Shiloh
Editor, Senior Moderator
Source: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/74754/How-Victorian-diseases-are-sweeping-back
HOW VICTORIAN DISEASES ARE SWEEPING BACK
Monday December 8,2008
By Nick Fagge
DISEASES more often associated with Victorian slums are taking hold again in Britain.
Infections such as measles, mumps, tuberculosis and syphilis have spread rapidly in recent years.
And the re-emergence of conditions such as gout, rickets and scurvy ? disabling illnesses sparked by poor diet and social conditions ? is alarming doctors.
Easily preventable childhood diseases are returning in worrying numbers.
Following the 1998 MMR controversy, incidences of measles in England and Wales have risen 18 times, from 56 cases to 990.
Mumps infections went up from 119 to 1,476 during the same period.
Dr Colin Michie, consultant paediatrician at Ealing Hospital, west London, said: ?It?s entirely down to parents who think they know better than everyone else, refusing the MMR. These are completely preventable diseases.?
In September, the Department of Health revealed the rise in the take-up of the MMR had stalled at 85 per cent of two-year-olds.
A 95 per cent uptake is necessary for ?herd immunity? and according to Professor David Salisbury, director of immunisation for the Department of Health. ?There will be a measles epidemic at some point.?
The return of TB has been an issue for the past few years but the discovery of Britain?s first case of the virtually untreatable Extreme Drug Resistant TB in Glasgow earlier this year raised fears of the new super-strain.
Overall, cases of TB in England and Wales have risen from 5,658 in 1998 to 8,497 in 2007, largely a product of immigration from Eastern Europe and Africa.
Changes in social conditions and behaviour have seen old diseases return.
Gout, once thought of as the disease of the overweight and port-drinking upper classes, has spread as meat-rich diets and less exercise mean a build-up of uric acid which causes the disease.
With fewer people having balanced meals provided in a stable home life, the vulnerable have developed scurvy, the disease caused by vitamin C deficiency which causes gums to rot.
Rickets, the bone deforming disease caused by vitamin D deficiency thought virtually eradicated decades ago, is also growing, while cases of syphilis have shot up over the past decade.
HOW VICTORIAN DISEASES ARE SWEEPING BACK
Monday December 8,2008
By Nick Fagge
DISEASES more often associated with Victorian slums are taking hold again in Britain.
Infections such as measles, mumps, tuberculosis and syphilis have spread rapidly in recent years.
And the re-emergence of conditions such as gout, rickets and scurvy ? disabling illnesses sparked by poor diet and social conditions ? is alarming doctors.
Easily preventable childhood diseases are returning in worrying numbers.
Following the 1998 MMR controversy, incidences of measles in England and Wales have risen 18 times, from 56 cases to 990.
Mumps infections went up from 119 to 1,476 during the same period.
Dr Colin Michie, consultant paediatrician at Ealing Hospital, west London, said: ?It?s entirely down to parents who think they know better than everyone else, refusing the MMR. These are completely preventable diseases.?
In September, the Department of Health revealed the rise in the take-up of the MMR had stalled at 85 per cent of two-year-olds.
A 95 per cent uptake is necessary for ?herd immunity? and according to Professor David Salisbury, director of immunisation for the Department of Health. ?There will be a measles epidemic at some point.?
The return of TB has been an issue for the past few years but the discovery of Britain?s first case of the virtually untreatable Extreme Drug Resistant TB in Glasgow earlier this year raised fears of the new super-strain.
Overall, cases of TB in England and Wales have risen from 5,658 in 1998 to 8,497 in 2007, largely a product of immigration from Eastern Europe and Africa.
Changes in social conditions and behaviour have seen old diseases return.
Gout, once thought of as the disease of the overweight and port-drinking upper classes, has spread as meat-rich diets and less exercise mean a build-up of uric acid which causes the disease.
With fewer people having balanced meals provided in a stable home life, the vulnerable have developed scurvy, the disease caused by vitamin C deficiency which causes gums to rot.
Rickets, the bone deforming disease caused by vitamin D deficiency thought virtually eradicated decades ago, is also growing, while cases of syphilis have shot up over the past decade.