| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Checkup; Circumcise Your Son? |
|
|
The Washington Post |
|
|
March 31, 2009 |
|
|
"There's new evidence that men who are circumcised are less likely to
get infected with sexually transmitted viruses, according to a study
published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Previous research had
found that men who were circumcised were 50 to 60 percent less likely to
get infected with the AIDS virus. Now, researchers have found that
circumcision also significantly reduces a man's risk of being infected
with the herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2), which causes genital
herpes, and the human papillomavirus (HPV), which can cause genital
warts in men and cervical cancer in women. Researchers at the Johns
Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Health in Baltimore..." |
|
|
Vaccine Approved for Japanese Encephalitis: Mosquito-borne virus strikes
mostly in Asia |
|
|
US News and Reports |
|
|
March 31, 2009 |
|
|
"The Ixiaro vaccine to prevent Japanese encephalitis (JE) has been
approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as the only sanctioned
JE vaccine in the United States. The mosquito-transmitted virus is found
mostly in Asia, where it affects up to 50,000 people each year and
causes as many as 15,000 deaths, the FDA said in a news release. Though
rarely seen in the United States, a few cases have been reported among
people traveling to and from Asia..." |
|
|
Case of Whooping Cough Reported at Terra Linda High |
|
|
Marin Independent Journal |
|
|
March 30, 2009 |
|
|
"A suspected case of whooping cough, a highly contagious respiratory
tract infection, at Terra Linda High School has prompted health
officials to send letters to the parents of the school's 1,200 students.
Also known as pertussis, whooping cough can cause serious illness in
children and adults.." |
|
|
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..." |
|
|
President Barack Obama Talks about Daughter Sasha's Meningitis Scare
During Infancy |
|
| Chicago Tribune |
|
| March 28, 2009 |
|
| "She may be her parents' "precious
pea," but Sasha Obama gave them quite a scare as an infant. Sasha
developed meningitis when she was 3 months old and underwent a battery
of frightening tests, President Barack Obama recalled during his
Internet town hall meeting Thursday. It was the first time aides could
recall him publicly discussing the family's medical crisis. "The doctors
did a terrific job," Obama said, "but, frankly, it was the nurses that
were there with us when she had to get a spinal tap, and all sorts of
things that were just bringing me to tears." The White House could not
confirm Friday which type of meningitis Sasha developed or other details
about the illness. Sasha, now a spirited 7-year-old whom Obama referred
to as "our little precious pea" during the Internet chat, does not seem
to have suffered lasting effects. Her father, however, said the
experience changed the way he viewed medical care, prompting him to
promise to give nurses a voice in an upcoming health-care summit..." |
|
|
Coronado Student Diagnosed With Meningitis |
|
| 10News.com (San Diego) |
|
| March 27, 2009 |
|
| "A fifth-grader at a Coronado
elementary school has been diagnosed with meningococcal meningitis, a
type of bacterial meningitis, the San Diego County Health and Human
Services Agency announced Friday. Officials at Silver Strand Elementary
School have sent letters to parents of children in the sickened
student's class detailing the symptoms of the disease and recommended
precautionary measures, according to the HHSA...." |
|
|
UVa Student Hospitalized with Meningitis |
|
| The Daily Progress |
|
| March 27, 2009 |
|
| "For the first time in nearly three
years, a University of Virginia student has come down with bacterial
meningitis. The 21-year-old, fourth-year student was admitted to the
University of Virginia Medical Center on Wednesday afternoon, according
to Marian L. Anderfuren, a UVa spokeswoman. The male student was in
serious condition as of Thursday night, Anderfuren said in a release.
All those who had close contact with the student, including emergency
responders, were notified and have been given the antibiotic
prophylaxis, Anderfuren said. Those who had casual contact with the
student are not believed to be at risk..." |
|
|
Haiti Vaccines Target 1 million Children, Women: Public health workers
to help immunize against polio, measles, rubella |
|
|
St. Louis Post-Dispatch |
|
|
March 27, 2009 |
|
|
"Public health workers plan to vaccinate some 1 million women and
children this week in Haiti after delays exacerbated by food riots and
hurricanes, officials said. The effort marks the second phase of an
international goal to immunize 5.6 million Haitian children..." |
|
|
Experimental Vaccine Used in Ebola Exposure Case |
|
| USA Today |
|
| March 27, 2009 |
|
| "It was a nightmare scenario: A
scientist accidentally pricked her finger with a needle used to inject
the deadly Ebola virus into lab mice. Within hours, members of a tightly
bound, yet far-flung community of virologists, biologists and others
were tensely gathered in a trans-Atlantic telephone conference trying to
map out a way to save her life. Less than 24 hours later, an
experimental vaccine never before tried on humans was on its way to
Germany from a lab in Canada. And within 48 hours of the March 12
accident, the at-risk scientist, a 45-year-old woman whose identity has
not been revealed, was injected with the vaccine..." |
|
|
Media Distortion Damages both Science and Journalism |
|
| New Scientist (UK) |
|
| March 27, 2009 |
|
| "When media reports state that
scientist X of Y university has discovered that A is linked to B, we
ought to be able to trust them. Sadly, as many researchers know, we
can't. This has three serious consequences. For starters, every time the
media misreports science, it chips away at the credibility of both
enterprises. Misreporting can also engender panic, as people start to
fear the adverse consequences of the supposed new link between A and B.
Lastly, there can be a damaging effect on researchers' behaviour.
Funding agencies and science institutions rightly encourage scientists
to communicate with the media, to keep the public informed about their
research and so foster trust. If their work is misrepresented, they may
withdraw into the lab rather than risk having to spend hours setting the
record straight..." |
|
|
Circumcision Is Found To Curb Two S.T.D.'s |
|
| New York Times |
|
| March 26, 2009 |
|
| "Male circumcision, already shown to
reduce the incidence of H.I.V. infection in men, also reduces
transmission of both herpes simplex virus Type 2 and human papilloma
virus, a study has found. According to the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, at least 45 million people in the United States ages 12
and older have had herpes, or H.S.V.-2, the incurable infection that can
cause recurrent painful genital warts. About 20 million are currently
infected with human papilloma virus, or H.P.V., which causes various
genital cancers, including most cervical cancers. There is no treatment
or cure for H.P.V., but there is a vaccine now licensed only for girls
and women. The study, a randomized clinical trial published Thursday in
The New England Journal of Medicine, assigned more than 3,000
uncircumcised Ugandan men who were not infected with H.S.V.-2 to undergo
immediate circumcision or to be circumcised 24 months from the start of
the investigation. A subgroup was similarly evaluated for H.P.V.
infection..." |
|
|
University Park Student Diagnosed with Bacterial Meningitis |
|
| States News Service |
|
| March 26, 2009 |
|
| "University Park Health officials at
Penn State report that a probable case of meningococcal meningitis has
been diagnosed in a 20-year-old student, who has been hospitalized at
Geisinger Medical Center and is being treated for the infection. In
addition, friends and acquaintances of the student have been contacted
and offered the appropriate prophylactic medication. University Health
Services opened early Saturday to begin administering medication as
recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The
affected student was a member and resident of Alpha Chi Rho fraternity
at 425 Locust Lane, and all fraternity members were advised to seek
medical treatment. To date, 400 individuals have been treated and
University officials are working with fraternity members to identify any
additional students who may be at risk..." |
|
|
A Harvard Dean Gets Call from Washington: Obama taps Koh for a health
post |
|
|
Boston Globe |
|
|
March 26, 2009 |
|
|
"President Obama last night nominated Dr. Howard Koh, an associate
dean at the Harvard School of Public Health and former Massachusetts
public health commissioner, to a top health position in his
administration. If confirmed by the Senate as assistant secretary for
health, Koh would be responsible for establishing the nation's public
health agenda, handling a vast portfolio that includes the US surgeon
general and programs that coordinate vaccines, AIDS policy, minority
health, and blood safety..." |
|
|
A Vaccine Debate Once Focused on Sex Shifts as Boys Join the Target
Market |
|
| Washington Post |
|
| March 26, 2009 |
|
| "When a vaccine designed to protect
girls against a sexually transmitted virus arrived three years ago, the
debate centered on one question: Would the shots make young girls more
likely to have sex? Now the vaccine's maker is trying to get approval to
sell the vaccine for boys, and the debate is focusing on something else
entirely: Is it worth the money, and is it safe and effective enough?
"We are still more worried about the promiscuity of girls than the
promiscuity of boys," said Susan M. Reverby, a professor of women's
studies and medical history at Wellesley College..." |
|
|
Indonesian Minister Wants to Review Vaccinations |
|
|
Charleston Daily Mail |
|
|
March 25, 2009 |
|
|
"Indonesia's controversial health minister says she wants to end
vaccinating children against meningitis, mumps and some other diseases
because she fears foreign drug companies are using the country as a
testing ground. Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari who first drew
widespread attention by boycotting the World Health Organization's
50-year-old virus sharing system in 2007 said Tuesday she wanted
"scientific proof" that shots for illnesses like pneumonia, chicken pox,
the flu, rubella and typhoid were "beneficial". "If not, they have to be
stopped," she said, declining to say exactly what that would mean..." |
|
|
Woman Dies of Meningitis after Returning from Trip with Students |
|
| Kansas City Star |
|
| March 24, 2009 |
|
| "A 58-year-old Lenexa woman died
Monday after returning Sunday from a trip to a Mexican resort where she
was accompanying a group of students from Shawnee Mission West High
School. Mary Jo Allen, a developer, contracted bacterial meningitis, an
infection of the fluid around the spinal cord that ultimately surround
the brain. The Johnson County Health Department said the symptoms range
from fever, headache and a stiff neck to more severe symptoms such as
confusion or seizures. Teri Scott, a nurse and friend of Allen who also
was on the trip, said Allen became seriously ill when she returned to
Kansas City Sunday and died the next day. The group of about 40 students
and their parents were on a senior trip during the spring break vacation
from classes..." |
|
|
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..." |
|
|
HPV Data May Aid Vaccine's Effectiveness |
|
| HealthDay News |
|
| March 24, 2009 |
|
| "The majority of invasive cervical
cancers in New Mexico in the 1980s and 1990s contained DNA from human
papillomavirus type 16 (HPV16) and HPV type 18 (HPV18), says a new
study. It also found that women diagnosed with HPV16- or HPV18-positive
cancers were an average of five years younger than those diagnosed with
cancers associated with other HPV types..." |
|
|
New Blueprint Will Guide Autism Research: The collaborative plan
emphasizes searching for causes and helping families find resources |
|
|
AMA News |
|
|
March 24, 2009 |
|
|
"Washington The Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee, an
advisory panel of federal officials and public members, released a plan
March 5 to guide research on possible causes of the developmental
disorder. The research also is directed toward establishing services and
supports for individuals with autism and for their families. The IACC
was established by the Combating Autism Act of 2006, which required the
committee to develop and annually update a research plan. The disorder
was recently in the news when a special vaccine court rejected the
theory that the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine combined with the
preservative thimerosal triggered autism..." |
|
|
Autism Research Gets Stimulus Money for a Short-Term Boost |
|
| Street Journal Health Blog |
|
| March 24, 2009 |
|
| "The National Institutes of Health is
trying to kickstart autism research with $60 million in grant funding
from the stimulus bill. It is the largest-ever funding opportunity for
research into the neuro-developmental disorder, says the NIMH, the NIH's
mental-health arm. The CDC estimates that autism now strikes 1 in 150
U.S. children, and the epidemic spurred the government to put out a
research plan in January. President Obama himself has made autism a
priority, promising to put $1 billion in funds towards research. The
NIMH grants support research on topics like early intervention and
diagnostic testing. All this urgency is because there are few options
for autistic children beyond behavior and diet modifications..." |
|
|
Vaccine Delays in Poorer Nations Raise Health Risks for Infants |
|
|
New York Times |
|
|
March 24, 2009 |
|
|
"Many infants in poor and middle-income countries get their vaccines
weeks later than doctors recommend and therefore face increased risks of
sickness and death, according to a new study in The Lancet. Researchers
at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine studied health
surveys from 45 countries, mostly in Africa and Latin America. Globally,
vaccination rates have risen sharply over the last 20 years, and child
mortality has dropped below 10 million a year for the first time, thanks
largely to measles shots, according to the United Nations Children's
Fund..." |
|
|
This Scientist's Passion: Ending the scourge of parasitic diseases |
|
|
USA TODAY |
|
| March 23, 2009 |
|
|
"Even as a child, Peter Hotez held a grown-up's fascination for the
tiny creatures living in the creek near his house. Inspired by Paul de
Kruif's Microbe Hunters, a popular book on disease detectives, Hotez
persuaded his parents to buy him a microscope. He spent hours watching
little animals wriggle in a glowing circle of light, and, at an age when
most kids were reading The Hardy Boys, he read about parasites. His two
brothers were baffled by his obsession..." |
|
|
Drug-Resistant Flu Strains Throw Doctors a Curve; Faster Diagnoses, New
Medications Could Be Needed |
|
| USA Today |
|
| March 23, 2009 |
|
| "Not long ago, when
infectious-disease specialist Connie Price saw a patient hospitalized
with flu at Denver Health Medical Center, she had a powerful weapon at
hand: a drug that could shorten the course of the illness and lessen its
misery. Now, the strength of that weapon, Tamiflu, has been undermined
by a widely circulating flu strain, type A H1N1, that has developed the
ability to resist the drug..." |
|
|
Some Muslim Clergy Join Nigeria's War on Polio |
|
| Associated Press |
|
| March 22, 2009 |
|
| "In 2003, imams in northern Nigeria
fomented a boycott of polio vaccinations claiming they were a Western
plot to make Muslims infertile or infect them with AIDS. The result: The
number of newly crippled children rose by more than double the following
year, and there were fears that the disease would spread into a dozen
neighboring countries. Now, after another tripling of cases in 2008, a
big new anti-polio push is under way in Africa's most populous country,
and this time, some Muslim clerics have made themselves part of the
solution, joining community leaders, health workers and the victims
themselves in waging the war..." |
|
|
Whooping Cough Vaccine not as Powerful as Thought |
|
| The Atlanta Journal-Constitution |
|
| March 22, 2009 |
|
| "A cluster of whooping cough cases
among Cobb County elementary students is adding to concerns that an
important vaccine isn't as effective as it needs to be to stop the
spread of disease. Whooping cough, also called pertussis, is highly
contagious and can cause serious illness among infants and very young
children. But the vaccine is only about 85 percent effective and wears
off over time, leaving a significant number of children and adults
vulnerable to an infection that is more common than many realize, health
officials said..." |
|
|
Washington University Warns that Student Might Have Meningitis |
|
| The Kansas City Star |
|
| March 21, 2009 |
|
| "A Washington University student
living in the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity house may have contracted
meningococcal meningitis, the university said Friday. Meningitis is a
potentially life-threatening infection that can be spread to people who
have had close contact with the infected person. The university sent out
an e-mail to students, faculty and staff about the case on Friday
afternoon..." |
|
|
Program Created for Affordable Vaccines |
|
| ABC3 News (MI) |
|
| March 20, 2009 |
|
| "As our unemployment rate creeps
higher, many are cutting back. But when it comes to your kids, the
Department of Community Health is asking you make an exception. They're
reminding families to get their children vaccinated. For those who can't
afford it, they also have a program that can help. 'We do think that
there will be a need because we feel that more and more people are
unemployed, therefore they're going to need these vaccines, we just want
to be sure that these vaccines are available for those individuals,'
said Bob Swanson, the director for the Division of Immunization..." |
|
|
Remembering A Teenager Who Died From The Flu |
|
| CBS News |
|
| March 20, 2009 |
|
| "Information on the probable cause of
Emily Kaitlyn Sims' death is just now being made public. At one time or
another most people have probably had the flu or flu-like symptoms.
