|
|
|
|
|
Editorial: Accepting immunity |
|
| Ottawa Citizen |
|
| September 21, 2009 |
|
| "With a second wave of H1N1 flu
on the doorstep, Canadian public health officials face a serious stumbling
block in their battle to contain the coming pandemic: the anti-vaccine
movement. People who refuse to be vaccinated -- because they have misguided
medical fears or because they're making a quasi-political statement against
the scientific 'establishment'-- could derail progress aimed at reducing the
effects of this disease, the result being that a lot of people could get
seriously ill and die. Individual voices of concern about the H1N1 flu
vaccine have grown into a chorus in recent weeks, and the time has come for
health officials to mount a counter-offensive if they don't want to see
their vaccination programs sabotaged. This needs to be done quickly..." |
|
Autism Activist Says It's Time to Acknowledge There's No Autism-Vaccine Link |
|
| AAFP News |
|
| August 4, 2009 |
|
| "It's been a rough year for the
anti-vaccine movement. In February, three federal judges ruled in three
separate cases that there is no association between vaccines and autism. In
April, Alison Singer resigned from her role as executive vice president of
Autism Speaks, the nation's largest private supporter of autism research,
citing a disagreement with the organization's decision to continue to fund
research into a possible link between vaccines and autism despite mounting
evidence that vaccinations do not cause autism spectrum disorders..." |
|
Opinion: The New McCarthyism |
|
| Winnipeg Sun |
|
| July 19, 2009 |
|
| "I recently met Jessica, one of Jenny McCarthy's friends who was worried about the strong arguments against immunizations that Jenny has made on autism…" |
|
AMA Rejects Call for More Research on Vaccine Link to Autism, Reaffirms Immunization Policies |
|
| AAFP News |
|
| June 26, 2009 |
|
| “There's no need for more research into a possible link between vaccines and autism. But there is a continuing need for support of ongoing research into the true etiology of autism and its treatment. And physicians should continue to take a lead role in extolling the benefits of vaccines to health policymakers and the public. Those were among the messages recently sent by the AMA House of Delegates, which met June 13-17 in Chicago. A resolution submitted by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law initially proposed that the AMA reaffirm its support for universal vaccination, asked the AMA Council on Science and Public Health to review the most recent research on vaccines and autism, and urged the association to continue to support research into the etiology and treatment of autism. Although delegates at the meeting overwhelmingly supported the first and third resolves, they steadfastly opposed the request for a council review of vaccine research…" |
|
|
Opinion: Kids' Vaccines Aren't the Problem |
|
| Cherry Hill Courier Post (NJ) |
|
| June 21, 2009 |
|
| "Over the years, there has been
considerable controversy concerning vaccines and their possible link to
autism. More recently, some people have claimed that infants and young
children receive too many vaccines at one time, and that as a result
they somehow overwhelm the immune system. However, researchers from The
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), the University of
Pennsylvania, UCLA and other institutions recently found instead a
genetic link to autism. Lead researcher Dr. Hakon Hakonarson of CHOP
said he hopes this breakthrough will help dispel fears that autism is
triggered by vaccines..." |
|
|
Parental Knowledge of Vaccinations Important |
|
| Reuters |
|
| June 10, 2009 |
|
| "When parents are more knowledgeable
about vaccinations' their children are more likely to get them' a new
study shows. The study' which included parents of 630 Spanish children'
found that while most children received the recommended vaccinations'
parents' vaccine knowledge influenced the likelihood. When parents
scored below the average on a test of vaccine knowledge' their children
were 55 percent to 60 percent less likely to be on schedule with their
immunizations' according to findings published in the online journal BMC
Public Health. The findings suggest that if doctors do more to inform
parents about vaccine effectiveness and safety' they will be more likely
to keep their children on the recommended schedule' according to the
researchers' led by Dr. Eva Borras of the Department of Health in
Barcelona..." |
|
|
Risks: Pertussis Protection? Not From the Herd |
|
| New York Times |
|
| June 8, 2009 |
|
| "The theory of herd immunity holds
that when most people in a group are vaccinated' everyone is protected —
even those who refuse the vaccine' as many families are doing these days
out of a belief that vaccinations cause autism and other illnesses. But
the theory does not appear to work well with whooping cough. Researchers
studied children enrolled in a Colorado health plan in the period 1996
to 2007' and found 156 laboratory-confirmed cases of pertussis. They
recorded the vaccination status of each and matched them to 595 randomly
selected control subjects. After controlling for sex' age' season of
infection and other factors' they found that the unvaccinated children
were about 23 times as likely as vaccinated children to get whooping
cough. In other words' about 1 in 20 unvaccinated children were
infected' compared with 1 in 500 who were vaccinated. The study appears
in the June issue of Pediatrics..." |
|
|
Is Oprah Winfrey Giving Us Bad Medicine? |
|
| Toronto Star (CAN) |
|
| June 7, 2009 |
|
| "We've all speculated about why the
anti-scientific emotion-based notion that vaccines somehow must cause
autism persists in spite of mountains of evidence to the contrary, but I
think the question goes much deeper than that. The anti-vaccine movement
is but one of the most visible components of a much deeper problem in
our public discourse, a problem that values feelings and personal
experience over evidence, compelling stories and anecdotes over science.
