NAME. THAT. VACCINE!
August 8, 2022 7:05 AM Subscribe
I'm trying to figure out what the hell kind of vaccine (TB test? allergy test?) would be administered by scratching a needle on a Canadian kid's back in the late sixties.
By grade 3 or 4, my suburban Montreal classmates and I had already been through the vaccine gauntlet: smallpox shot on the upper left arm (we compared how tall the scab got and what the resulting scar looked like) rubella, polio by shot and sugar cube. But when we were about 8 or 9 years old, each of us had to leave class one day to get a needle scratched a few times across our mid-back.
I can't think of any vaccine administered that way, TB tests apparently are NOT administered by scratching, and it seems weird to put everyone in class through the same allergy test. In addition, I think the nurse just stuck on a bandage and sent us back to class. I don't remember anyone inspecting the affected area after the needle scratch to look for a reaction.
So apart from some thwarted plan for alien abduction, I am all out of theories. Any ideas?
By grade 3 or 4, my suburban Montreal classmates and I had already been through the vaccine gauntlet: smallpox shot on the upper left arm (we compared how tall the scab got and what the resulting scar looked like) rubella, polio by shot and sugar cube. But when we were about 8 or 9 years old, each of us had to leave class one day to get a needle scratched a few times across our mid-back.
I can't think of any vaccine administered that way, TB tests apparently are NOT administered by scratching, and it seems weird to put everyone in class through the same allergy test. In addition, I think the nurse just stuck on a bandage and sent us back to class. I don't remember anyone inspecting the affected area after the needle scratch to look for a reaction.
So apart from some thwarted plan for alien abduction, I am all out of theories. Any ideas?
Any chance it was the tine test for TB?
posted by praemunire at 7:12 AM on August 8, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 7:12 AM on August 8, 2022 [5 favorites]
Best answer: There's a mention here of children in Newfoundland or Quebec getting a "back scratch" vaccination (BCG) for TB.
posted by scorbet at 7:21 AM on August 8, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by scorbet at 7:21 AM on August 8, 2022 [2 favorites]
Best answer: There's more info in this article: Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccination patterns in the province of Québec, Canada, 1956–1974 which explains that there was first a skin test: "The Vollmer, Mantoux, Tine, and Heaf were all tuberculin skin tests, whereas the BCG skin test consisted of administration of killed bacilli (BCG) by scarification" - (scarification is the proper term for the back scratch) and most of the tests were the BCG type. Anyone who was negative was supposed to get a vaccination.
posted by scorbet at 7:30 AM on August 8, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by scorbet at 7:30 AM on August 8, 2022 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: I think you've got it, scorbet -- thanks! I dug into the Yukon site you linked in your first answer and found another PDF that included this description of the scar: "In some jurisdictions (e.g., Quebec, Newfoundland), BCG was administered on the lower back (“back scratches”), and might appear as parallel scratch lines."
From your second source:
Alternatively, my school system may have been cutting corners, so if I was only scratched once, that could have been a BCG test with killed bacilli, or BCG vaccination with attenuated bacilli.
Maybe I should request my records from the province.
posted by maudlin at 7:58 AM on August 8, 2022 [2 favorites]
From your second source:
The BCG vaccine was used in mass vaccination programs in only two provinces, Québec and Newfoundland, while other provinces restricted its use to targeted populations [5]. In Québec, BCG vaccination was delivered as an experimental procedure from 1926 to 1948 [6], [7], [8]. The province-wide BCG vaccination program, held from 1949 until 1974 (see Supplementary Figure), covered neonates, school-age children up to the 11th grade, and other persons at risk of tuberculosis. The vaccine (Pasteur strain 568-S1 [9]) was offered free of charge, but was not mandatory. Before vaccination, all except newborns underwent an intradermal test, also referred to as skin test. Five types of skin tests were performed. The Vollmer, Mantoux, Tine, and Heaf were all tuberculin skin tests, whereas the BCG skin test consisted of administration of killed bacilli (BCG) by scarification [10]. A positive result, based on the size of the cutaneous reaction, indicated prior infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis or prior vaccination with BCG [10]. Vaccination was recommended for persons with a negative skin test result. Mobile teams working in collaboration with staff of local health units administered the skin tests and vaccinations. Resulting immunization records (Fig. 1) were sent to a central archive, still kept at INRS-Institut Armand-Frappier. The BCG vaccine remains one of the few vaccines for which a province-wide registry exists in Québec, and it is the one for which the registry covers the longest time period.I can't remember anything but the back scratch -- no follow-up inspection, no second scratches or shot -- so maybe I just forgot the rest of it because the back scratch event (out in the open, leaning on a desk in the middle of the gym in front of everyone) was the most vivid part of the whole experience.