'Anytime you loose somebody to the flu you think you get the flu and you
get over it in a couple of days,' says Russell Withrow of Nitro. But for
Emily Kaitlyn Sims,15, a student at Saint Albans High School, she
suffered from the flu, and that sickness is believed to have contributed
to her death. Friends describe her as fun-loving and outgoing and say it
still seems like a dream that she's gone..." |
|
|
Pennsylvania Hib Outbreak |
|
| About Pediatrics |
|
| March 20, 2009 |
|
| "According to the American Academy of
Pediatrics, there have been five cases of invasive Haemophilus
influenzae type b (Hib) infections in Pennsylvania since October 2008,
resulting in two deaths. This follows the small Hib outbreak in
Minnesota last year, which also resulted in a death. Although now a
vaccine preventable infection, before the routine use of the Hib vaccine
began in 1988, about 20,000 children had Hib infections each year,
including 12,000 cases of bacterial meningitis. And about 5% of the
children with Hib meningitis died. According the AAP, all of the
Pennsylvania cases involved children who were 'unvaccinated or
under-vaccinated'..." |
|
|
New Delivery Method Takes the Pinch Out of Vaccines |
|
| Examiner.com |
|
|
March 19, 2009 |
|
| "A research team at Northwestern
University has begun the pioneering work of creating better vaccines.
And not only better, but also needle free. Their system uses probiotics,
the natural and healthy bacteria found in dairy products like yogurt, to
deliver the vaccine directly to the small intestines, where the heart of
our immune system lies. Vaccines are a teaching tool for the body. With
the injection (often a weaker form of the virus or bacteria that causes
sicknesses) immune cells learn which foreign substances to destroy, and
pass such information on to other cells. This way, the next time it
encounters the virus, the immune system can launch a more rapid and
robust response for it already knows to kill those invaders..." |
|
|
A Dangerous European Export |
|
| The American |
|
|
March 19, 2009 |
|
| "Several European nations are turning
away from vaccination and are now spreading disease. Steadily weakening
vaccination coverage in Britain and four other countries is undermining
efforts to eradicate measles across Europe and increasing the threat to
the United States. An unfounded fear that the measles, mumps, and
rubella (MMR) vaccine is causing autism is making rising numbers of
people sick..." |
|
|
Surviving the Polio Epidemic |
|
| Kalamazoo Gazette |
|
|
March 19, 2009 |
|
| "When America's summers were filled
with fear and mine brought multiple surgeries One of the great
achievements of the 20th century was the development of the polio
vaccine. Yet, even now, polio has not been completely eradicated
worldwide. The Gazette's recent stories about Rotary's efforts to wipe
out polio inspired me to share my own experience with the disease. Among
people of my generation -- the first wave of baby boomers -- there is
not one of us who does not remember someone who suffered the effects of
that then-dreaded disease. We can all recall a neighbor kid, a cousin,
even a President, who contracted it. Our parents spent the summers of
the late 1940s and early '50s keeping us home from swimming pools,
trying to get us to take naps and keeping us away from crowds. In my
case, none of that worked. I was 10 months old in September 1947, living
with my parents in Wyandotte, when I awoke from my nap feverish and
stiff..." |
|
|
Flu Outbreak Arrives Late, Hits Hard in Region's Schools |
|
| News Tribune |
|
| March 19, 2009 |
|
| "A late flu outbreak is sweeping
through Western Washington schools, keeping hundreds of kids home with
high fevers, hacking coughs and body aches. Last week, 13 Pierce County
schools reported that more than 10 percent of their student bodies
absent because of the flu or flu-like symptoms. This week, as of
Wednesday, nine schools in the county had passed the 10 percent
threshold. This has led health officials to conclude the flu epidemic is
still on the rise, a month after the normal peak..." |
|
|
Parents Rush Children to Get Vaccinated |
|
|
CBS5 (WY) |
|
|
March 19, 2009 |
|
|
"Parents are not taking any risks when it comes to their child's
health. 'We don't know what the future holds. We don't know who's going
to be a close contact and become positive with meningitis,' said Alisia
Simental who took her teenage daughter to get the vaccine. Those are the
concerns of most parents after learning a Johnson Junior High Student
was diagnosed with a case of bacterial meningitis. 'There was a concern
at the beginning but now knowing that it wasn't an outbreak, I feel
sorry for the child. I took the other step to have her vaccinated to
prevent if there were further kids that were positive for for
meningitis,' as Simental looks on as her daughter gets her shot..." |
|
|
Trial Vaccine May Protect Against Serious Viral Infection |
|
| HealthDay News |
|
| March 18, 2009 |
|
| "Women who were given an experimental
vaccine for a viral infection that can cause serious problems in babies,
known as cytomegalovirus, reduced their risk of infection by 50 percent
for as long as three and half years after vaccination, according to new
research. 'In many ways, this was a surprising result,' said the lead
author of the study, Dr. Robert Pass, a professor of pediatrics at the
University of Alabama at Birmingham..." |
|
|
Viewpoint: The Natural Benefits of Vaccines |
|
|
BBC News |
|
|
March 18, 2009 |
|
|
"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..." |
|
|
Meningitis Vaccine Advised after Student Diagnosed |
|
| Wyoming Tribune |
|
| March 18, 2009 |
|
| "A Johnson Junior High student with
bacterial meningitis was flown to Denver Children's Hospital in
intensive care, a doctor said Tuesday. Emergency room doctors at
Cheyenne Regional Medical Center diagnosed the infection Monday. The
patient was in critical condition on a ventilator, said Dr. Stan
Hartman, county medical officer..." |
|
|
Critics Object to 'Pseudoscience' Center |
|
|
Washington Post |
|
|
March 17, 2009 |
|
|
"The impending national discussion about broadening access to health
care, improving medical practice and saving money is giving a group of
scientists an opening to make a once-unthinkable proposal: Shut down the
National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at the
National Institutes of Health. The notion that the world's best-known
medical research agency sponsors studies of homeopathy, acupuncture,
therapeutic touch and herbal medicine has always rankled many
scientists. That the idea for its creation 17 years ago came from a U.S.
senator newly converted to alternative medicine's promise didn't
help..." |
|
|
FDA Assessing Feasibility of Using Nanotechnology Test to Detect Anthrax
Following a Bioterrorist Attack |
|
| FDA News Release |
|
| March 17, 2009 |
|
| "The U.S. Food and Drug
Administration has completed a "proof-of-concept" study of a test that
quickly and accurately detects the presence of even the smallest amount
of the deadly anthrax toxin. "The FDA findings could form the basis of a
test that allows earlier diagnosis of anthrax infection than currently
possible," said Indira Hewlett, Ph.D., the senior author of the study
and chief of the Laboratory of Molecular Virology, Office of Blood
Research and Review, at the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and
Research (CBER). 'The earlier those infected with anthrax can be
treated, the better.' A proof-of-concept study is an initial
investigation that aims to determine if a new scientific idea or concept
holds promise for further development. A report on the results of this
study appears in the March issue of Clinical and Vaccine Immunology..." |
|
|
An Outbreak of Autism, or a Statistical Fluke? |
|
|
New York Times |
|
|
March 17, 2009 |
|
|
"Autism is terrifying the community of Somali immigrants in
Minneapolis, and some pediatricians and educators have joined parents in
raising the alarm. But public health experts say it is hard to tell
whether the apparent surge of cases is an actual outbreak, with a cause
that can be addressed, or just a statistical fluke. In an effort to find
out, the Minnesota Department of Health is conducting an epidemiological
survey in consultation with the federal Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention..." |
|
|
Flu Gains Strength After Going Easy on Iowa |
|
|
The Gazette (Cedar Rapids, Iowa) |
|
|
March 16, 2009 |
|
|
"Spring may be in the air, but it's still flu season for many Iowans,
especially children. Just a week after announcing that Iowa's influenza
season has been one of the mildest in several years, the Iowa Department
of Public Health noted Friday that flu is on the rise in many schools.
Spokeswoman Polly Carver Kimm said schools throughout the state,
including Eastern Iowa, are seeing an uptick in illness-related
absences. Last week alone, more than 15 Iowa schools reported
consecutive days in which 10 percent or more of students were absent
because of illness. Despite the recent increase, the overall level of
influenza activity for the state remains low, the department reported. A
relatively mild winter and a good match between the circulating strains
of flu and this season's flu vaccine were cited as reasons. Vaccination
is recommended even this late, and people who received the vaccine early
in the fall will still be protected, according to the health
department..." |
|
|
Dr. Dustin Ballard: Don't blame autism on shots |
|
|
Marin Independent Journal (CA) |
|
|
March 15, 2009 |
|
|
"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..." |
|
|
Girl's Death Raises Questions About Alternative Therapies |
|
| NewsChannel 5 (TN) |
|
| March 13, 2009 |
|
| "More and more people are turning to
alternative therapies to deal with serious medical problems. But now, a
little girl's death is raising serious questions about some of those
therapies. 'NewsChannel 5 Investigates' discovered that authorities want
to know whether the six-year-old girl may have been harmed, instead of
being helped, by the treatment she received..." |
|
|
Margaret Hamburg Said to Be Obama's Pick to Head the FDA |
|
| Los Angeles Times |
|
|
March 12, 2009 |
|
|
"President Obama has decided to nominate former New York City Health
Commissioner Margaret Hamburg to head the Food and Drug Administration,
turning to a onetime Clinton administration official to help right the
beleaguered regulatory agency, a source briefed on the choice said
Wednesday. Hamburg, 53, a physician who has worked extensively on
bioterrorism issues, is a senior scientist at the Nuclear Threat
Initiative, a Washington-based foundation focused on threats from
nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Though less experienced as a
regulator, Hamburg has extensive government experience. She served as
health commissioner in New York for six years in the 1990s before
becoming assistant secretary for planning and evaluation at the
Department of Health and Human Services in 1997. Another leader in
public health, Baltimore Health Commissioner Joshua Sharfstein, 39, is
widely expected to be named Hamburg's deputy. A pediatrician by
training, Sharfstein led the Obama transition team's assessment of the
FDA. He also has worked as an aide to Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly
Hills), a leading critic of the pharmaceutical industry..." |
|
|
Conference Takes on Autism, Vaccines; But Unlike Many such Gatherings,
Support for Vaccinating Is Strong Florida Times-Union |
|
|
March 12, 2009 |
|
|
"A bill before Florida lawmakers that would relax the state's
childhood vaccination mandate may make more children vulnerable to the
measles, chicken pox and other potentially life-threatening diseases,
disease experts warned Wednesday. The bill would allow parents to object
to having their children immunized on 'philosophical' grounds, opening a
door to parents worried about the controversial link between vaccines
and autism. Many already bypass the state's vaccine mandate, using
existing medical and religious waivers to do so, observers say. Paul
Offit, chief of infectious diseases at the Children's Hospital of
Philadelphia and an outspoken vaccine proponent, told a medical group in
Jacksonville that the 21 states with philosophical exemptions are seeing
higher rates of measles..." |
|
|
Book Review: Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and
the Search for a Cure |
|
|
The New England Journal of Medicine |
|
|
March 12, 2009 |
|
|
"In recent years, the public has been increasingly concerned about
adverse events that have been attributed to vaccines. Although such
safety concerns have existed since the days of Edward Jenner, modern-day
opponents of vaccines are waging a particularly aggressive and personal
campaign against advocates of vaccines. Paul Offit notes in the opening
lines of his book that he has been the target of such personal attacks,
partly because of his public support for the safety and efficacy of
vaccines and partly because of his relationship with the pharmaceutical
industry in the licensure of his rotavirus vaccine..." |
|
|
Linking Vaccines, Autism Tantamount to Crying 'Fire' Where There Isn't
One |
|
|
CBC News (CAN) |
|
|
March 12, 2009 |
|
|
"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..." |
|
|
Rotavirus Vaccines -- Early Success, Remaining Questions |
|
|
New England Journal of Medicine |
|
|
March 12, 2009 |
|
|
"In 2006, the results of pivotal clinical trials of two new rotavirus
vaccines -- RotaTeq (Merck)
and Rotarix (GlaxoSmithKline) -- were published, and high efficacy (85 to
98%) against severe
rotavirus diarrhea was reported for both products.1,2 Perhaps even more
important, neither vaccine
was associated with intussusception, an adverse effect that had led to
the withdrawal of another rotavirus vaccine -- RotaShield, made by Wyeth-Lederle
-- from the U.S.
market in 1999. The rapid
resurgence of rotavirus vaccines after the abrupt and devastating
setback associated with the
withdrawal of RotaShield was remarkable, reflecting the commitment of
the public health community
and the vaccine industry to preventing this most common cause of severe
diarrhea in children. In
the United States, rotavirus causes an estimated 3 million cases of
diarrhea each year; medical
attention is sought for more than 500,000 children, and 60,000 to 70,000
are hospitalized. In the
developing world, the disease kills more than half a million children
annually..." |
|
|
Holmes Reporting 'Isolated Cluster' of Whooping Cough |
|
|
Daily Record (OH) |
|
|
March 12, 2009 |
|
|
"With one confirmed and three probable cases, it's being considered a
seasonal epidemic of whooping cough in Holmes County, according to
health department officials, quick to note the occurrences represent not
an outbreak, but an isolated cluster. A positive case of pertussis,
commonly called whooping cough, was reported to the Holmes County Health
District on Feb. 26, after lab results identified the presence of
bacterial DNA in a sample taken two days before from a 6-month-old boy,
said epidemiologist Vaughn Anderson. The infant shares a home with
siblings ages 2, 5 and 6, all of whom displayed symptoms of the disease,
which is highly communicable through respiration droplets. Although the
siblings were not tested, all were treated with antibiotics, Anderson
said, adding none of the children had been vaccinated..." |
|
|
Bordetella Pertussis Booster Shot for Adults Urged as Cases Rise |
|
|
Times-Picayune |
|
|
March 12, 2009 |
|
|
"Immunization from childhood can wear off Most people think whooping
cough is a disease of the past that only children can acquire.
Unfortunately, the disease is still around and is on the rise in
Louisiana and not just in the pediatric population. Last year, more than
60 cases of the disease, also known as pertussis, were reported to the
Louisiana Department of Public Health. This was a substantial increase
from the previous year, said state epidemiologist Raoult Ratard. In
Region 9, which consists of St. Tammany, Washington, Tangipahoa,
Livingston and St. Helena, 15 cases were reported, the second-highest in
the state..." |
|
|
Bacterial Meningitis Spikes among College Students |
|
|
Tribune Review |
|
|
March 12, 2009 |
|
|
"In photos, Chelsea Kay Kanatus looks like one of those girls who had
it all -- silky blonde hair, blue eyes and a dazzling smile with perfect
white teeth. Looking at them, her mother can't believe she's gone,
buried in a Virginia cemetery on Monday, one week after her death from
bacterial meningitis. It happened so fast. Sheila Pack, of Stephens
City, Va., said the horrific chain of events started Feb. 28 when her
daughter, a 19-year-old West Virginia University freshman, went to
Morgantown's Ruby Memorial Hospital emergency room for treatment of
flulike symptoms. She was treated and sent home, but returned the next
morning and was admitted to the hospital because her condition worsened.
Pack jumped in her car and raced to Morgantown, about 160 miles from her
home. By the next morning, Chelsea was gone. "We spent four good hours
talking about everything," Pack said, her voice breaking with emotion.