I'm referring to the Oprah-fication of medicine..."." |
|
|
Schools Lax on Vaccinations |
|
| Atlanta Journal-Constitution |
|
| June 7, 2009 |
|
| "As the school year ends, district
officials across metro Atlanta have been trying to educate parents that
their children must be properly vaccinated before they return next fall.
Georgia schools continued to violate state law during the 2008-09 school
year, allowing children to enroll and remain in class despite missing
required shots or having no vaccination records at all, according to new
data obtained under the state Open Records Act..." |
|
|
Why Advice on Oprah Could Make You Sick |
|
| Newsweek |
|
| June 5, 2009 |
|
| "Wish Away Cancer! Get A Lunchtime
Face-Lift! Eradicate Autism! Turn Back The Clock! Thin Your Thighs! Cure
Menopause! Harness Positive Energy! Erase Wrinkles! Banish Obesity! Live
Your Best Life Ever!..." |
|
|
Editorial: A Dangerous Denial; Parents Who Choose Not to Vaccinate Are
Imperiling Public Health |
|
| Baltimore Sun |
|
| June 1, 2009 |
|
| "People believe all kinds of strange
things' and most of the time it doesn't matter. Trouble arises' however'
when their odd beliefs affect other people's health. Such'
unfortunately' is the case with parents who choose not to immunize their
children against diseases that killed and crippled millions before
vaccines were developed and made widely available. The anti-vaccine
movement is driven largely by parents who believe that certain vaccines
can cause autism' a suspicion that has been thoroughly investigated and
authoritatively debunked..." |
|
|
Rare Hib Disease Increases in Minnesota |
|
| City Pages |
|
| June 3, 2009 |
|
| "As the ultrasound tech spread the
cool gel over her swollen belly, Brendalee Flint held her breath. Would
it be another boy? Or would she finally get the daughter she'd always
wanted? She'd be happy either way, she reminded herself for the
umpteenth time.Flint peered at the strange white shape on the black
monitor. Even after three kids, the image still amazed her—watching the
heartbeat was so cool. The ultrasound tech pointed out the lungs, the
tiny hands, the little brain. The tech waited patiently. There! Now she
could see. It was a girl..." |
|
|
Will This Doctor Hurt Your
Baby? |
|
By Jason Fagone
Philadelphia Magazine |
|
| June 1, 2009 |
|
| "Thanks to celebrity anti-vaccine crusaders like Jenny McCarthy and
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.' Children's Hospital doctor and
vaccine inventor Paul Offit gets death threats from parents frantic
about autism - and worse. He's had enough. He's taking
his critics on. A few years ago' Paul Offit found himself in a small
room with a bob-haired American mother of three who was
so mad at him she had tears in her eyes' and she was standing above him'
sort of rearing up - this is his recollection - as
if she was preparing herself' mentally' physically' to call him
something cutting and mean'..." |
|
|
Why Does the Vaccine/Autism Controversy Live On?: Research has soundly
disproved the alleged connection, yet fears about vaccines continue to
be a major risk to public health. |
|
| Discover Magazine |
|
| June 2009 |
|
| "Vaccines do not cause autism. That
was the ruling in each of three critical test cases handed down on
February 12 by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C.
