Newborn infant exposed to GBS

• some women make good antibodies against Group B strep, and babies who get good antibodies from mom are less likely to get infections

• there is a pneumococcal vaccine, but no vaccines against GAS or GBS exist

• why no GAS vaccine? we are mostly worried about people getting rheumatic fever post-GAS vaccine

• why no GBS vaccine? the people we really want to target with such a vaccine would be pregnant moms. but there may arise an inaccurate association between such a vaccine and miscarriages (note that 25% of normal pregnancies end in miscarriage). there will inevitably be lawsuits (plaintiffs will be mothers who lost their pregnancy right after inoculation, probably due to coincidence, not a side effect of the vaccine) and lay juries may have difficulty understanding that the vaccine was probably not at fault

Category: Microbiology Notes