"I'm so glad I got there in time." Since mid-February, at least seven
college students in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia have been
stricken with meningococcal, or bacterial, meningitis, an infection of
fluid in the spinal cord and surrounding the brain. About 3,000 cases --
including 300 fatalities -- are reported annually in the United States,
according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention..." |
|
|
Surge in Flu Cases at WSU Health And Wellness Services |
|
|
WSU News |
|
|
March 12, 2009 |
|
|
"The number of students going to Washington State University Health
and Wellness Services (HWS) for the flu in the last two weeks is more
than triple the number of the last three months combined. "We've
diagnosed 28 students with influenza since the beginning of March. It's
a mixture of type A and B, and other clinics in the area as well as the
hospital have also seen an increase in the number of flu patients," said
Dr. Bruce Wright, director of HWS. "I've had a few phone calls from
faculty wondering if there's a new illness going around campus. But it
isn't something new, just a late flu season. This comes at a terrible
time for students who are trying to finish up mid-terms and head out of
town for spring break, but staff and faculty should be aware this is
happening and take precautions for themselves..." |
|
|
Opinion: Lazy or misguided few are gambling with young lives |
|
| Daily Telegraph (AUS) |
|
| March 12, 2009 |
|
| "Mumps, measles, rubella, whooping
cough, diphtheria. They are not just a few spots, a nasty cough, a few
days rest in bed. They can kill and do kill. And yet still there is a
small but significant number of parents, motivated by misguided fears or
worse still laziness and self-interest, that are choosing not to
vaccinate their children. That may be their right but they also have the
obligation to acknowledge that they are putting children and babies at
greater risk of catching serious and at times deadly diseases..." |
|
|
The Deadly Danger of Dismissing Immunisation Shots |
|
| The Daily Telegraph (AUS) |
|
| March 12, 2009 |
|
| "Ancient diseases wiped out by
vaccines are festering in pockets across the state where parents
continue to refuse to vaccinate their children. Health experts last
night warned of the return of potentially deadly illnesses, as a
whooping cough epidemic already sweeps across NSW..." |
|
|
Angola: Record Rabies Outbreak Kills 93 Children |
|
|
ReliefWeb |
|
|
March 11, 2009 |
|
|
"One of the most severe rabies epidemics to hit Angola has claimed
the lives of at least 93 children within 3 months in the capital,
Luanda. 'The 93 children were brought to our hospital and are the only
ones we know of, so the number could be higher,' said Luis Bernardino,
head of the Hospital Pediatrico David Bernardino in Luanda, the
country's largest referral hospital. 'The number of cases has, however,
started declining now.' He said the hospital was unable to save any of
the children, as it had run out of doses of rabies vaccine; in some
instances, the children were brought in too late. "It is a sad moment
for us," said Bernardino. Francois Meslin, the rabies expert at the
World Health Organisation (WHO) headquarters in Geneva, said in the last
severe rabies outbreak, from 1998 to 2003 in Indonesia's Flores Island,
100 people had died within a year..." |
|
|
Evidence Supports Vaccines |
|
| Joliet Herald News (IL) |
|
| March 11, 2009 |
|
| "A new book defending childhood
vaccines, along with a recent court decision affirming that there seems
to be no connection between vaccines and autism, should calm the nerves
of anxious parents, physicians say. The book, 'Autism's False Prophets,'
by pediatrician Dr. Paul Offit, is meant to shoot down celebrities and
the handful of physicians Offit calls, 'fringe scientists' who believe
childhood vaccinations, or the mercury preservative once used in them,
cause autism in children..." |
|
|
Warning After Huge Rise in Mumps |
|
| BBC News |
|
| March 11, 2009 |
|
| "Cases of mumps in Greater Manchester
are eight times higher than they were a year ago, according to
officials. The Health Protection Agency (HPA) is urging parents to
ensure children are vaccinated after 34 confirmed cases since the start
of 2009. The figure will rise if any more of the current 223 'notified'
cases are confirmed by lab testing. There were just four confirmed cases
in the same period last year, out of 68 notifications, the HPA said..." |
|
|
Most Women Willing to Get HPV Vaccine |
|
| United Press International |
|
| March 11, 2009 |
|
| "Most women are willing to be
vaccinated against the human papillomavirus and have their daughters and
sons vaccinated, as well, U.S. researchers say. The study, published in
the journal Gynecologic Oncology, also found that Latino women are just
as likely, if not more so, to accept HPV vaccine as non-Latinos. 'Since
the incidence and mortality of cervical cancer are higher among Latino
women in the United States, we were interested in whether the vaccine
acceptance rate in this high-risk population was the same as for
non-Latino women,' Dr. Marcela del Carmen of the Massachusetts General
Hospital Cancer Center who was the senior author, said in a
statement..." |
|
|
Students Face More Vaccinations |
|
| Topeka Capital Journal (KS) |
|
| March 10, 2009 |
|
| "Kansas students will be getting more
shots before going back to school next fall after the state health
department increased immunization requirements. Students in sixth
through ninth grades will see the biggest changes this year, including
three doses of hepatitis B vaccine that previously were required only
for pupils in kindergarten through fifth grade. All students will be
required to have those vaccinations for the 2010-2011 school year. 'he
need for vaccination coverage, based on the disease outbreaks that we've
had, overrode the need to gradually phase in requirements,' said Sue
Bowden, director of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment's
immunization program. 'We are motivated to get children protected
against the disease,' Bowden said. 'We have had varicella outbreaks
across the state...'" |
|
|
Maine Kids' Immunization Rates Decline |
|
| Bangor Daily News |
|
| March 10, 2009 |
|
| "Maine's compliance with federal
childhood immunization recommendations continues to slide, leaving more
youngsters at risk for potentially lethal illnesses such as polio,
diphtheria and whooping cough. The immunization rate is just one of a
number of indicators of children's well-being contained in a report
slated for release at the State House this morning. The annual Maine
KidsCount report compares year-to-year state data on poverty, education,
and physical and mental health..." |
|
|
A Flu Bug Can Quickly Dunk a Basketball Team; College and pro squads put
up all manner of defenses against this other hoops fever |
|
| Los Angeles Times |
|
| March 10, 2009 |
|
| "A stubborn flu bug had pestered the
UCLA basketball team for weeks, hitting one player, then another. So
when the Bruins gathered for dinner recently, their athletic trainer
made an announcement. 'Hey, guys,' Carrie Rubertino Shearer recalled
saying, 'great opportunity to wash your hands right now.' They all
laughed, but she wasn't joking. When it comes to basketball -- from high
school through the pros -- influenza is the hidden opponent on
everyone's schedule. This other hoops fever has been part of the sport's
folklore since Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals, when the Chicago Bulls'
Michael Jordan dragged himself out of bed to score 38 points against the
Utah Jazz..." |
|
|
16 Patients Have Hepatitis in Army Needle Scare |
|
| March 10, 2009 |
|
| WIBW.com |
|
| "Army officials say 16 patients
exposed to a mismanaged insulin needle program at a military hospital in
Texas have tested positive for hepatitis B or C [virus infection]. The
patients at the William Beaumont Army Medical Center were among more
than 2000 diabetics who may have been exposed to blood-borne illnesses
because multiple patients were given injections from the same insulin
pen. Officials at the Army hospital at Fort Bliss have said it's unclear
if the patients contracted hepatitis from the injections that were
performed from August 2007 to January 2009..." |
|
|
Child Recovering from Meningitis |
|
| Bangor Daily News |
|
| March 10, 2009 |
|
| "A 3-year-old from the midcoast area
of Maine is recovering from a serious case of meningitis and blood
infection caused by the bacterium Haemophilus influenzae type B, or Hib.
According to a health alert issued Monday by the Maine Center for
Disease Control and Prevention, the child had not undergone the full
four-injection series of Hib vaccines recommended by the federal CDC and
became ill in late February..." |
|
|
What Does the Doctor Talk to Your Teenager About? |
|
| Seattle Post Intelligencer |
|
| March 9, 2009 |
|
| "If you're the parent of a 'tween or
teen, chances are you've been asked to leave the room during your
child's visit to the doctor so they can have a private chat. Now of
course I believe that teenagers should have a trusting relationship with
their doctors. But while I'm sitting there alone in the waiting room,
watching the younger mommies bounce babies on their knees, I can't help
but wonder what my kids are telling the doctor behind that closed
door..." |
|
|
Op-ed What vaccine dilemma? |
|
| Pittsburgh Post-Gazette |
|
| March 8, 2009 |
|
| "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..." |
|
|
Meningitis Strikes a Third Student at Appleton North High School: Others
who may have had contact with victims sought |
|
| The Post-Crescent (WI) |
|
| March 7, 2009 |
|
| "A bowl of frosting is suspected in
the transfer of a bacterial strain of meningitis that passed from one
infected person to two others. Kurt Eggebrecht, Appleton city health
officer, said Friday the third case of suspected meningitis was
confirmed. All three victims are Appleton North High School students and
an advisory to parents is posted on the school's Web site..." |
|
|
Grosse Ile School Closed Because of Illness |
|
| Detroit Free Press |
|
| March 6, 2009 |
|
| "State health officials said this
year's flu season has been mild so far, but Grosse Ile school officials
had to close one of their two elementary schools Thursday because so
many kids have come down with respiratory infections..." |
|
|
Whooping Cough Outbreak Feared |
|
| Seattle Post-Intelligencer (WA) |
|
| March 5, 2009 |
|
| "More than a dozen high school
wrestlers and fans infected with whooping cough attended the state high
school wrestling tournament in Tacoma two weeks ago, and state health
officials are watching for a large-scale outbreak of the disease. Also
called pertussis, the illness is relatively uncommon. There were 482
cases of whooping cough statewide in 2007, according to state Health
Department statistics. Many more cases may go undiagnosed. Investigators
with the Department of Health have been trying to track everyone exposed
to the disease. More than 1,000 wrestlers and 30,000 fans filled the
Tacoma Dome on Feb. 20-21..." |
|
|
Epidemic Fears as Babies Infected |
|
| Taranaki Daily News (NZ) |
|
| March 5, 2009 |
|
| "Three Canterbury babies have been
hospitalised with whooping cough as doctors fear a surge in cases will
lead to deaths or brain damage. Many children have been infected in
Canterbury and the Nelson-Marlborough region. Medical experts are
warning of an epidemic if the cases continue. Nationally, rates of the
potentially fatal disease are higher than at any stage for the past six
years. Canterbury Medical Officer of Health, Dr Ramon Pink, said there
were 34 cases of whooping cough, or pertussis, reported in the region
last month..." |
|
|
S.L. County Infant's Death Tied to Flu |
|
| Salt Lake Tribune |
|
| March 5, 2009 |
|
| "A Salt Lake County infant is one of
at least 18 babies nationwide who have died from flu-related
complications since the season started in September. The Utah child, who
was under age 1, had not been immunized and his or her cause of death
was listed as influenza-related, according to the Salt Lake Valley
Health Department. Last year, two Utah children's deaths were associated
with the flu. There have also been 131 influenza-associated
hospitalizations in Utah, compared to 268 last year. Public health
officials continue to urge Utahns to get a flu shot, saying the season
has not peaked..." |
|
|
Man Who Died from Flu also Had Staph Infection MRSA |
|
| Pittsburgh Tribune-Review |
|
| March 5, 2009 |
|
| "A man who died of the flu and
pneumonia this week also had a drug-resistant staph infection, the
Allegheny County Health Department said today. The 25-year-old man,
whose identity has not been released, died Tuesday at an undisclosed
hospital. He was admitted Feb. 27 and received treatment for a
respiratory ailment, said Health Department spokesman Guillermo Cole.
Tests showed he had the flu, pneumonia, a lung infection and the staph
infection known as MRSA..." |
|
|
WVU Meningitis Victim Was from Virginia |
|
| MSNBC. com |
|
| March 5, 2009 |
|
| "The 19-year-old West Virginia
University freshman who died of suspected bacterial meningitis has been
identified as Chelsea Kanatus. She graduated last year from Sherando
High School in Stephens City, Va. Health officials said Wednesday they
could not release the girl's name until her family agreed to waive her
right to privacy. They also say they're confident they've identified
everyone who had significant contact with Kanatus. A total of 40 people,
in Morgantown and elsewhere, have been treated with antibiotics as a
precaution..." |
|
|
Meningitis Strikes Soldier: Woman improving, Army reports |
|
| The State (SC) |
|
| March 4, 2009 |
|
| "A Fort Jackson soldier who is going
through advanced training was in a Columbia hospital Friday with a form
of meningitis. Tests indicated the female soldier has gram-negative
Neisseria meningitis, the Army said. The strain is different from the
type of meningitis that killed two soldiers in mid-February at Fort
Leonard Wood, Mo., another Army training post. The Fort Jackson soldier,
who was diagnosed with the illness Thursday, was in a step-down
intensive care unit and showing signs of improvement, an Army spokesman
said..." |
|
|
Health Officials Say Meningitis Ravaging Northern Nigeria |
|
| Voice of America |
|
| March 4, 2009 |
|
| "Health officials are reporting an
outbreak of meningitis in northern Nigeria, which has claimed more than
60 lives, so far. Nigeria lies in the "meningitis belt" that stretches
across the continent, from Senegal in the west to Ethiopia in the east.
January 2009, meningitis cases have been reported in virtually every
state in northern Nigeria. The most affected states are Gombe, Kano,
Katsina and Bauchi...." |
|
|
Girl Dies from Flu-Related Complications |
|
| Press Enterprise (CA) |
|
| March 4, 2009 |
|
| "A Riverside County girl is one of
two children to be identified by state and local officials as the first
to die from influenza-related complications this flu season. The
unidentified girl, who was younger than 15 years old, died in late
February, said Barbara Cole, disease control director of the Riverside
County Department of Public Health. Cole would not say whether the girl
was 13-year-old Brittney Marie Peters, who died Feb. 20. The Norco
Intermediate School eighth-grader died of complications of pneumonia
after having influenza type B, according to her family..." |
|
|
Influenza Hospitalizations Down in Iowa |
|
| KCRG- TV (IA) |
|
| March 4, 2009 |
|
| "The Iowa Department of Health say
there has been an 86 percent drop in the number of people hospitalized
for the flu. In Dubuque, the number of people being hospitalized for the
flu is down both at Finley and at Mercy Medical Center. Although it
feels like spring is on the way. Health experts warn flu season is far
from over..." |
|
|
NH to Require More School Immunizations |
|
| Boston Globe |
|
| March 4, 2009 |
|
| "Starting next fall, New Hampshire will require chicken pox and whooping
cough booster shots before
children can attend school. Health experts thought the two diseases had
been largely stamped out
years ago, but the state says chicken pox and whooping cough have
resurfaced in American schools.
Marcella Bobinsky, New Hampshire's immunization program manager, says
the state is making the
change to comply with the vaccination schedule recommended by the
federal government. She said New
Hampshire saw 227 confirmed cases of whooping cough in 2006..." |
|
|
Health Officials Urge Vaccinations after Whooping Cough Increases in
Dallas, Tarrant Counties |
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| Dallas Morning News |
|
| March 3, 2009 |
|
| "Dallas and Tarrant county health
officials are urging residents to properly vaccinate themselves against
whooping cough this year after seeing a spike in cases in 2008. Health
officials attribute the growth last year to people not getting necessary
vaccinations and boosters, as well as infected people going back out in
public before they fully recover. In Tarrant County, 240 cases were
reported in 2008 - a threefold increase from the 79 cases reported the
year before, according to health officials. That amounted to nearly a
third of the more than 900 cases that were reported across the entire
state in 2006. A total of 167 cases were reported in Dallas County in
2008, up from 99 cases in 2007, said Jacqueline Bell, a Dallas County
Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman..." |
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In the War Against Flu's Mutants, a Big Ally Is Weakened |
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| Wall Street Journal |
|
| March 3, 2009 |
|
| "A flu strain has become impervious
to a widely used drug called Tamiflu, prompting scientists to worry
about the disease's ability to resist treatment. Just a few years ago,
many experts believed the drug was so cleverly designed that a
widespread outbreak of Tamiflu-resistant flu was unlikely. But through a
combination of mutations that scientists don't fully understand, the
most common strain of flu circulating this winter doesn't respond to
Tamiflu, according to a report published online Monday in the Journal of
the American Medical Association. This has led some scientists to
question whether it will ever be possible for a single drug to treat all
strains of the flu..." |
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Cervical Cancer Outcomes Differ According to HPV Genotype |
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| Reuters Health |
|
| March 3, 2009 |
|
| "Invasive cervical cancer outcomes
are worse with high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) genotypes than with
intermediate-risk HPV genotypes, according to a report in the February
15th International Journal of Cancer. 'HPV genotypes 16 and 18 represent
70% of invasive carcinomas (this figure is to be kept in mind in the
perspective of prophylactic anti HPV16/18 vaccination), and 4% of
invasive carcinomas are HPV-negative (a figure to keep in mind in the
perspective of screening intra-epithelial neoplasia via virological
detection),' Dr. Xavier Sastre-Garau from Institut Curie, Paris, told
Reuters Health. Dr. Sastre-Garau and colleagues sought to define the HPV
genotypes found in women with invasive carcinoma in France and to assess
the prognostic value of the different HPV types. The most prevalent
genotypes found among the 515 women with invasive cervical cancer
studied were HPV 16 (55.5%) and HPV 18 (14.2%), the authors report. A
minority of women (4.1%) had no HPV DNA sequences. Most women with
squamous cell carcinoma had HPV 16 (59%), the report indicates, whereas
more women with adenocarcinoma had HPV 18 (41%)..." |
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Big Metro School District Alerts Families about Chickenpox Uptick: One
Eagan elementary school has had more than 30 cases since January |
|
| March 3, 2009 |
|
| "A large Twin Cities school district
is concerned about dozens of chickenpox cases surfacing lately among
students and is alerting families. The 28,000-student Rosemount-Apple
Valley-Eagan district is reporting today that Dakota County and state
health officials are recommending that a second dose of the varicella
(chickenpox) vaccine be given to all students who have had just one
dose..." |
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Another Nassau Child, 9, Most Likely Killed by Flu |
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| Newsday (NY) |
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| March 3, 2009 |
|
| "A 9-year-old Woodmere child who died
Saturday most probably had the flu, according to the Nassau County
Department of Health. If the presence of the virus is confirmed, the
death will be the second of a child in the county in a month from
influenza A..." |
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English Measles Invasion Spreads Across Otago |
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| Otago Daily Times (NZ) |
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| March 2, 2009 |
|
| "An English measles [as opposed to
German measles] outbreak which began early last month [February 2009]
has now affected 13 Otago people aged from 4 to 22 years. Medical
Officer of Health for Otago Southland Dr John Holmes said new cases
could all be linked to the original 4 that turned up in an unvaccinated
family which had traveled to Viet Nam in January 2009. Dr Holmes said he
was keeping an open mind on the possibility of more cases and that it
was important that if doctors thought an illness was measles that they
order relevant blood tests. The illness is considered rare in New
Zealand, with 12 cases recorded last year. Three of the new cases
occurred in Logan Park High School pupils..." |
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Doctors: No definitive answers on flu deaths among young |
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| CNN |
|
| March 2, 2009 |
|
| "For most, the flu is a winter
inconvenience -- stuffy nose, fever, body aches and a few days of bed
rest. But what seems fairly routine also can become life-threatening.