After a decade of speculation, argument, and analysis—often filled with
vitriol on both sides—the court specifically denied any link between the
combination of the MMR vaccine and vaccines with thimerosal (a
mercury-based preservative) and the spectrum of disorders associated
with autism. But these rulings, though seemingly definitive, have done
little to quell the angry debate, which has severe implications for
American public health..." |
|
|
Blog: Should a Former Playboy Model Trump an Experienced Health Care
Expert? You Decide |
|
| Huffington Post |
|
| May 22, 2009 |
|
| "This weekend' Chicago-area parents
wondering whether or not to vaccinate their babies' toddlers' school-age
kids or teenagers face a tough decision when it comes to expert advice:
should they listen to Jenny McCarthy or to their pediatrician? McCarthy
is slated to give the key-note speech at the Autism One conference in
Rosemont on Saturday..." |
|
|
Editorial: New Perspective for Vaccine 'Refusers' |
|
| Star Tribune (MN) |
|
| May 28, 2009 |
|
| "At first glance, there seems little
in common between Danny Hauser's Minnesota family and a group of
Colorado parents
causing concern in a sobering recent medical journal article. The
Hausers, who made headlines in refusing chemotherapy for
their cancer-stricken 13-year-old, eke out a living with their seven
other children on a farm near Sleepy Eye. The Colorado
parents needed only routine care for their children and tended to come
from metro neighborhoods indicating a 'higher
socioeconomic status,' according to the study published in June's issue
of Pediatrics..." |
|
|
Editorial: Refusing to Immunize Raises Kids' Health Risks |
|
| Denver Post (CO) |
|
| May 27, 2009 |
|
| "Parents who ignore the research and
refuse to have their kids vaccinated increase the risk for everyone.
It's a selfish stance. So many horrible diseases have been all but
eradicated over the years by routine vaccinations that it's easy to lose
touch with the devastation those illnesses can inflict. Polio-stricken
children in wheelchairs are images typically confined to old
photographs. The terrifying wheeze of a child with whooping cough is
virtually unknown. And who among us has seen someone gone rigid with
tetanus? Unfamiliarity with the horrors of such diseases is likely one
reason why a small minority of parents decline to vaccinate their
children against preventable diseases..." |
|
|
Fear of Vaccines Spurs Outbreaks, Study Says |
|
| Wall Street Journal |
|
| May 7, 2009 |
|
| "Parental doubts about the safety of
childhood vaccinations are leading to outbreaks of largely eradicated
diseases like measles and whooping cough, doctors warned in a new
report. A U.S. measles outbreak last year -- almost exclusively among
unvaccinated people -- has sparked concern about places where many
parents opt out of having their children vaccinated. In Ashland, Ore.,
more than a quarter of kindergartners aren't vaccinated, leading the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to hold a town-hall
meeting on vaccination there earlier this year. 'A lot of folks are
counterculture-type independent thinkers [who] do not have faith in all
the modern medicine-type stuff," said Myles Murphy, city editor of the
town's newspaper, the Ashland Daily Tidings. Too many abstainers can put
a town at risk, wrote Dr. Saad Omer, of Emory University in Atlanta, the
lead author in the report in this week's New England Journal of
Medicine..." |
|
|
Blog: Should a Former Playboy Model Trump an Experienced Health Care
Expert? You Decide |
|
| Huffington Post |
|
| May 22, 2009 |
|
| "This weekend, Chicago-area parents
wondering whether or not to vaccinate their babies, toddlers, school-age
kids or teenagers face a tough decision when it comes to expert advice:
should they listen to Jenny McCarthy or to their pediatrician? McCarthy
is slated to give the key-note speech at the Autism One conference in
Rosemont on Saturday..." |
|
|
Essayist: Vaccines Under Scrutiny – Again |
|
| Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (NY) |
|
| May 22, 2009 |
|
| "The Center for Disease control
reported 503, 282 measles cases in the United States in 1962. In 1998:
67 cases, most due to importation from unprotected countries with
measles related death rate totaling between one and five percent.
Vaccines, injections of less virulent or inactive viruses that promote
the development of an immune response, have directly contributed to
decline in mortality rates associated with infectious disease. Unlike
previous generations, Americans of the twenty-first century are
virtually free from infectious diseases such as polio, mumps, measles,
rubella, human papilloma virus, hepatitis, and a host of other
diseases..." |
|
|
Autism Drug Lupron: Father-and-son team's crusade shows cracks |
|
Chicago Tribune
By Steve Mills and Tim Jones |
|
| May 21, 2009 |
|
| "Dr. Mark Geier has, he says, solved
the riddle of autism. He says he has identified its cause and, in the
powerful drug Lupron, found an effective treatment — what he calls a
'major discovery.' But behind Geier's bold assertion is a troubling
paper trail that undercuts his portrayal of himself as a pioneer tilting
against a medical establishment that refuses to embrace his novel ideas.
