme Disease Diagnostic Center at Westchester Medical Center, Valhalla, N.Y.

More than 16,000 cases of Lyme disease are reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention each year -- most occurring on the eastern seaboard from Massachusetts to Maryland. And the number has increased in recent years. The growing prevalence is a sign that common preventive measures, such as tick repellants, long sleeves and pants and simply avoiding tick havens, have not been very effective.

But even with incidence continuing to rise, sales for the vaccine declined from about 11/2 million doses in 1999 when it first came on the market to a projected 10,000 doses this year, according to manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline.

The reasons behind the drop in demand raise concerns that reached beyond the loss of this one particular vaccine. "It was public misperception and the promotion of these false concerns that led to the decreased sales," said Neal Halsey, MD, director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. [...]