The majority of flu deaths strike the elderly and people with
pre-existing health problems. But flu also affects kids with no known
medical problems and can send them into critical condition, or even
death..." |
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The Flu Kills Healthy Kids, but Flu Shots Can Still Help |
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| US News & World Report Blog |
|
| March 2, 2009 |
|
| "Flu can kill healthy kids, and the
scariest part for parents is that it's impossible to know if your child
will be one of those horrible rare cases. The two Maryland teenagers who
died suddenly of the flu late last month--13-year-old Ian Willis of
Urbana and 15-year-old Zachary Weiland of Woodbine--seemed to be having
the typical miserable, achy run-in with the flu, until their symptoms
suddenly worsened. In both cases, the parents took their child swiftly
to the emergency room, but doctors weren't able to save the boys..." |
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In Adults, Shots Are Best for Flu |
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| New York Times |
|
| March 2, 2009 |
|
| "For the best protection against
winter flu, adults may just have to roll up their sleeves and take shots
the old-fashioned way. After reviewing the medical records of more than
one million members of the United States military over a three-year
period, researchers have found that conventional intramuscular shots
reduced doctor visits for flulike symptoms by up to 54 percent, while an
intranasal vaccine curbed flu-related visits by just 21 percent at best.
The intranasal vaccine, FluMist, is primarily marketed for use in
children and is believed to be more effective than the conventional
vaccine for them..." |
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Gene Could Link Autism, Digestive Problems |
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| USA TODAY |
|
| March 2, 2009 |
|
| "Researchers are studying a gene that
may cause both autism and gastrointestinal disorders, a study in
Monday's Pediatrics reports. More than 30% of people with autism also
have some kind of stomach or intestinal problem, compared with fewer
than 10% of people who aren't autistic, says study author Daniel
Campbell, research assistant professor at Vanderbilt University..." |
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|
Landmark Ruling Finds No Link Between Vaccine and Autism: Physicians
applauded the special court's finding and hope parents who had refused
vaccines will now have their children immunize |
|
| American Medical News |
|
| March 2, 2009 |
|
| "Vaccine supporters rejoiced Feb. 12
when judges in a special federal court rejected the theory that the
measles, mumps and rubella vaccine combined with the preservative
thimerosal caused the disabling autism that affected three children and
their families. The three had served as the petitioners in test cases
representing about 5,000 families who sought damages from the National
Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. The families believed vaccines,
particularly the MMR vaccine administered to their children as infants,
caused the disorder..." |
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Teen Deaths Bring Flu Vaccine Reminder |
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| Daily Times |
|
| March 1, 2009 |
|
| "Citing February deaths of teenagers in Howard and Frederick counties,
the Wicomico County Health
Department has issued a late-season reminder that 'it is not too late to
get vaccinated against
seasonal influenza.' The number of confirmed cases is down so far this
season in most places,
although health officials are braced for flu activity in the months
ahead, citing an increase in
the number of Maryland cases late in the season that suggests the bug's
far from done..." |
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Doctors Should Be Pushing for Influenza Vaccinations |
|
Tennessean
By William Schaffner, MD |
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| March 1, 2009 |
|
| "Influenza activity is now widespread
in Tennessee, and Tennesseans need to know that getting vaccinated at
this time remains beneficial. Health-care professionals also need to do
their part by recommending vaccination at every opportunity. Since it
takes only about two weeks to develop protection after receiving the
vaccine -- and since we can expect influenza to continue circulating
in our area for even longer -- getting vaccinated now can be a
lifesaver..." |
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Teens' Deaths Show Flu's Broad Reach |
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| Washington Post |
|
| March 1, 2009 |
|
| "The recent influenza-related deaths
of two Maryland teens calls attention to the flu's unpredictable nature.
It's not clear whether the boys, 13-year-old Ian Willis of Urbana and
15-year-old Zachary Weiland of Woodbine, had received flu vaccinations,
but it appears that both were healthy teens -- not the compromised or
frail people typically thought of as being susceptible. The deaths
aren't entirely anomalies. Every year, 36,000 U.S. deaths are attributed
to influenza, according to the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. Last flu season, 83 flu deaths struck people under 18; this
time, with the flu season just underway, 17 children have died, not
counting Ian and Zachary..." |
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San Francisco Department of Public Health Contained Measles Outbreak,
Possibly Saving Lives |
|
| San Francisco Weekly |
|
| February 27, 2009 |
|
| "Just weeks ago, a San Francisco man
who had traveled abroad brought back a deadly souvenir. He had spent
some time in Europe with a friend who had been diagnosed with measles,
and several days after he returned to the city, he began showing
symptoms..." |
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Meningitis Kills 3 in Sedgwick County |
|
| February 27, 2009 |
|
| "Three people in Sedgwick County have
died of bacterial meningitis since January, but only one of the victims
suffered from a more contagious variety of the illness, health officials
said Friday. A Sedgwick County resident died in January, and two others
died in February, according to Jennifer McCausland, spokeswoman for the
Sedgwick County Health Department. The person who died in January had a
more contagious strain of bacterial meningitis, called neisseria
meningitidis, said Janice McCoy, public health emergency coordinator for
the health department..." |
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2nd Md. Teen's Death Also Blamed on Flu; Officials Urge Shots |
|
| The Washington Post |
|
| February 27, 2009 |
|
| "The flu-related deaths of two
Maryland teenagers in the past two weeks have prompted health officials
across the region to urge people of all ages to get flu shots if they
haven't already. Zachary Weiland, 15, of Woodbine in Howard County died
Sunday at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, and Ian M. Willis, 13, of
Urbana in Frederick County died Feb. 19 at Children's National Medical
Center in the District, health officials said..." |
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Sanofi "Micro" Flu Shot Wins European Approval |
|
| Reuters Health |
|
| February 26, 2009 |
|
| "A new kind of "micro" vaccine
against seasonal flu from Sanofi-Aventis has been cleared for sale by
the European Commission, the French drugmaker said on Thursday. The
green light had been expected following a positive recommendation from
the European Medicines Agency in December. Sanofi's Intanza vaccine is
the first intradermal microinjection flu shot and was developed in
collaboration with Becton Dickinson. The shot is approved for use in
adults 60 years of age and older, especially in those who run an
increased risk of influenza-associated complications. Older people tend
to become less responsive to vaccination and are expected to benefit
particularly from a vaccine that provides direct access to the immune
system through the dermal skin layer. Sanofi has tested the new shot in
clinical trials involving more than 7,000 adult or elderly
participants..." |
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Taiwan DOH on Guard Against Measles Outbreak |
|
| Taiwan News |
|
| February 25, 2009 |
|
| "The Department of Health (DOH) is
monitoring the conditions of individuals having had contact with a child
who was infected with the measles after traveling to China, a DOH
official said Tuesday. Chou Jih-haw, deputy director of the DOH's Center
for Disease Control, said that although no one has been infected after
coming into contact with the baby boy, the DOH will not let down its
guard until mid-March. The 15-month-old baby boy living in central
Taiwan caught the measles when he was hospitalized for diarrhea while
traveling with his mother in Hunan, China, Chou said..." |
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Polio Infects Child in Kenya, First Case Since 2006 |
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| Reuters |
|
| February 25, 2009 |
|
| "Polio has infected a four-year-old
girl in northern Kenya in the country's first case of the disease since
2006, the government said on Wednesday. The girl is believed to have
contracted the virus from neighbouring southern Sudan, which has
struggled to improve its health sector since a 2005 peace deal ended a
two-decade civil war. Shahnaaz Sharif, Kenya's director of public health
and sanitation, said a vaccination campaign would begin in the area on
March 7 and would aim to immunise more than 95,000 children. Youngsters
under three are most at risk from the disease, which can cause
irreversible paralysis..." |
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CDC Urging Docs to Complete Hib Primary Series |
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| AAFP News |
|
| February 25, 2009 |
|
| "With the nation's shortage of
Haemophilus influenzae type b, or Hib, vaccine now stretching into its
15th month, the CDC is directly contacting thousands of health care
providers with a reminder that all children should complete the primary
Hib immunization series. The CDC is including this message in a letter
dated Feb. 10..." |
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Panel Widens Recommendations on Hepatitis A Jab |
|
| Reuters |
|
| February 25, 2009 |
|
| "U.S. citizens who expect to have
close contact with an adopted child from countries with high rates of
hepatitis A should be immunized if they have not been already, U.S.
immunization advisers said on Wednesday. The Advisory Committee on
Immunization Practices, which advises the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, said unvaccinated people who will have close
contact with such a child should get the vaccine within 60 days of the
adoptee's arrival in the United States..." |
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Op-ed: A dose of reality on vaccines and autism |
|
| Los Angeles Times |
|
| February 25, 2009 |
|
| "A special court found no significant
link between the two, but that probably won't mean anything to a vocal
group of parents who keep the debate alive. The unsubstantiated belief
that vaccines are to blame for increasing rates of autism has diverted
too much attention from the quest to find the causes of this complex
syndrome. Sadly, a decision by the nation's vaccine court won't make
much difference to the very vocal parents who refuse to let this theory
die..." |
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With More Deaths, Hepatitis Toll Now 43 |
|
| Hindu Times |
|
| February 24, 2009 |
|
| "The toll in the hepatitis-hit
Sabarkantha district climbed to 43 with the report of 5 new deaths.
Meanwhile, state health department launched a mass vaccination drive in
Modasa town on Monday. According to district health officials, 6 new
cases of hepatitis have been registered on Monday from Modasa town and
nearby villages. The officials said that people of all ages had queued
up since morning to get themselves vaccinated..." |
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WHO to Give Poor Countries Flu Vaccine Technology |
|
| Los Angeles Times |
|
| February 24, 2009 |
|
| "The World Health Organization said
Tuesday that a deal with U.S. drug maker Schering-Plough Corp. will
allow it to provide poor countries with improved vaccine-making
technology to prepare for a possible flu pandemic. WHO will license the
technology free of charge to vaccine manufacturers in developing
countries who take part in a U.N. action plan to stop a global outbreak
of the deadly H5N1 flu strain. Schering-Plough, based in Kenilworth, New
Jersey, said in a statement that the new technology allows vaccines to
be delivered more efficiently using a single-dose intranasal spray..." |
|
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Six Top Vaccine Myths |
|
| Newsweek Online |
|
| February 23, 2009 |
|
| "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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Antibodies Offer a New Path for Fighting Flu |
|
| New York Times |
|
| February 23, 2009 |
|
| "In a discovery that could radically
change how the world fights influenza, researchers have engineered
antibodies that protect against many strains of the virus, including
even the 1918 Spanish flu and the H5N1 bird flu. The discovery, experts
said, could lead to the development of a flu vaccine that would not have
to be changed yearly. And the antibodies already developed can be
injected as a treatment, going after the virus in ways that drugs like
Tamiflu do not. Clinical trials to prove that the antibodies are safe in
humans could begin within three years, a researcher estimated..." |
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Contagious Disease's Spread Highlights Dilemma over Unvaccinated Kids |
|
| Los Angeles Times |
|
| February 23, 2009 |
|
| "Parents who opt out of or delay
getting their children immunized may run a higher risk of them catching
and passing along diseases that once were nearly eradicated. An old
childhood disease reared its head in Minnesota last year, infecting five
young children and killing one of them, according to a recent report by
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention... Measles, like Hib, has
been virtually eradicated from the U.S. thanks to vaccination..." |
|
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Weighing the Options for Hepatitis B |
|
| New York Times |
|
| February 22, 2009 |
|
| The decisive scientific battle
against hepatitis B has been won. Thanks to a vaccine approved in the
1980s, transmission of this potentially deadly virus can now be stopped.
In countries where the vaccine is widely used, the series of three shots
has almost completely halted the spread from infected mothers to their
infants, one of the most common routes of transmission, and the one most
likely to lead to chronic infection and serious liver disease. The
vaccine has also significantly reduced transmission between adults. |
|
|
Anatomy of a Scare: When one study linked childhood vaccines to autism,
it set off a panic |
|
| Newsweek |
|
February 21, 2009
From the magazine issue dated March 2, 2009 |
|
| "Like many people in London on that
bleak February day in 1998, biochemist Nicholas Chadwick was eager to
hear what the scientists would say. The Royal Free Hospital, where he
was a graduate student in the lab of gastroenterologist Andrew
Wakefield, had called a press conference to unveil the results of a new
study. With flashbulbs popping, Wakefield stepped up to the bank of
microphones: he and his colleagues, he said, had discovered a new
syndrome that they believed was triggered by the MMR (measles, mumps,
rubella) vaccine..." |
|
Op-ed: Why the Obama
Administration Needs to Restore Public Faith in the Safety of Childhood
Vaccines |
|
Dr. Louis Z. Cooper, Heidi Larson and Dr. Samuel L. Katz | Newsweek Web
Exclusive
Newsweek |
|
February 21, 2009
From the magazine issue dated March 2, 2009 |
|
| "The mainstream media applauded the U.S. federal "vaccine court's"
decision Feb. 12 that the MMR
vaccine and vaccines containing ethyl mercury as a preservative did not
cause autism in three
children chosen as test cases. But that's not enough to repair the
damage already done to the U.S.
vaccine program. It's hard for a single court decision to compete with
ongoing allegations from
grieving parents and celebrities that vaccines created an epidemic of
autism. Those allegations
have generated confusion and fear in the minds of many young parents,
reduced public trust in the
remarkable benefits and safety of U.S. immunization programs and put
both vaccinated and
unvaccinated children at increased risk from preventable diseases..." |
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Op-ed: Continue Fighting Flu with Timely Vaccinations |
|
By Dr. William Schaffner
Charleston Gazette |
|
| February 20, 2009 |
|
| "By the end of every fall season,
influenza vaccination rates drop off considerably, a trend that prevents
millions of Americans from getting the benefits of annual immunization.
There's no good reason for this drop in rates. In fact, health-care
professionals need to be vigilant throughout the winter months about
protecting patients against influenza and its complications. Patients
also need to recognize the importance of getting the flu vaccine this
year - and every year..." |
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First Child Flu Death of Year Reported in Arizona |
|
| AZ Central.com |
|
| February 20, 2009 |
|
| "The Arizona Department of Health
Services says a teenager in Coconino County has died of the flu, the
first youngster in the state to die of the disease this season. Dr.