Time and again, reputable scientists have dismissed autism research by
Geier and his son, David, as seriously flawed. Judges who have heard
Mark Geier testify about vaccines' harmful effects have repeatedly
called him unqualified, with one describing his statements as
'intellectually dishonest'..." |
|
|
Another Nail in the Coffin for the Thimerosal-Autism Thesis |
|
| PointofLaw.com |
|
| May 14, 2009 |
|
| "Maryland's High Court confirmed its
intermediate appellate court and made it more difficult for plaintiffs
to qualify as expert witnesses in vaccine cases. In a suit against
vaccine maker Wyeth, the Blackwell family claimed that their son's
autism and mental retardation were caused by thimerosal-containing
vaccines given when the boy was young. However, attorneys for Wyeth
asserted that the scientific community generally does not accept the
causal connection between thimerosal and autism and said the family's
five experts were not qualified to testify under the state's version of
the 'Frye rule.' The court held that none of the five expert witnesses
had sufficient "knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education,
primarily in the field of epidemiology, to proffer reliable expert
testimony on matters of complex and novel scientific inquiry. ..." |
|
|
Say It Ain't So, O |
|
| Slate |
|
| May 7, 2009 |
|
| "Chastising a celebrity is an
exercise in futility. You feel like a kitten being held by the scruff of
its neck, scrabbling wildly in the air without drawing blood. Pointless
as this may be, though, I will try to talk some sense into Oprah
Winfrey, who has decided to go into business with vaccine skeptic Jenny
McCarthy. There is abundant evidence that vaccines don't cause autism.
More than a dozen studies, as well as trend data from California and
other states, show that neither the mercury-containing preservative
thimerosal nor the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine causes autism. In
March, a federal court dismissed both of these theories in a most
definitive way after hearing weeks of testimony and gathering thousands
of pages of evidence. Jenny McCarthy begs to differ..." |
|
|
Op-Ed:The Autism/Vaccine Myth: Parents who refuse to have their children
vaccinated are putting them, and other children, at risk |
|
| Los Angeles Times |
|
| May 3, 2009 |
|
| "A mother gently places her beautiful
1-year-old boy on the examining table, unwrapping his soft, blue
blanket. To my opening question, his mother says "No," she has no
concerns. A thorough exam confirms the boy's good health. His heart and
lungs are clear; his growth and development right on target. Even his
crying as we screen his blood for anemia and lead are signs of a normal
child..." |
|
|
Rash Actions and Dire Consequences |
|
| Guardian (UK) |
|
| May 1, 2009 |
|
| "My baby daughter is desperately ill
and her life has been put at risk by the selfishness of a sizable
minority of north London parents and their wrong-headed beliefs about
the MMR vaccine. Earlier this week my normally vigorous and feisty
11-month-old was reduced to drowsy, snot-filled lethargy. She refused
food, became uncharacteristically listless and developed a hacking
cough. Then that evening the measles rash appeared over most of her..." |
|
|
Opinion: Parents, Don't Be Immune to Vaccine Truths By Rahul Parikh, MD |
|
| Los Angeles Times |
|
| April 20, 2009 |
|
| "As a second-year pediatric resident,
I went to India to work in a hospital in Mumbai. There, among the rows
of sick, poor children, were ones dying from vaccine-preventable
diseases. Among them, most starkly, was a 9-year-old boy in the most
severe stage of tetanus -- every muscle in his body was locked in spasm,
the sides of his face pointed upward in a grimaced smile -- "risus
sardonicus," as it's known in pediatric textbooks..." |
|
|
Breast-Feeding Blocks Pain of Infant Vaccination |
|
| Reuters |
|
| April 14, 2009 |
|
| "Turkish investigators report that
breast-feeding an infant appears to significantly reduce the pain
associated with vaccination. "Even young children have a pain memory,
causing them to anticipate painful procedures and react more intensely
if they have undergone previous painful procedures with inadequate
analgesia," the team writes in the March issue of The Journal of
Pediatrics. Dr. Dilek Dilli and colleagues at Ankara Training and
Research Hospital randomized 158 infants younger than 6 months of age to
breast-feeding or no breast-feeding during routine immunization. They
also randomized another 85 children between 6 and 48 months of age to
receive 12% sucrose solution, topical lidocaine-prilocaine cream, or no
intervention during immunization. All children were evaluated for crying
time and pain by pediatricians using the Neonatal Infant Pain Scale
(NIPS) for those less than 12 months of age and the Children's Hospital
of Eastern Ontario Pain Scale (CHEOPS) for those older than 12
months..." |
|
|
National Infant Immunization Week Highlights Importance of Vaccinations;
Recent Outbreaks Show Need for Education of Parents |
|
| AAFP News |
|
| April 13, 2009 |
|
| "The following information was
released by the American Academy of Family Physicians: National Infant
Immunization Week, or NIIW, is scheduled for April 25-May 2, giving
doctors and public health officials an opportunity to emphasize the
importance of protecting children from 14 vaccine-preventable diseases.