Alternatively, my school system may have been cutting corners, so if I was only scratched once, that could have been a BCG test with killed bacilli, or BCG vaccination with attenuated bacilli.
Maybe I should request my records from the province.
posted by maudlin at 7:58 AM on August 8, 2022 [2 favorites]
polio by shot and sugar cube
I will never get over my jealousy of the kids who got the sugar cube. They just dropped that vile-tasting stuff directly onto our tongues.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:47 AM on August 8, 2022 [2 favorites]
I will never get over my jealousy of the kids who got the sugar cube. They just dropped that vile-tasting stuff directly onto our tongues.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:47 AM on August 8, 2022 [2 favorites]
An important ramification for those who have received the BCG vaccine is that forever more a skin TB test will be positive, necessitating chest Xrays to rule out TB (unless some more sophisticated testing has evolved I don't know about). I worked with someone in medicine from the UK who had been vaccinated, and he was exempt from skin testing because of this, and went straight to CXR when testing was required.
posted by citygirl at 11:39 AM on August 8, 2022
posted by citygirl at 11:39 AM on August 8, 2022
It would have been a Mantoux test.
This is still clear in my mind, because I had a BCG.
It was believed at the time that if you had, and if someone did a Mantoux (scratch) test on you after that, there was a possibility that you could go into anaphylactic shock and die.
Small towns in Canada at that point would have been completely unprepared to deal with that, so at the age of seven I was instructed not to have one, no matter what it took - I was, in this one instance, allowed to refuse instructions from an adult, fight, and run away. This has colored my attitude towards authority ever since.
Going back even further, my parents were acutely aware of the dangers surrounding TB because they were both medical professionals and both had scars in their lungs from unrecognized TB infections as children, something that wasn't that uncommon in places extremely remote from civilization, in this case the north of England. You didn't talk about it, because there was a bit of a stigma attached.
Anyway, if it was in Canada it was almost certainly a Mantoux test.
posted by AugustusCrunch at 11:43 AM on August 8, 2022 [2 favorites]
This is still clear in my mind, because I had a BCG.
It was believed at the time that if you had, and if someone did a Mantoux (scratch) test on you after that, there was a possibility that you could go into anaphylactic shock and die.
Small towns in Canada at that point would have been completely unprepared to deal with that, so at the age of seven I was instructed not to have one, no matter what it took - I was, in this one instance, allowed to refuse instructions from an adult, fight, and run away. This has colored my attitude towards authority ever since.
Going back even further, my parents were acutely aware of the dangers surrounding TB because they were both medical professionals and both had scars in their lungs from unrecognized TB infections as children, something that wasn't that uncommon in places extremely remote from civilization, in this case the north of England. You didn't talk about it, because there was a bit of a stigma attached.
Anyway, if it was in Canada it was almost certainly a Mantoux test.
posted by AugustusCrunch at 11:43 AM on August 8, 2022 [2 favorites]
About followup: when I was inducted into the army, they gave us a TB test with a thing that looked like a push pin, but with 4 needles. A doctor described the reaction of a positive test result as an area as big as a softball swelling and turning purple. (At least that's what i remember. )
If a positive reaction to the back scratch was similar, they would not have to screen everyone, just send a note home to parents: "if Johnny has a reaction..."
posted by SemiSalt at 1:58 PM on August 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
If a positive reaction to the back scratch was similar, they would not have to screen everyone, just send a note home to parents: "if Johnny has a reaction..."
posted by SemiSalt at 1:58 PM on August 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
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(I don't know what else gets administered that way)
Makes more sense to me if you're impossibly old, but variolation is the term to search here
posted by Acari at 7:10 AM on August 8, 2022 [1 favorite]