Karen Lewis says the older teenage boy was healthy before being
stricken. Last week's death was announced on Friday..." |
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Boston Latin Students to Be Offered Vaccines |
|
| Boston Herald |
|
| February 19, 2009 |
|
| "Boston school children will be
offered flu shots possibly as soon as next week in the wake of the
heartbreaking death of a 12-year-old Jamaica Plain boy struck down by
the illness Sunday. Aware of heightened interest after Hunter Pope's
death--the first reported from the flu this year - the Boston Public
Health Commission soon will notify parents of the city's 56,000 public
school students of the vaccination plan. The goal is to begin offering
the shots when kids return from February vacation next week, said BPH
spokeswoman Ann Scales. 'We've had a tragic loss of a child,' Scales
said..." |
|
|
Flu Kills 4 Children in 5 Weeks: For kids in Colorado, worst season in 5
years |
|
| The Denver Post |
|
| February 19, 2009 |
|
| "Four children have died of the flu
in Colorado since mid-January, alarming health officials who said that
at least some of the deaths could have been prevented if the children
were vaccinated. The deaths of three toddlers and one baby in the past
five weeks make this flu season the worst for children in the past five
years. One or two children have died each of the past four influenza
seasons, which last from October to May, said Dr. Ken Gershman, chief of
the communicable-disease program at the state health department. 'It is
very tragic,' said Gershman, who has read the medical reports about the
deaths..." |
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Grand Prairie 7-year-old is Dallas County's 2nd Flu-Related Fatality in
2009 |
|
| Dallas Morning News (TX) |
|
| February 19, 2009 |
|
| "A 7-year-old Grand Prairie girl died
of the flu earlier this month, the second flu-related death in Dallas
County this year, health officials said. Brea Mercado, a student at
Milam Elementary School, died Feb. 8 at Children's Medical Center
Dallas, according to the Dallas County medical examiner. Jacqueline
Bell, a spokeswoman for the Dallas County Department of Health and Human
Services, said the cause of the girl's death was flu. She gave no
further details. Earlier this year, a 49-year-old Lancaster woman died
from complications related to the flu." |
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|
Judging Autism |
|
| Salon.com |
|
| February 19, 2009 |
|
| "Health and medicine got a big
headline last week: "Vaccines Didn't Cause Autism, Court Rules." The
details have been extensively discussed, but here's the gist of the
story: Three special federal judges working for the government's Vaccine
Injury Compensation Program issued three separate decisions in what's
become known as the Autism Omnibus Trial. The trial is a class-action
lawsuit in which almost 5,500 families have sued the government,
claiming routine childhood vaccines caused their children to develop
autism. Last Thursday, each judge, known as a special master, reviewed
the claim of one family, and in each case, ruled against it. Physicians
praised the decisions, calling it great day for children and science.
Anti-vaccination activists declared it unjust, wrong and unfair..." |
|
|
FDA Advisers Recommend Slight Change in Seasonal Flu Vaccine |
|
| Los Angeles Times |
|
| February 18, 2009 |
|
| "Government medical advisors on
Wednesday issued their recommendations for the 2009-10 flu vaccine. For
Type A flu, the most serious kind, the Food and Drug Administration
advisory panel recommended no change. Next season's vaccine will protect
against the same two Type A strains in circulation now. However, for the
milder Type B strain, next year's vaccine will replace a Type B/Florida
strain of the virus with a version called Type B/Brisbane..." |
|
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How the Middle-Class MMR Refuseniks Are Putting Every Child at Risk |
|
| Daily Mail (UK) |
|
| February 18, 2009 |
|
| "Sipping a sludgy-looking concoction
of herbs and mashed mung beans, Joanne offers me a beige lump which I
have no trouble declining. It's an organic biscuit from Guadeloupe, she
tells me. Chewing on her biscuit, she shakes her head. 'I don't
understand it,' she says. 'Hardly anyone can come to Silas's birthday
party next month.' For a moment, I almost feel sorry for her. Looking at
three-year-old Silas playing on his own with his bricks, I'm tempted to
tell her why. I could spell it out for her why he did not get an
invitation to George's bouncy castle bash last weekend and won't be
asked to come on the swimming trip that several mums are organising next
week. But in the end I simply make my excuses and leave. My
three-year-old daughter Nancy won't be going to Silas's party either. In
fact, I'd come round to drop off his present because we aren't going to
be seeing any more of Silas and Joanne. They are not the only families
we are cutting out of our lives. There won't be any more coffee mornings
with Megan and her son Toby. We won't be going on play dates with Esther
and her daughter Mimi either. Quite simply, I don't want Nancy to have
contact with Silas, Mimi and Toby because they haven't had the MMR jab,
which protects against measles, mumps and rubella. Nancy has had her
jab, but she won't be fully protected until she has a booster just
before going to school. The parents of Silas, Mimi and Toby are middle
class and university educated, but they are behaving like morons and
turning their children into pariahs..." |
|
|
Vaccine Book Brings Out Hidden Support: Author |
|
| Reuters (UK) |
|
| February 18, 2009 |
|
| "When the letters and e-mails started
to pour in, Dr. Paul Offit braced himself. The pediatrician and vaccine
inventor is a prominent defender of childhood vaccines, tackling those
who have argued that immunizations can cause autism. His book, 'Autism's
False Prophets,' takes on British researcher Dr. Andrew Wakefield, whose
now-debunked 1998 study in the prestigious Lancet medical journal linked
the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to autism. It also criticizes
organized groups that advise parents to avoid vaccinating their children
for fear the vaccines may cause autism. The issue is at the center of a
vociferous and often vicious debate, despite the preponderance of
scientific opinion in favor of vaccination..." |
|
|
Health Officials: Levittown child, 10, died of flu |
|
| Newsday |
|
| February 18, 2009 |
|
| "The weekend death of a Levittown
elementary school student was likely caused by the flu and is the first
childhood death attributed to influenza on Long Island in the five years
since public health agencies have been required to report pediatric flu
deaths, officials said yesterday. Cynthia Brown, spokeswoman for the
Nassau County Health Department, said the 10-year-old died over the
weekend and that preliminary tests revealed the presence of an A-strain
of the flu. The child, who was not identified, had been a student at
Northside Elementary School. The school district's Web site reported the
death amid concerns that the child had meningitis. Tests have now ruled
out both viral and bacterial forms of the disease..." |
|
|
Family Mourns Loss of Boy, 12, to Flu |
|
| The Boston Herald |
|
| February 18, 2009 |
|
| "The grieving Jamaica Plain mother of
a 12-year-old Boston schoolboy officials believe is the state's first
reported child flu death this season said her son lost his permission
slip for the flu shot that might have saved his life. Tess Pope, 48,
wept last night in her home and struggled not to blame herself as she
recalled her "absent-minded" son, Hunter, a Boston Latin Academy
seventh-grader who died Sunday at Boston Medical Center. "I didn't know
until yesterday - he lost the (permission) sheet," the heartbroken mom
told the Herald while being comforted by family and friends in her
Wenham Street Victorian. While some parents distrust medicine, Pope said
she embraced it and would have eagerly encouraged him to have had the
school-sponsored flu shot, noting Hunter, his twin sister, Molly, and
15-year-old twin brothers, Connor and Ramsay, were all conceived through
in vitro fertilization. "The fact that he lived at all is through
medicine," said the distraught mother who runs a French horn
manufacturing business with her husband, Ken, 48, out of their home. Dr.
Al DeMaria, director of infectious diseases for the state Department of
Public Health, said that while the agency is still awaiting the final
results of blood tests to confirm the cause of death, "by all
indications it was related to influenza." |
|
|
Cervical Cancer Vaccine Gains Acceptance in California |
|
| Los Angeles Times |
|
| February 18, 2009 |
|
| "Despite safety concerns and the
newness of Gardasil, one in four teen girls in the state received at
least one dose in 2007, UCLA researchers find. The cervical cancer
vaccine Gardasil is gaining widespread acceptance in California despite
its newness and some controversy over its safety, UCLA researchers have
found. One in four teenage girls in the state -- about 378,000 out of
1.5 million -- received at least one dose of the vaccine in 2007, its
first full year of distribution, according to , released Tuesday by
UCLA's Center for Health Policy Research. Among those who had not
started the series of shots, a majority of teens and young adult women
expressed interest in receiving the vaccine, as did their parents, the
survey found..." |
|
|
Editorial: Autism and Vaccines |
|
| The Star-Ledger |
|
| February 18, 2009 |
|
| "That fallacy is what lies at the
root of the hysteria over a supposed link between autism and the Measles
Mumps Rubella (MMR) vaccine. Last week a federal court confirmed what
has been the mainstream view of the scientific community from the
beginning: The vaccine does not cause autism. The decision by a special
court set up to evaluate claims for compensation was a blow to families
who feel they have been victimized by vaccine makers. The court
concluded those families have, in fact, been victimized by 'bad science
conducted to support litigation.' Backing that up was an article in the
London Sunday Times that detailed how doctors in England had distorted
data to create the vaccine panic..." |
|
|
Deaths of Two Children From Flu Point to Importance of Vaccination |
|
| FOX News |
|
| February 18, 2009 |
|
| "It's not too late to be vaccinated
against the flu. And the recent deaths of two children age 10 and 12 and
living in New York and Boston, respectively, points to the importance of
getting vaccinated every year..." |
|
|
Second OU Student Has Meningitis; Both in Stable Condition, Families Say |
|
| Columbus Dispatch (Ohio) |
|
| February 18, 2009 |
|
| "A second case of bacterial
meningitis was confirmed yesterday among students at Ohio University's
main campus in Athens. The two freshmen suffering from the contagious,
serious illness are in stable condition and improving, their families
told OU officials. OU officials identified the ill students as John
O'Brien, 19, of Columbus, and Michael Crane, 19, of Bellbrook in Greene
County. O'Brien, the son of Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien and
his wife, Susan, is being treated at Riverside Methodist Hospital. The
families of the hospitalized students consented to the release of their
names to allow those who might have been in close contact with them to
seek antibiotic treatment if desired. The elder O'Brien said late
yesterday afternoon that his son remains in the intensive-care unit at
Riverside. 'This afternoon, John sat up in his bed and recognized and
conversed with me, his mother and sister,' the prosecutor wrote in an
e-mail. "We believe this is the first step towards a full recovery..." |
|
|
Hib Infection in Children Makes a Deadly Return |
|
| USA Today |
|
| February 15, 2009 |
|
| "When a very sick toddler was brought
into a Minneapolis-area hospital last winter, doctors immediately
suspected meningitis. The baby, 15 months old, was lethargic, had a
fever of 104 degrees and was increasingly unresponsive. Within days,
test results were in. William Pomputius, an infectious-disease
specialist at Children's of Minnesota, was shocked to learn that the
girl had Haemophilis influenzae type B, or Hib infection, a disease that
has been nearly wiped out by routine vaccination..." |
|
|
Op-ed: Shot of Good Sense |
|
| Wall Street Journal |
|
| February 14, 2009 |
|
| "Science got a booster shot this week
when a special court in Washington confirmed what scientists and
pediatricians have been saying for years: Vaccines are not a cause of
autism in children. The verdict, which came in a case seeking
compensation from the federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program,
should help reassure parents who haven't been sure whom to trust about
their child's health. "It was abundantly clear that petitioners'
theories of causation were speculative and unpersuasive," the court
wrote..." |
|
|
MMR Scare Doctor Andrew Wakefield Makes Fortune in US |
|
| Times Online |
|
| February 14, 2009 |
|
| "The doctor who triggered an
international scare over the MMR vaccine, contributing to a resurgence
of measles cases in Britain, has admitted that his claims are 'not
proved.' Andrew Wakefield, who is the subject of a disciplinary inquiry
by the General Medical Council, told The Times that he was unrepentant
about his theory linking the combined MMR vaccine to bowel disorders and
autism..." |
|
|
Austin's Center Officials Sharply Criticized on Autism; Wakefield's
Colleague Misled Patient's Family, Judge Says |
|
| American-Statesman (TX) |
| February 13, 2009 |
|
| "A special master's decision sharply
criticized Austin's Andrew Wakefield for his work in suggesting a link
between autism and a common measles vaccine, and lambasted Dr. Arthur
Krigsman, Wakefield's colleague at the Thoughtful House Center for
Children on Bee Cave Road. The two men figured prominently in a case in
which thousands of parents sought compensation from the federal
government claiming the vaccine had caused their children's autism..." |
|
|
WHO Perplexed by Panasonic's Move to Repatriate Staff Families over Flu
Fears |
|
| Canadian Press |
|
| February 12, 2009 |
|
| "A plan by Panasonic Corp. to
repatriate families of overseas employees because of fears of a flu
pandemic drew a perplexed reaction from the World Health Organization on
Tuesday. WHO spokesperson Gregory Hartl said there is no evidence that
the risk of a pandemic caused by the H5N1 avian flu virus is any higher
now than it was last year or the year before. "There's been no change in
the way that the virus is behaving," Hartl said from Geneva. "So there's
really no reason for anyone all of a sudden to take such actions.
Because today is no different from yesterday." Panasonic Corp. said
Tuesday it has ordered families of its Japanese overseas employees to
return home from countries or regions where the company believes there
may be a pandemic risk. The orders were issued in December but families
have until September to return to Japan..." |
|
Commentary by Campbell Brown: Get Your Children Vaccinated for Measles
Watch the video |
|
| February 13, 2009 |
|
| "What I am about to say, I know, is
controversial. And I know that a lot of people are going to disagree
with me. But as a mother, with a second child on the way, I believe this
is vital to the safety of our children and must be said. The verdict is
in. There is no connection between vaccines and autism. And it is time
that all of us get our children vaccinated..." |
|
|
Japan's Decade-Old Vaccine Scandal Leaves Infants at Risk Today |
|
| Bloomberg |
|
| February 12, 2009 |
|
| "Four-year-old Kenta Morioka died
last year from suffocation caused by a bacterial infection. The vaccine
that could have saved his life, in use for 16 years and offered in 120
countries, wasn't available in Japan. The world's second-largest economy
only began vaccinating infants in December against haemophilus
influenzae type b, or Hib, one of the most common causes of
meningitis..." |
|
|
Editorial: Vaccines Exonerated on Autism |
|
| New York Times |
|
| February 12, 2009 |
|
| "A special federal vaccine court
issued three devastating verdicts on Thursday that should help demolish
lingering fears that childhood vaccines can and have caused autism. The
verdicts won't satisfy die-hard adherents of the theory that the medical
establishment is recklessly harming their children. But the vast
majority of parents ought to accept the verdicts as persuasive evidence
that no child need forgo vaccinations against dangerous diseases out of
fear that the vaccines might cause autism..." |
|
|
Court Says Vaccine Not to Blame for Autism |
|
| New York Times |
|
| February 12, 2009 |
|
| "In a blow to the movement arguing
that vaccines lead to autism, a special court ruled on Thursday against
three families seeking compensation from the federal vaccine-injury
fund. Both sides in the debate have been awaiting decisions in these
test cases since hearings began in 2007; more than 5,000 similar claims
have been filed. In the three cases, each decided by a judge called a
special master, the court found that the families had not shown that
their children's autism was brought on by substances in the vaccines --
either the measles virus in the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, or
its combination with thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative that was
used in most childhood vaccines until 2001..." |
|
|
Court Rules Autism Not Caused by Childhood Vaccines |
|
| Washington Post |
|
| February 12, 2009 |
|
| "Thousands of parents who claimed
that childhood vaccines had caused their children to develop autism are
wrong and not entitled to federal compensation, a special court ruled
today in three decisions with far-reaching implications for a bitterly
fought medical controversy. The long-awaited decision on three test
cases is a severe blow to a grass-roots movement that has argued --
predominantly through books, magazines and the Internet -- that
children's shots have been responsible for the surge in autism diagnoses
in the United States in recent decades. The vast majority of the
scientific establishment, backed by federal health agencies, has
strenuously argued there is no link between vaccines and autism, and
warned that scaring parents away from vaccinating their youngsters
places children at risk for a host of serious childhood diseases..." |
|
|
Maybe Vaccine-Autism Scaremongers Will Quit Ruining It for the Rest of
Us Now |
|
| Examiner.com |
|
| February 12, 2009 |
|
| "Appropriately titled 'Ruining It for
The Rest of Us,' the program reported on a San Diego measles outbreak
caused by a child whose parents opposed MMR vaccination. The consensus
of the medical and scientific community has long been that 'there is no
causal relationship between the vaccine and autism,' yet thanks to the
anti-vaccination community and its fearless leader, Jenny McCarthy,
'This Life' had difficulty getting researchers to speak on the radio.