Immunization expert Paul Offit, M.D. A list of nationwide NIIW events
and various online resources for parents and health professionals is
available from the CDC. "I think it's great to have a time set aside to
recognize the importance of vaccinations, but ... with the recent
outbreak of Hib (Haemophilus influenzae type b infection) in Minnesota
and Pennsylvania and in other areas -- as well as measles outbreaks --
it seems like every week is infant immunization week," said Paul Offit,
M.D., chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases and Maurice R.
Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology at The Children's Hospital of
Philadelphia..." |
|
|
Letter to the Editor: Immunize Children |
|
| Contra Costa Times (CA) |
|
| April 8, 2009 |
|
| "I read the Times story about parents
choosing not to immunize their children and wanted to make sure readers
know of the local risks. Though your story focused on a measles outbreak
in San Diego, we had a similarly disturbing outbreak of whooping cough
right here in Contra Costa County last year. The Contra Costa Public
Health Department had to temporarily close a private school in El
Sobrante after at least 21 children contracted whooping cough, a highly
infectious and serious lung infection. The outbreak had already spread
to another school and two childcare facilities. Fortunately, all of the
children recovered but the outbreak might have been avoided if the
children had been immunized. Like the events in your story, most of the
children with whooping cough in the Contra Costa outbreak were in
kindergarten, and their parents had decided not to immunize them for
various reasons, including the concern over whether immunizations are
linked to autism. There is simply no scientific link between
immunizations and autism. However, there is ample evidence that parents
who do not immunize their children put their children, the school and
the larger community at risk for serious, sometimes life-threatening,
diseases. Erika Jenssen, MPH Martinez Jenssen is immunization
coordinator of Contra Costa Public Health Department." |
|
|
Immunizing Children Philadelphia Mission |
|
|
Philadelphia Inquirer |
|
|
April 8, 2009 |
|
|
"At each of these addresses, in theory, is a baby who is behind in
childhood immunizations.
Velazco-Miranda's job: Find the parents. Get the kid into a clinic for
shots. With several recent
outbreaks of preventable diseases traced to unvaccinated children,
public health officials say it
is more important than ever to maintain the high immunization rates that
provide an extra layer of
protection for everyone. Philadelphia has among the highest vaccination
rates in the nation, often
topping all other big cities and most states..." |
|
|
Op-ed: Vaccinations Are a Public Health
Success, and a Responsibility |
|
| Bay City Times (MI) |
|
| April 7, 2009 |
|
| "Lined up in school gymnasiums like little soldiers in some states,
millions of U.S. school kids
did their part in a decades-long public health crusade. Many of them
sniffing back tears of fear, a
few crying openly, the vaccinations they received - at school or at a
doctor's office - vanquished
smallpox and polio from the North American continent, and sent measles
packing. Now that those
diseases and others are beaten back, though, some parents are pushing
back against state laws
requiring vaccinations for school children..." |
|
|
Why Do Anti-Vaccinationists Believe? |
|
| Huffington Post |
|
| April 2, 2009 |
|
| "At the end of last week, I wrote an
article which was eventually titled 'Vaccine Denial =
Scientific Illiteracy.' The article was posted on Monday and has since
received a lot of feedback
on either side...More confusion came when I started actually reading
through the comments. I tried
to understand the anti-vaccination thought process. From my point of
view, vaccines are good
things..." |
|
|
Editorial: Vaccine Fear is Harmful for
Children |
|
| Contra Costa Times |
|
| April 1, 2009 |
|
| "A misguided fear that some vaccines may cause autism has persuaded a
growing number of parents to
decline to have their children inoculated against childhood diseases
such as measles, mumps and
whooping cough. These are illnesses that had been eradicated in the
United States years ago after
the implementation of a federal program paying for vaccines for those
who could not afford them.
Unfortunately, unfounded fears that vaccines are more dangerous than the
diseases they prevent have
led to an increasing number of children who are not vaccinated before
they enter school..." |
|
|
Concern over Vaccination Rate in N.J.; Responding to a reported drop, a
doctors' group says parents and government must do more |
|
|
The Philadelphia Inquirer |
|
|
March 30, 2009 |
|
|
"Both parents and government must do more to ensure timely
vaccination of children, a New Jersey doctors' group says, pointing to a
new national survey that suggests the state may have dropped from the
top 10 in the country to the bottom 10 in less than a year. "We live in
the most urban state in the nation," Robert Morgan, a pediatrician and
member of the Medical Society of New Jersey, said in an interview. "When
you choose not to vaccinate your child, you are making choices for every
other child as well." It is not clear that the latest National
Immunization Survey results in New Jersey accurately reflect actual
vaccination rates. The survey, conducted from July 2007 through June
2008, found that 70.5 percent of children in New Jersey had received the
standard series of vaccines - down from 80.5 percent during the
January-to-December 2007 period..." |
|
|
Immunization Laws and Attitudes Vary |
|
| Los Angeles Times |
|
| March 29, 2009 |
|
| "States have long been able to require students to be vaccinated before
entering school, a power
upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1922. But how strictly immunization
laws are enforced varies,
with tougher requirements leading to higher rates of compliance. A study
published in the Journal
of the American Medical Assn. in 2006 found that states that made it
easiest to opt out of mandated
vaccinations were nearly twice as likely to have cases of whooping cough
as states with more
difficult procedures. The authors, who noted that California was among
the most lenient, urged all
states to "balance parental autonomy with the tremendous public health
benefit of vaccines" and
consider tougher standards for exemptions..." |
|
|
Measles Case Led to Concern, Quarantines |
|
| Los Angeles Times |
|
| March 29, 2009 |
|
| "Once vaccination rates dip below a
certain point, outbreaks of childhood diseases can spread quickly. Last
year, Hilary Chambers, a San Diego radio host and mother of a baby girl,
saw firsthand how fast measles can be passed among children. A
7-year-old boy brought back a case of the disease from Switzerland and
infected his two siblings and nine other children at his public charter
school and doctors' office. One of those children, a 10-month-old boy
too young to be vaccinated, went to day care with Chambers' daughter
Finlee. Public health officials informed Chambers that her daughter was
at risk for contracting measles. Finlee had just turned 12 months old,
meaning she was eligible for her first measles shot, but that
inoculation appointment hadn't yet been scheduled. Chambers was told
that she needed to keep Finlee quarantined at home, 24 hours a day, for
three weeks. "So I totally freaked out," Chambers said. "The child at
our day care that contracted measles was hospitalized with a 106-degree
fever." Finlee was one of about 70 children who were quarantined in the
case..." |
|
|
California Schools' Risks Rise as Vaccinations Drop |
|
|
Los Angeles Times |
|
|
March 29, 2009 |
|
|
"Parents fear shots more than measles or mumps. A rising number of
California parents are choosing to send their children to kindergarten
without routine vaccinations, putting hundreds of elementary schools in
the state at risk for outbreaks of childhood diseases eradicated in the
U.S. years ago. Exemptions from vaccines -- which allow children to
enroll in public and private schools without state-mandated shots --
have more than doubled since 1997, according to a Times analysis of
state data obtained last week. The rise in unvaccinated children appears
to be driven by affluent parents choosing not to immunize. Many do so
because they fear the shots could trigger autism, a concern widely
discredited in medical research. But with autism rates rising, some
parents find that fear more worrisome than the chance that their child
could contract diseases that, while now very rare in this country, can
still be deadly..." |
|
|
Sonoma County at Center of Anti-vaccine
Debate |
|
| Santa Rose Press Democrat (CA) |
|
| March 28, 2009 |
|
| "Whether it's a decision of the well-informed, non-traditional,
alternative or paranoid,
vaccinations are not considered a must-do by many North Bay parents.