One researcher told 'This Life' about a colleague at the CDC who's
received so many death threats for debunking the vaccine-autism
connection that he requires bodyguards... 'Many, if not most, of the
younger siblings [of autistic children] never have any vaccinations,'
UCal Irvine pediatrician Pauline Filipek told Scientific American last
August. 'And they are as autistic as the day is long.'..." |
|
|
U.S. Vaccine Court Denies Family's Autism Case |
|
| Reuters |
|
| February 12, 2009 |
|
| "A special U.S. court ruled against
three families on Thursday who claimed vaccines caused their children's
autism. The Vaccine Court Omnibus Autism Proceeding ruled against the
parents of Michelle Cedillo, Colten Snyder and William Yates Hazlehurst,
who had claimed that a measles, mumps and rubella vaccine had combined
with other vaccine ingredients to damage the three children.
"Unfortunately, the Cedillos have been misled by physicians who are
guilty, in my view, of gross medical misjudgment," Special Master George
Hastings, a former tax claims expert at the Department of Justice, wrote
in the 183-page Cedillo ruling..." |
|
|
New York Flu Cases Climb, Feds See Resistance to Meds |
|
| Newsday |
|
| February 11, 2009 |
|
| "Flu cases have
accelerated significantly on Long Island and throughout New York within
the past week to 10 days, state health officials said yesterday as their
federal counterparts grappled with the resistance of a key influenza
strain to the leading antiviral medication. State health officials say
the number of people with the flu in recent days has increased
dramatically compared with previous weeks in the season...The problem
served as a signal for how vast the circulation of flu viruses can be.
'We don't know why the resistance has occurred. It's probably not driven
by overuse of drug,' a usual cause of resistance, he said." |
|
|
New Child Vaccine Against Meningitis B May Be Available by 2011 |
|
| The Times (UK) |
|
| February 11, 2009 |
|
| "A new vaccine to protect children
against meningitis B is likely to be approved within two years,
researchers say. The meningococcus B vaccine developed by pharmaceutical
company Novartis is the frontrunner in the race to provide immunisation
against an infection that kills approximately 100 children in Britain
each year. The jab, currently in the final stages of testing at the
University of Oxford, is the first of its kind to be developed after the
entire genome of a deadly bacteria was sequenced. Meningococcus B is the
most common cause of meningitis in Britain. Although vaccines are
available for pneumococcal meningitis and the "C" and "Hib" types,
scientists have struggled to find an effective vaccine for meningococcus
B, which is responsible for 80 per cent of confirmed infections -- 1,070
cases last year..." |
|
|
Child, 6, Dies of Flu Complications as Illness Spreads |
|
| The News & Observer (North Carolina) |
|
| February 11, 2009 |
|
| "A 6-year-old North Carolina child
has died of complications from flu, health leaders reported Tuesday. The
child, whose sex and hometown in a rural county were not released to
protect the family's privacy, was the first youngster to die of
influenza this year in the state. Three children have died nationwide,
according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "It really
is just heartbreaking," said Dr. Leah Devlin, state health director.
"There's no such thing as a touch of the flu. It's a very serious
illness, particularly for the very young and very old." Devlin
encouraged people to get a flu shot, which offers full protection
against the virus within two weeks. This year's vaccine, unlike last
season's, has been a good match for the strains of virus circulating,
she said. Despite the death, this year's flu season appears to be
average. Infection rates across the state have begun to increase, with
doctors now reporting widespread illness..." |
|
|
Prevalence of HPV Decreases Since Vaccine's Release |
|
| Independent Florida
Alligator |
|
| February 10, 2009 |
|
| "Fewer abnormal pap
smears have been noted at the UF Student Health Care Center since
Gardasil, a vaccine that prevents four forms of human papillomavirus
known to cause cervical cancer, became widely used three years ago.
Phylis Craig, a spokeswoman for the women's clinic at UF's Student
Health Care Center, said that she gives several shots every week of the
vaccine, which is marketed toward women between 9 and 26 years old..." |
|
|
MMR Vaccine: 'No jab, no school' |
|
| The Guardian (UK) |
|
| February 10, 2009 |
|
| "As British health
experts become increasingly anxious about declining rates of
immunisation and the risk of a serious measles epidemic in the UK, the
American authorities are convinced that their tougher rules are the
answer. Parents in the US are not simply advised by the health
authorities to get their children vaccinated against measles - they are
obliged to do it by law. Children who have not been immunised face a 'no
jab, no school' exclusion from daycare, nursery and school. In extreme
cases, their parents have been threatened with fines and jail..." |
|
|
Give Babies Hepatitis B Vaccine, Urges Mac Professor |
|
| The Hamilton Spectator
(CAN) |
|
| February 10, 2009 |
|
| "McMaster University
researchers are urging Canada to adopt universal hepatitis B
immunization in infancy. A comprehensive new analysis of existing
studies supports the hepatitis B vaccination for all Canadian babies,
says Dr. Christopher Mackie, an assistant professor of clinical
epidemiology and biostatistics at Mac and the associate Medical Officer
of Health at Hamilton Public Health Services. Mackie and his Mac
colleagues, as well as researchers at the University of British Columbia
who helped carry out the analysis, also noted that B.C. medical data
show the success of that province's infancy vaccination program..." |
|
|
Flu Mystery Solved? Why It Flourishes in Winter |
|
| National Geographic News |
|
| February 9, 2009 |
|
| "Why the flu strikes hard
during the winter but nearly vanishes in the summer has baffled
epidemiologists for decades. Now a new study may have the answer:
Influenza germs last longer and pass from person to person more
effectively in lower absolute humidity--i.e., when it's cold outside and
the air is dryer..." |
|
|
Novartis Voluntarily Withdraws Five Lots of Flu Vaccine Fluvirin Lost
'Minimal' Amount of Potency |
|
|
AAFP News |
|
|
February 9, 2009 |
|
|
"Novartis Vaccines & Diagnostics Inc. has initiated a voluntary
withdrawal of five lots of its seasonal influenza vaccine Fluvirin in
Luer-Lok prefilled syringes. The vaccine manufacturer is asking health
care providers to immediately discontinue use of affected vaccine and
return any remaining doses. According to information posted Feb. 4 on
the FDA Web site, routine stability testing of the vaccine product
revealed a "minor deviation in the potency of the A/Brisbane (H1N1)
component of the vaccine..." |
|
|
Kids and Their Families Are Hit Hardest During Flu Season, According to
Thomson Reuters Study |
|
| February 9, 2009 |
|
| "A research brief from
the Healthcare business of Thomson Reuters found that 5.6 percent of
children used health services due to influenza-like illness (ILI) during
the 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 flu seasons -- more than double the rate for
adults. Overall, a greater proportion of families with children used
healthcare services for ILI than families without children -- 55 percent
of three-member families with children had at least one family member
treated for ILI, compared with 38 percent of families without
children..." |
|
|
Measles on the Rise in Australia and Switzerland, Too |
|
| Discover Magazine |
|
| February 9, 2009 |
|
| "At what point do start
to hold antivaxxers responsible? I ask, because we're on the verge of a
record year for measles in Australia: in Victoria, 11 cases have been
reported in 2009 so far. That's far more more than in 2006 and 2007
combined, and under extrapolation is as bad as an outbreak in 1999 where
over 100 cases were reported. As if that weren't enough, Switzerland has
had 22 cases reported in two days. Is antivax rhetoric to blame
here?..." |
|
|
MMR Doctor Andrew Wakefield Fixed Data on Autism |
|
| Times Online (UK) |
|
| February 8, 2009 |
|
"The doctor who sparked
the scare over the safety of the MMR vaccine for children changed and
misreported results in his research, creating the appearance of a
possible link with autism, a Sunday Times investigation has found..."
See all articles in this series by Brian Deer
Hidden Records Show MMR Truth
How the MMR Scare Led to Return of Measles
MMR: Key Dates in the Crisis |
|
|
Region Sees Huge Rise in Measles |
|
| BBC News |
|
| February 6, 2009 |
|
| "More cases of measles
were confirmed in the North West of England than anywhere else in the
country in the last three months of 2008, health officials say. The
Health Protection Agency (HPA) said that confirmed cases increased from
31 in 2007 to 180 last year - a 480% jump. Experts said most of the
outbreaks had occurred in communities with large numbers of children who
did not receive the MMR vaccine...Public confidence in the triple
vaccine dipped following research - since discredited -which raised the
possibility that the jab may be linked to an increased risk of
autism..." |
|
|
Hospital Tries Doo-Wop to Push Flu Shots |
|
| The Philadelphia Inquirer
(PA) |
|
| February 6, 2009 |
|
| "A usually reserved
internist at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania dances with
abandon, a stethoscope around his neck. A cluster of workers sways
gently in Central Supply while nurses, technicians and patient reps get
down in the ER. Words can't quite describe this music video of hundreds
of health-care workers lip-synching to a Chinese a cappella group's
doo-wop beat..." |
|
|
Grown-ups Need Vaccinations, too |
|
| The Baltimore Sun |
|
| February 6, 2009 |
|
| "Vaccines, it turns out,
aren't just for children. Long the purview of the pediatrician's office,
immunizations are often forgotten about once patients turn 18. But the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as leading doctors
organizations, recommend that adults continue to receive certain routine
shots throughout their lives to keep up immunity against infectious
diseases, including tetanus, whooping cough, pneumonia and shingles..." |
|
|
Dallas County Reports First Flu-Related Death |
|
| Dallas Morning News (TX) |
|
| February 5, 2009 |
|
| "A 49-year-old Lancaster
woman has died while suffering from the flu, marking the first
flu-related death this year in Dallas County, health officials announced
Thursday. The woman, who was not publicly identified, died within the
last two weeks, said Jacqueline Bell, a spokeswoman for the Dallas
County Department of Health and Human Services. While the woman had the
flu, she developed MRSA pneumonia, which typically follows the onset of
influenza, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. Those who die from the flu typically are older, Bell said,
but the flu can leave anyone open to other deadly infections. "The
passing of this person reiterates that everyone is susceptible," Bell
said. It's not too late for people to get a flu shot, but it takes up to
two weeks for the vaccine to provide the maximum protection..." |
|
|
Hayek's Work Is Never Done--As a Mom, or for Charity |
|
| USA Today |
|
| February 4, 2009 |
|
| "Her daughter, Valentina,
turned 1 in September, and Hayek can't stop gushing about her
child...Motherhood has given Hayek a new sense of purpose. On Thursday,
she's launching the second annual Pampers/UNICEF program to stop the
spread of maternal and neonatal tetanus. In its first year, the program
provided money for more than 45 million tetanus vaccines ..." |
|
|
Most Young, Black Females Are Not Getting HPV Vaccine |
|
| HealthDay |
|
| February 4, 2009 |
|
| "The human
papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, which helps cut a sexual active female's
risk of cervical cancer, is viewed positively by its target audience in
the black community, even though few are actually getting the shots, a
new survey says. Only one in four eligible black adolescents has
received the vaccine, according to a survey by the Pennsylvania
Department of Public Health, which is behind funding to find ways to
increase HPV vaccination rates among high-risk populations. The results
of the survey were to be presented at the American Association for
Cancer Research conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities
in Carefree, Ariz..." |
|
|
Researchers See no Autism-Vaccine Link |
|
| United Press
International |
|
| February 2, 2009 |
|
| "U.S. researchers have
published a review summarizing the many studies refuting the claim of a
link between vaccines and autism. The review, published online ahead of
the Feb. 15 print issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, examined three
main hypotheses and showed how epidemiological and biological studies
shoot down these claims. 'When one hypothesis of how vaccines cause
autism is refuted, another invariably springs up to take its place,' Dr.
Paul Offit of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, co-author of the
review, said in a statement..." |
|
|
Television Review: A fearful disease and how it was stopped |
|
| Los Angeles Times |
|
| February 2, 2009 |
|
| "One of my earliest
memories is of standing in line, in some sort of meeting hall, waiting
to be given a sugar cube soaked in polio vaccine. Polio was all but
eradicated in America by the time I actually knew what it was, but its
cultural effects still resonated: I remember Gumby, the little clay boy,
being put in an iron lung (used to help polio victims breathe) in one
episode; it was one of the most disturbing images of my childhood. And
there was the March of Dimes, into which we were enlisted as
student-citizens, and whose origins are told in "The Polio Crusade,"
airing tonight as part of the PBS series "American Experience." It's a
neat, gripping social history of a disease that ranked behind only the
atom bomb among midcentury American fears. Although it was not the most
dreadful disease of its day -- paralysis was rare, and death very rare
-- it played upon the public imagination as a despoiler of youth (and of
the summertime, when it was most prevalent). Images here of very small
children walking with leg braces and canes are still heartbreakingly
potent..." |
|
|
More German Children Need Measles Jabs: WHO study |
|
| Reuters |
|
| February 2, 2009 |
|
| "A new World Health
Organization study says more German children need measles vaccines to
prevent another outbreak like the one that occurred in 2006 and affected
over 12,000 people in Germany, Romania, Britain, Switzerland, and Italy.
Low vaccination rates are blamed for the outbreak, and researchers from
the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin and two German public health centers
say "catch-up vaccination campaigns" targeting 10- to 14-year-olds
should be rolled out. A separate study published in The Lancet says
Germany's vaccination rate for children born in 1996 to 2003 is 70
percent. Experts say a 95 percent vaccination rate for all of Europe is
necessary to prevent measles outbreaks..." |
|
|
Doctors Wary of Dangerous Pox Parties |
|
| ABC News |
|
| February 2, 2009 |
|
| "Despite the
availability of a vaccine against chickenpox since 1995, a number of
parents organize chickenpox parties for their young children, believing
that allowing their children to contract the virus naturally when they
are younger eliminates any side effects from the vaccine and prevents
them from catching it when they are older. However, medical
professionals insist that chickenpox parties are dangerous and expose
children to severe and potentially fatal side effects of the virus, such
as encephalitis..." |
|
|
Flu Season Is Off to Slow Start, But for Va.; State Is the First With
Widespread Reports of Illness |
|
| The Washington Post |
|
| February 2, 2009 |
|
| "Virginia is the first
state in the nation to report a widespread outbreak of the flu, and the
federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the chronic
winter illness might spread rapidly after a relatively slow start this
season. " We could really get slammed in two weeks," Anthony Fiore, a
CDC epidemiologist, responded when asked whether much of the nation
might be spared this year. "Oh, no, it'll get here." The weekly survey
conducted by the CDC during flu season found localized outbreaks of the
illness in Maryland and sporadic cases in the District, but Virginia was
the only state so far where the flu was widespread..." |
|
|
Decision Support for Parents: A coalition of medical and advocacy groups
aims to address the concerns of parents and restore the public's
confidence in vaccines by providing accurate information |
|
| AHIP News |
|
| February 2009 |
|
| For many baby boomers, the risk of
being permanently disabled, living with an iron lung, even dying from
the contagious poliovirus was as real in the 1950s as were air raid
drills and community bomb shelters. Everyday threats of severe illness,
disability, and death from measles, pneumococcus, and other contagious
diseases were top-of-mind for their parents. Thanks to vaccines,
children--and their concerned parents--no longer have to worry about such
threats. That's why a recent pushback by a small but growing number of
parents--questioning the value of vaccines, delaying, even refusing to
have their kids vaccinated--has pediatricians and public health officials
concerned. The issue hit a tipping point last year, when American
Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) officials learned that an upcoming storyline
in a primetime ABC television show would perpetuate misinformation about
unsubstantiated vaccine-related adverse events. A high-profile
television show falsely proclaiming such a link could be "devastating to
the health of our nation's children," says AAP Past President Renee R.