Long gone are the days when
vaccinating infants and toddlers prior to kindergarten is done as a matter of course and without
question. Especially in western Sonoma County. A study conducted by the
Los Angeles Times reveals
that the North Bay, and Sonoma County in particular, is a hot bed of
anti-vaccine sentiment..." |
|
|
Health Dept. Prepares for Immunization Week |
|
| Moultrie Observer (GA) |
|
| March 28, 2009 |
|
| "During the 1950s, nearly every child
developed measles, an easily spread virus known for causing a rash,
fever, cough and watery eyes — and feared because it can also cause
pneumonia, seizures, brain damage or death. Today, thanks to childhood
immunizations, the disease is extremely rare in the United States..." |
|
|
Vaccine Scare Threatens Health in Ukraine |
|
|
Associated Press |
|
|
March 25, 2009 |
|
|
"A widespread scare about vaccine side effects in Ukraine has led to
a sharp drop in immunizations that could result in disease outbreaks
spreading beyond the former Soviet republic, international and local
health officials say. Hundreds of thousands of fearful Ukrainians have
refused vaccines for diseases such as diphtheria, mumps, polio,
hepatitis B, tuberculosis, whooping cough and others this year,
according to official estimates. Authorities have canceled a U.N.-backed
measles and rubella vaccination campaign funded by U.S. philanthropist
Ted Turner, and will have to collect and incinerate nearly 9 million
unused doses in coming months..." |
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Viewpoint: The Natural Benefits of Vaccines |
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BBC News |
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March 18, 2009 |
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"One of the arguments given by those who feel uncomfortable about
giving children vaccinations is that they are 'unnatural'. But in this
week's Scrubbing Up health column, vaccine expert Professor Adam Finn
argues that they are in fact a very natural idea..." |
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Dr. Dustin Ballard: Don't blame autism on shots |
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Marin Independent Journal (CA) |
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March 15, 2009 |
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"Did you know that the more ice cream you eat, the thinner you are?
It's surprising, but true. If you track the average person's weight over
the course of a year, you'll find that they are lighter when they eat
more ice cream and heavier when they eat less. Before you rush out to
stock up on pints of Cold Stone Creamery and shares of Ben & Jerry's, I
should mention that people eat more ice cream in the summer. They are
also more active and have higher metabolic rates in warmer weather. So,
perhaps it's not the ice cream that leads to weight loss but rather
seasonal variation in calorie burning. What's the lesson here? That
causality can be elusive..." |
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Linking Vaccines, Autism Tantamount to Crying 'Fire' Where There Isn't
One |
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CBC News (CAN) |
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March 12, 2009 |
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"It is a story that began when British gastroenterologist Andrew
Wakefield and colleagues reported in 1998 that they had found a link
between 12 children's vaccinations — for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR)
— and the onset of autism. But then when the findings couldn't be
replicated - analyses of large numbers of Finnish children, for example,
produced no connection between MMR and autism rates — people such as
British journalist Brian Deer began to look again at Dr. Wakefield's
research and methodology..." |
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Op-ed What vaccine dilemma? |
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| Pittsburgh Post-Gazette |
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| March 8, 2009 |
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| "The vaccine-autism controversy
continues, as reflected in last Sunday's front-page article in the
Post-Gazette bearing the unfortunate title, "The Vaccine Dilemma." There
is no vaccine dilemma. It's true that the number of cases of autism in
the United States is on the rise, with the diagnosis applied in 2007 to
1 of every 150 children. Significant reasons appear to be improved
detection, increased awareness and a broader definition of what
constitutes autism. While these explanations may not account for the
entire increase in cases, science has firmly established the role that
vaccines and vaccine preservatives play: NONE! There is NO LINK between
vaccines and autism. It is essential that people understand how
epidemiologists detect the causes of disease..." |
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Six Top Vaccine Myths |
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| Newsweek Online |
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| February 23, 2009 |
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| "A pediatrician debunks the most
common misconceptions about childhood immunizations...To sort through
the onslaught of information and misinformation about childhood
immunizations, we asked Austin, Texas-based pediatrician Ari Brown,
coauthor of 'Baby 411: Clear Answers and Smart Advice for your Baby's
First Year, 'to debunk some of the most common vaccination myths..." |
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| Podcast: Kids and Vaccines: Opting Out? |
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| Slate.com |
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| April 17, 2008 |
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| "In this edition of "Dr. Syd's House Call," pediatrician Dr. Sydney Spiesel talks with Emily Bazelon about fears surrounding immunization and the dangers of not getting vaccinated..." |
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