Jenkins, M.D...." |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Vaccines Still Blamed for
Autism |
|
| Science News Examiner |
|
| January 30, 2009 |
|
| "A new study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases is taking on one
of the most bitter battles
in the medicinal world: the link between autism and vaccines. Complied
by researchers at Children's
Hospital of Philadelphia, the article considered large-scale experiments
conducted all over the
world and came to a conclusion that has already been made by scientists:
there simply is no
evidence that vaccines cause autism..." |
|
|
For Ian's Sake, Take Flu
Seriously |
|
| Kansas City (MO) Star |
|
| January 30, 2009 |
|
| "Julie Moise thought she knew the flu. Sure it could knock you flat. But
in several days you'd be
fine. Tons of people got it. It was no big deal. The Southwest Airlines
flight attendant knows
better now. The flu is serious. And it can be deadly. Julie Moise lost
her son Ian to the flu in
2003She learned that in the hardest of ways. In December 2003, her
6-month-old son, Ian, started
showing mild influenza symptoms. Less than two days later, he was dead.
Now the 42-year-old
Northland mother wants to spread the word about the dangers of flu and
the importance of flu
vaccines..." |
|
|
Invasive Hib Disease Cases
in Minnesota Linked to Vaccine Shortage
Parents' Refusal to Vaccinate Also a Possible Factor |
|
| January 28, 2009 |
|
| "A nationwide shortage of Haemophilus influenzae type b, or Hib, vaccine
and the refusal by some
parents to vaccinate their children may have sparked a re-emergence of
invasive Hib disease in
Minnesota. In the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report released Jan.
23, CDC officials said that
five cases of invasive Hib disease in children younger than age 5 years
were reported last year to
the Minnesota Department of Health. Three of the five children were
completely unvaccinated against
the disease. One child died..." |
|
|
Influenza May Trigger
Guillain-Barre Syndrome |
|
| Reuters Health Medical News |
|
| January 28, 2009 |
|
| "Influenza may trigger Guillain-Barre syndrome Influenza infection can
infrequently precipitate the
occurrence of Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS), French researchers report
in the January issue of
Clinical Infectious Diseases. GBS "is usually triggered by infectious
disease or vaccine," senior
investigator Dr. Elyanne Gault told Reuters Health. "To date, influenza
was associated with GBS
through vaccination, based on the report of a high number of GBS cases
during a mass vaccination
campaign against swine influenza in the US." The current study reports "virological
evidence that
influenza infection is a trigger for GBS, with a frequency related to
the level of influenza
epidemics," she explained..." |
|
|
CDC Expands Pneumonia
Vaccine Recommendations |
|
| American Medical News |
|
| January 27, 2009 |
|
| "The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has updated
its recommendations for whom
should be vaccinated against pneumococcal disease to include adults who
smoke and those with
asthma. The CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices approved
the changes, which apply
for individuals age 19 to 64 years, late last year. The CDC already recommended that adults 65
years or older and those with chronic illnesses receive the 23-valent
pneumococcal polysaccharide
vaccine, or PPSV23. Research published several years ago revealed that
approximately 50 percent of
otherwise healthy adults with invasive pneumococcal disease smoked
cigarettes. The CDC published
its recommendations in the Jan. 9 issue of the Morbidity and Mortality
Weekly Report..." |
|
|
Vaccine Study Backs Safety
of Chemical |
|
| Atlanta Journal-Constitution |
|
| January 26, 2009 |
|
| "A new study of about 1,400 children exposed to thimerosal in routine
vaccinations during the 1990s
adds further evidence to the safety of the mercury-based preservative
for children. Brain-function
tests of the children who received two different levels of the
preservative via routine
inoculations revealed only one case of autism 10 years later, and that
was in the group that
received a lower level of thimerosal. The study, published in the
February issue of the journal
Pediatrics, was funded by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention..." |
|
|
Hib Illness Rise Could Be
Linked to Vaccine Shortages |
|
| Wall Street Journal |
|
| January 26, 2009 |
|
| "Sanofi Aventis currently is the only supplier of the Haemophilus
influenzae type b (Hib) vaccine,
as bacteria contaminated equipment forced Merck & Co. to cease
production in late 2007. Due to the
short supply, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
requests that healthcare
providers administer the first few doses to babies, but put off the
final booster shot typically
provided between the ages of 12 months and 15 months..." |
|
|
Vaccine Call after 16 Mumps
Cases |
|
| BBC News |
|
| January 24, 2009 |
|
| "The National Public Health Service for Wales reports that there have
been 16 cases of mumps in
Anglesey and Gwynedd in the last month, and 15 of those affected have
received the recommended
doses of the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine. Area doctors have been
alerted of the problem,
and 10 secondary school students were reportedly sent home with mumps.
All cases arose since Dec.
27, and the Anglesey Local Health Board sent letters about the situation
to parents..." |
|
|
Rare Sickness Kills Child;
Officials Urge Vaccination |
|
| CNN.com |
|
| January 23, 2009 |
|
| "A childhood illness that has mostly been curbed through vaccinations
has killed one child and
sickened four others in Minnesota, health officials said Friday.
Authorities recommend that those
younger than 2 years be vaccinated against 14 diseases, including Hib.
The five children were
infected with a bacterial infection known as Hib: Haemophilus influenzae
type b. Three of the
affected children had not received any vaccinations, including the
7-month-old who died, according
to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention..." |
|
|
Don't Risk Going
Unvaccinated |
|
| Huffington Post |
|
| January 22, 2009 |
|
| This past year the United States witnessed a measles epidemic that was
the largest in more than a
decade. About 135 people, mostly children, were infected with measles;
some of those children were
hospitalized with severe dehydration and others with pneumonia caused by
the virus. Why did this
happen? The answer can be found in a study published in December 2008 in
the American Journal of
Epidemiology that received little attention from the media. The authors,
epidemiologists from Johns
Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, examined school children in
Michigan whose parents had
chosen not to vaccinate them. They compared clusters of unvaccinated
children with clusters of
documented whooping cough (pertussis) outbreaks. Not surprisingly, the
clusters overlapped. The
authors concluded: "Geographic pockets of vaccine exemptors pose a risk
to the whole community..." |
|
|
635 Million Pledged in
Effort to Wipe Out Polio |
|
| Wall Street Journal |
|
| January 22, 2009 |
|
| "Efforts to eradicate polio in Nigeria, Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan
have been given a boost by
$635 million in new funding. The German and U.K. governments will
contribute $280 million, the Bill
& Melinda Gates Foundation will donate $255 million, and Rotary
International will generate $100
million during the next three years. The World Health Organization and
UNICEF will use the funds
for vaccination drives in the affected countries. Though vaccination
efforts lowered polio cases
from 350,000 in 1988 to a several hundred in recent years, conflicts in
Pakistan and Afghanistan,
insufficient vaccination in northern India, and Nigeria's decision to
temporarily halt vaccinations
in 2003 helped boost the number of cases to about 1,600 last year.
Health officials say $350
million in funding must be raised this year and next to continue
eradication initiatives in these
countries..." |
|
|
Whooping Cough Vaccine Urged
for New Mothers |
|
| USA Today |
|
| January 21, 2009 |
|
| "Doctors should routinely give all new mothers a vaccine to protect
their newborns from whooping
cough, a sometimes deadly illness that has made a recent comeback,
according to a study in today's
Obstetrics & Gynecology. Although experts recommend that mothers receive
the shot before taking
their babies home from the hospital, few women even know about the vaccine, which can help protect
unvaccinated infants, says study co-author Tina Tan, a pediatrician and
infectious disease
specialist at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine..." |
|
|
Seattle-Based PATH Develops
a New Way to Protect Vaccines |
|
| Seattle Post-Intelligencer (WA) |
|
| January 21, 2009 |
|
| "Hundreds of thousands of vaccine doses are wasted annually due to poor
refrigeration, according to
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a main challenge for
health officials is that
simply looking at a vaccine does not indicate whether it has been frozen
or exposed to heat at some
point during transport. Seattle-based PATH helped develop a
heat-sensitive label for vaccines two
decades ago, and the company now has developed a new way to keep
vaccines from freezing. Published
in the journal Vaccine, PATH vaccine technologies expert Debbie Kristensen and researchers at the
University of Colorado-Denver report that glycerin, propylene glycol,
and polyethylene
glycol--common additives found in foods, soft drinks, and shampoos--can
be added to vaccines to
prevent freezing. Though the additives are inexpensive, researchers say
more tests are necessary to
see if they hinder vaccines' immunogenicity, or effectiveness..." |
|
|
Flu Strain Eludes Vaccine |
|
| Houston Chronicle |
|
| January 21, 2009 |
|
| "About half of the Houston influenza specimens tested by the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention in December were caused by a strain not covered by this
year's flu vaccine. Of the 19
flu positives, nine were influenza B, and most, if not all, of those
were in the "Victoria" lineage
not included in the flu vaccine, according to a report by Texas
Children's Hospital's Diagnostic
Virology Laboratory, which collected the viral cultures. Texas
Children's also reported its first
childhood flu death of the season, a 16-year-old boy with the influenza
B virus. The hospital
offered no other details..." |
|
|
Hepatitis Outbreaks Linked
to Poor Infection Control |
|
| American Medical News |
|
| January 20, 2009 |
|
| "A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
published in the Jan. 6 issue of
the Annals of Internal Medicine says that 60,000 patients were urged to
get tested for hepatitis B
and hepatitis C infections and 448 people were infected in 33 outbreaks
in outpatient settings over
the last 10 years. Researchers blame healthcare personnel for not
following basic infection-control
practices, citing cases in which syringes were reused or patients came
in contact with contaminated
equipment and devices. The study indicates that the outbreaks were
preventable and underscores the
importance of ongoing professional education and state oversight..." |
|
|
Pneumonia Hospitalizations
in Young Children Fell after Intro of PCV7 Vaccine |
|
| Reuters Health Medical News |
|
| January 20, 2009 |
|
| "Reductions in pneumonia hospitalizations in children < 2 years of age,
first observed when use of
pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV7) became routine in this group in
2000, were sustained through
2006, according to the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report for January
16. Dr. C. G. Grijalva at
Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and co-authors used data from the Nationwide
Inpatient Sample to provide an update on pneumonia hospitalizations
among young children, for
2005-2006..." |
|
|
U.S. to Produce Cell-Based
Flu Vaccine |
|
| UPI |
|
| January 15, 2009 |
|
| "The U.S. government said it has awarded a $487 million contract to
Novartis Vaccines and
Diagnostics for cell-based flu vaccines. Novartis will be the first U.S.
facility to manufacture
cell-based vaccines, which can be made faster and in greater quantities
than traditional influenza
vaccine. The Department of Health and Human Services said the new
facility is expected to boost
U.S. capacity for pandemic influenza vaccine by at least 25 percent..." |
|
|
This Question Has Been Asked
and Answered |
|
| Newsweek.com |
|
| January 16, 2009 |
|
| "A top exec quits a major autism group because she doesn't think
vaccines cause the disorder. The
warfare over vaccines and autism is heating up yet again. This week,
Alison Singer, the executive
vice president of communications and awareness at Autism Speaks, one of
the nation's leading autism
advocacy groups, announced her resignation, citing a difference of
opinion over the organization's
policy on vaccine research. "Dozens of credible scientific studies have
exonerated vaccines as a
cause of autism," she wrote in a statement. "I believe we must devote
limited funding to more
promising avenues of autism research." Singer, who has an 11-year-old
daughter with autism, joined
the organization when it launched in 2005..." |
|
|
One Major Flu Strain
Resistant to Tamiflu Treatment |
|
| The Seattle (WA) Times |
|
| January 15, 2009 |
|
| "One of the major strains of the influenza virus this season has become
resistant to Tamiflu
rendering the mainstay antiviral drug all but impotent and creating
tough treatment options for
patients who come down with the flu. On Dec. 19, the federal Centers for
Disease Control (CDC)
alerted local health authorities that an early testing of the most
common type of seasonal flu
found that it has become virtually impervious to Tamiflu. The
resistance, apparently triggered by a
spontaneous mutation in the virus, comes three years after a different
subtype of the flu virus
became widely resistant to another drug class. In response, state and
local health officials are
advising doctors to hedge their treatments by simultaneously prescribing
Tamiflu and a second
antiviral medicine..." |
|
|
Vaccine Cut Meningitis Rates |
|
| Wall Street Journal |
|
| January 15, 2009 |
|
| "A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine indicates that
Wyeth's Prevnar vaccine is
responsible for a 30 percent drop in cases of pneumococcal meningitis in
the United States. The
number of cases dropped from 1.13 per 100,000 persons in 1998 and 1999
to 0.79 per 100,000 in 2004
and 2005. Researchers noted a 60.5 percent jump in meningitis cases
involving strains not covered
by the vaccine..." |
|
|
Book Is Rallying Resistance
to the Antivaccine Crusade |
|
| New York Times |
|
| January 13, 2009 |
|
| "A new book defending vaccines, written by a doctor infuriated at the
claim that they cause autism,
is galvanizing a backlash against the antivaccine movement in the United
States. But there will be
no book tour for the doctor, Paul A. Offit, author of "Autism's False
Prophets." He has had too
many death threats..." |
|
|
Getting the Gardasil Vaccine Was a Smart Choice, Teen Writes |
|
|
Syracuse Post-Standard |
|
|
January 11, 2009 |
|
|
"If you had the opportunity to save yourself from one type of cancer,
would you? Although it's
still relatively new, Gardasil is preventing cervical cancer and saving
lives, one shot at a time.
Initially, Gardasil scared me. I was the first patient in my doctor's
office to be vaccinated. I
knew nothing about it. The commercials and pamphlets weren't readily
available. Because of my
doctor's thorough explanation, I was convinced. The pain experienced
from a shot is miniscule
compared to cervical cancer..." |
|
|
Mom: Meningitis Vaccine Is
Vital |
|
| Times-Mail (IN) |
|
| January 9, 2009 |
|
| "If Nancy Fletcher had known what she knows now about bacterial
meningitis, her daughter might be
alive today.. A vaccination given to adolescents and young adults going
off to college would have
protected her daughter. Tammy Fletcher was 28 years old and just five
months into her new job as a
teacher in a school near Orlando, Fla., when she came down with
cold-like symptoms. She came home
to visit her parents Tom and Nancy of Bedford for Christmas..." |
|
|
Major Flu Strain Found
Resistant to Leading Drug, Puzzling Scientists |
|
| New York Times |
|
| January 9, 2009 |
|
| "Virtually all the dominant strain of flu in the United States this
season is resistant to the
leading antiviral drug Tamiflu, and scientists and health officials are
trying to figure out
why...'" |
|
|
Combination Vaccine Is Safe
and Effective for Infants |
|
| Reuters Health |
|
| January 8, 2009 |
|
| "A recent study led by Dr. Fernando Guerra of the San Antonio
Metropolitan Health District compared
the effectiveness of the combined diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio,
and Haemophilus influenzae
type B vaccine and separate vaccines in approximately 2,000 infants and
followed them until five
years of age. Published in the January issue of Pediatrics, researchers found that there were
similar or fewer injection site and systemic reactions and similar or
higher antibody levels
associated with the DTaP-IPV-Hib vaccine. The results were comparable
with regard to antibody
levels when the children reached age five..." |
|
|
Texas Senator Pushing Bill
for Flu Vaccines in Schools |
|
| CBS 42 News (TX) |
|
| January 8, 2009 |
|
| "It's the middle of flu season, and state health officials are urging
people to get their flu
vaccine. But if a new bill passes, students who are a part of a pilot
program would be able to
receive flu shots directly from their schools. Representative Howard says the idea behind the bill
is to reach those students who may not normally be able to access the
vaccine. 'The more we can get
vaccinated the more we can impact the spread or lack thereof of the
disease,' she said. But parents
are concerned that providing vaccines to every student in the state,
without knowing how each
individual child reacts to the vaccine, is not a good idea. Parent Rebekah Gainsley is deeply
involved with autism awareness, and questions the program..." |
|
|
Merck Reports Shortage of
Hepatitis B Vaccine |
|
| Philadelphia Inquirer |
|
| January 6, 2009 |
|
| "Merck has announced that there will be a shortage of the hepatitis B
vaccine Recombivax HB, but
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says GlaxoSmithKline is
producing enough of its
hepatitis B vaccine for adults to make up for any shortfall. Upgrades at
its West Point plant are
behind Merck's production problems, and spokeswoman Amy Rose adds that
it expects to meet demand
again for the adult vaccine in a timely manner..." |
|
|
South Dakota Reports First
Influenza Death of 2008-2009 Season |
|
| January 4, 2009 |
|
| "South Dakota's first influenza-associated death of this season was
reported to the South Dakota
Department of Health today. The death was a resident of southeastern
South Dakota in the 80 to
89-year-old age group, who had influenza A and other chronic health
conditions. "While flu seemed
to start slowly this season, this unfortunate death is a reminder of how
serious the disease can
be. It's important that people practice good personal hygiene to prevent
the spread of influenza,"
said Dr. Lon Kightlinger, State Epidemiologist for the department..." |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Workers with Chicken Pox OK |
|
| Straits Times |
|
| December 30, 2008 |
|
| "On Dec. 28, a foreign worker in Singapore was found dead in his living
quarters after being sick
with chickenpox for about six days. Ten other workers were hospitalized
with chickenpox and are
recovering, according to Singapore's Communicable Disease Centre.
Chickenpox can be fatal if it
infects the body's organs, especially the lung, nervous system, and
liver, says Associate Professor
Leo Yee Sin, the centre's clinical director. The 10 hospitalized workers
were all from Bangladesh
and between 20 and 35 years of age. They were employed by a ship repair
and dormitory services
firm, as was the worker who died..." |
|
|
Researchers Unlock Secrets
of 1918 Flu Pandemic |
|
| Reuters |
|
| December 29, 2008 |
|
| "Researchers have found a complex of three genes--called PA, PB1, and
PB2--that help the flu virus
live and reproduce deep in the lungs, causing pneumonia. These genes may
be the cause for the
serious strain of flu involved in the 1918 pandemic and its higher death
rate. Yoshihiro Kawaoka of
the University of Wisconsin and colleagues at the University of Kobe and
Tokyo in Japan conducted
the study on ferrets, which develop flu similarly to humans. The flu
virus with the complex of
three genes as well as a 1918 version of the nucleoprotein made modern
flu kill ferrets in the same
way the original 1918 flu. The study was published in the Proceedings of
the National Academy of
Sciences..." |
|
|
Speaking the Language of
Vaccines |
|
| American Medical News |
|
| December 15, 2008 |
|
| "Childhood vaccines are entangled in a vast public controversy, and
doctors often find themselves
helping perplexed parents sort through misinformation before making a
decision on immunization.
Mindful of these discussions, a panel of physicians and journalists
offered pointers to those on
the front lines during the joint meeting of the Interscience Conference
on Antimicrobial Agents and
Chemotherapy and the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Panelist
Paul Offit, MD, director of
the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital in
Philadelphia..." |
|
|
Malaria Vaccine Is Given a
Good Shot as Big-Money Donors Boost Research |
|
| Wall Street Journal |
|
| December 9, 2008 |
|
| "The fight against malaria, one of the world's biggest killers, has just
gotten a booster. An
experimental vaccine has shown promise in two studies in African
children, who account for the
majority of the more than one million victims that malaria claims every
year. Published online
Monday in the New England Journal of Medicine, the studies affirm
encouraging results from earlier
trials of the vaccine, known only as 'RTS,S.'..." |
|
|
Biologists Spy Close-Up View
of Poliovirus Linked to Host Cell Receptor |
|
| Science Daily |
|
| December 8, 2008 |
|
| "Researchers from Purdue and Stony Brook universities have determined
the precise atomic-scale
structure of the poliovirus attached to key receptor molecules in human
host cells and also have
taken a vital snapshot of processes leading to infection. The virus
binds to a receptor on the cell
to form a single complex..." |
|
|
FDA Approves GlaxoSmithKline
Tetanus, Diphtheria, Whooping Cough Vaccine, BOOSTRIX, for Adults;
New Indication for Booster Vaccine Expands Disease Protection to
Individuals Aged 10-64 Years |
|
| Market Wire |
|
| December 8, 2008 |
|
| "GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK) announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) has
approved BOOSTRIX [Tetanus Toxoid, Reduced Diphtheria Toxoid, and
Acellular Pertussis Vaccine,
Adsorbed (Tdap)] for use in adults 19-64 years of age. BOOSTRIX offers
protection against tetanus,
diphtheria and pertussis (whooping cough) to individuals 10-64 years of
age -- the broadest age
range for any Tdap vaccine..." |
|
|
Whooping Cough Cases Up |
|
| Lexington Herald-Leader |
|
| December 5, 2008 |
|
| "The whooping cough has come to
Kentucky, and the bacterially caused illness is causing its first
outbreak in Kentucky in several years. 'We're seeing it all over the
state,' said Dr. Kraig Humbaugh, the state epidemiologist in the
Department of Public Health..." |
|
|
Wyeth Submits European Marketing Authorization Application for its
13-Valent Vaccine for the Prevention of Pneumococcal Disease in Infants
and Young Children |
|
| Fox Business News |
|
| December 4, 2008 |
|
| "Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, a
division of Wyeth (NYSE:WYE), announced today that it has submitted a
marketing authorization application (MAA) to the European Medicines
Agency (EMEA) for approval to market its investigational 13-valent
pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13) for infants and young children.
Wyeth is seeking an indication for the prevention of pneumococcal
disease (PD) caused by the 13 serotypes included in the investigational
vaccine in infants and children from two months to five years of age.
The review of the MAA will be coordinated by the EMEA for all 27
countries in the European Union, as well as Norway, Iceland and
Liechtenstein. PCV13 includes the 13 most prevalent pneumococcal
serotypes associated with serious PD. Seven of these (4, 6B, 9V, 14,
18C, 19F and 23F) are included in Prevenar* (Pneumococcal saccharide
conjugated vaccine, adsorbed) - - the current global standard in PD
prevention in infants and young children. The six additional serotypes
(1, 3, 5, 6A, 7F and 19A) are associated with the greatest burden of
remaining invasive disease. Both Prevenar (also known as PCV7) and PCV13
use CRM197 -- an immunological carrier protein with a 20-year history of
use in pediatric vaccines..." |
|
|
Measles and MMR: Sow the wind |
|
| The Economist (UK) |
|
| December 4, 2008 |
|
| "Fledging engineers learn about
disasters like the 1988 Piper Alpha oil-rig fire or the explosion of the
space shuttle Challenger in 1986 as a reminder of the dangers that
attend their profession. Perhaps, if the subject ever achieves
respectability, media-studies undergraduates will pore over the measles,
mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine scare in 21st-century Britain. On
November 28th the Health Protection Agency (HPA), which monitors
infectious diseases, said that there were 1,049 cases of measles in
England and Wales in the ten months to October 2008. Even before the
year is out, that makes 2008 the worst year since 1995, when current
reporting methods began (see chart)..." |
|
|
Measles Deaths Drop 74% Worldwide With Vaccine Push |
|
| Bloomberg |
|
| December 4, 2008 |
|
| "Measles deaths tumbled 74 percent
worldwide from 2000 through 2007, the result of a campaign to vaccinate
children in developing countries, world health officials said today.
About 197,000 people died from measles last year compared with 750,000
in 2000, according to a report released by the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization. The biggest
improvements were in Africa and in eastern Mediterranean countries,
among them Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sudan..." |
|
|
Editorial: Make Sure Kids' Vaccines Covered |
|
| Atlanta Journal-Constitution |
|
| December 4, 2008 |
|
| "In Georgia, more than half of
children get their childhood immunizations through a family
pediatrician. But problems with a federal program designed to make
vaccinations more widely available may cause private-practice physicians
to give up providing shots to their patients, even to those who are
privately insured. A survey published in the December issue of the
medical journal Pediatrics confirms what many physicians have discovered
on their own in recent years: There are wide disparities in how
insurance companies pay for immunizations and in some cases, doctors who
provide them lose money..." |
|
|
Mass Measles Vaccination Starts |
|
| BBC News (UK) |
|
| December 3, 2008 |
|
| "A mass vaccination of more than
10,000 children is beginning in Cheshire to head off a measles epidemic.
The Health Protection Agency (HPA) said there had been 75 reported cases
of the illness in central and eastern parts of the county in 2008.
Nurses are visiting more than 200 schools to 'nip it in the bud', said HPA spokesman Hugh Lamont. The agency has written to thousands of
parents asking for their consent for unprotected children to be
vaccinated. Health officials have identified 10,534 children - 17% of
Cheshire's school population - from the Child Health Register as not
having the MMR or the pre-school booster jab..." |
|
|
Students, That Flu Shot
Could Help Your Grades |
|
| Star Tribune (MN) |
|
| December 2, 2008 |
|
| "If you've ever had to talk a college student into getting a flu shot,
researchers at the
University of Minnesota just made your case. Vaccinated students are: 46
percent less likely to
miss a class; 40 percent less likely to botch an assignment; 47 percent less likely to have a bad
test; and 47 percent less likely to have to go to the doctor..." |
|
|
College Students Also Need Flu Vaccine |
|
| ABC News |
|
| December 2, 2008 |
|
| "Although most college students
are part of the 17 percent of Americans not included in the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention's vaccine recommendations, a new study
suggests that they may be among the major beneficiaries of a flu shot.
The study, in this weeks issue of the Archives of Pediatric and
Adolescent Medicine, found that college students who have been immunized
against the flu were 30 percent less likely to contract an influenza
illness, and were also less likely to miss class or become unable to
complete work because of flu-like illness..." |
|
|
Vaccines: Bad Business for Doctors? |
|
| Washington Post Blog: The Checkup |
|
| December 2, 2008 |
|
| "We in America seem to take the
ready availability of vaccines for granted. Every so often there's a
shortage of one vaccination or another, but for the most part we feel
confident that we and our children will have access to the shots that
protect us against a wide range of diseases, from measles to mumps to
pertussis to polio. But a pair of studies in the December issue of
Pediatrics raises the alarming notion that doctors could in fact opt out
of providing vaccinations for their privately insured patients. Why
would physicians be tempted to drop the shots? Money..." |
|
|
Gardasil Vaccine Allergic Reactions Are Uncommon - Study |
|
| Dow Jones Newswire |
|
| December 2, 2008 |
|
| "Allergic reactions to Gardasil,
the humanpapilloma virus vaccine co-marketed by Merck & Co. Inc. (MRK)
and Sanofi-Aventis SA (SNY), are uncommon and most schoolgirls can
tolerate further doses, according to an Australian study published in
the British Medical Journal Wednesday... Researchers at the Royal
Children's Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, tested 25 schoolgirls with
suspected allergic reactions to Gardasil after more than 380,000 vaccine
doses were administered in schools. From April 2007, all young women
aged 12 to 26 in Australia have received the vaccine as part of a
national secondary school immunization program. Suspected allergic
reactions include hives, skin rash and swelling. The researchers found
that only three of the 25 schoolgirls had probable hypersensitivity to
Gardasil and concluded that true hypersensitivity is uncommon. They
pointed out that reactions such as hives don't increase the risk of
adverse reactions in further vaccinations..." |
|
|
Letter: Son Bears Consequences from Lack of Vaccine |
|
| Indianapolis Star Tribune |
|
| December 2, 2008 |
|
| "While the vaccine/autism link
is being debated, I am in the unique position to view vaccines
differently. Twenty-one years ago, the Hib vaccine was not given until
18 months of age. My younger son was 9 months when he become ill with
bacterial meningitis. He had been inseparable from his 4-year-old
brother, who was vaccinated and fine. My son is profoundly deaf as the
result of the meningitis. He graduated as salutatorian of his class at
the Indiana School for the Deaf and has a good job. Do I wish he had had
the vaccine? Of course. I encourage all parents to get their children
vaccinated. Many graduates of both the Deaf and the Blind Schools are
the result of the measles epidemics. It is a huge risk to
take.--Stephanie Ruddy, Indianapolis" |
|
|
Doctors Rethink Costly Vaccines |
|
| Washington Post |
|
| December 1, 2008 |
|
| "About one in 10 doctors who
vaccinate privately insured children are considering dropping that
service largely because they are losing money when they do it, according
to a new survey. A second survey revealed startling differences between
what doctors pay for vaccines and what private health insurers reimburse
...The studies are the first to attach numbers to doctors' long-simmering
complaints that they are only breaking even, or even losing money, when
they give shots...Experts say there's no evidence that significant
numbers of doctors are quitting the vaccination business yet because of
financial concerns. But health officials are worried..." |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Another Possible Chickenpox Case in Monroe |
|
| The Herald |
|
| November 29, 2008 |
|
| "Another suspected case of
chickenpox would make 18 since October reported at Salem Woods
Elementary School in Monroe. School and Snohomish Health District
officials declared an outbreak of the disease last week at the school
that has 507 students in kindergarten through fifth grade. A school
district spokeswoman, Rosemary O'Neil, told The Everett Herald that of
the 411 students who needed a vaccination shot, all but 22 have been
cleared to return to school..." |
|
|
Measles Cases Surge to New High |
|
| BBC News (UK) |
|
| November 28, 2008 |
|
| "Measles cases in England and
Wales have topped 1,000 in a year for the first time in more than a
decade, Health Protection Agency figures show. In the first 10 months of
2008 there were 1,049 cases, more than in the whole of 2007, the agency
said. It said measles was spreading more easily because of the low
uptake of the combined MMR jab over the past decade. In Cheshire, an
outbreak of more than 60 cases has prompted the launch of a programme to
vaccinate 10,000 pupils..." |
|
|
Rare Cough on Rise in Area |
|
| Charlotte Observer (NC) |
|
| November 24, 2008 |
|
| "It wasn't a run-of-the-mill
cough. The violent fits were long and uncontrollable, and patients made
an unusual gasping noise. Folks said it sounded like a whoop. More than
50 years ago, whooping cough, also known as pertussis, killed thousands
of infants and adults..." |
|
|
Boston Launches Flu Shot Tracking |
|
| Boston Globe |
|
| November 21, 2008 |
|
| "Using technology originally
developed for mass disasters, Boston disease trackers are embarking on a
novel experiment - one of the first in the country - aimed at eventually
creating a citywide registry of everyone who has had a flu vaccination.
The resulting vaccination map would allow swift intervention in
neighborhoods left vulnerable to the fast-moving respiratory illness.
The trial starts this afternoon, when several hundred people are
expected to queue up for immunizations at the headquarters of the Boston
Public Health Commission. Each of them will get a bracelet printed with
a unique identifier code. Information about the vaccine's recipients,
and the shot, will be entered into handheld devices similar to those
used by delivery truck drivers..." |
|
|
Teaching Moment Springs from School's Shared Sadness |
|
| Seattle Times |
|
| November 21, 2008 |
|
| "Half the kids in her second grade
had been out that winter. But no one imagined Marija Alumbaugh would
never come back to Laurelhurst Elementary over something as simple as
the flu. It happened, though. The influenza led to heart inflammation
called myocarditis, and in a matter of days in February 2007, the
8-year-old girl was gone..." |
|
|
Doctors to Be on Guard for Meningitis in Kids |
|
| Reuters |
|
| November 20, 2008 |
|
| "U.S. health officials asked doctors
on Thursday to be alert for possible cases of meningitis and other
illnesses in children caused by Hib bacteria amid an ongoing vaccine
shortage. Officials are most concerned about bacterial meningitis and
sepsis, a bloodstream infection, caused by Hib (Haemophilus influenzae
type b) in children under age 5 because of the high risk of death or
serious complications, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
epidemiologist Mike Jackson said. Meningitis is the inflammation of the
tissue surrounding the brain and spinal cord, and can be caused by viral
or bacterial infections. Before the vaccines, Hib was the most common
cause of bacterial meningitis..." |
|
|
New Vaccine Can Relieve Extreme Discomfort of Shingles |
|
| Cape Cod Times (MA) |
|
| November 20, 2008 |
|
| "The $100 Pat Rose shelled out
recently for the shingles vaccine was well worth reducing her risk of
getting the painful viral disease, the East Harwich woman says. A friend
in Maine got shingles this past summer and was in such pain she couldn't
bear to touch her own cheek, Rose says. 'She was quite incapacitated for
a while...'" |
|
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Shots All Around! The Case for Immunizing Everyone Against the Flu |
|
| Slate.com |
|
| November 19, 2008 |
|
| "Problem: Influenza is a common viral
disease. Because it's so common (in any one year, somewhere between 5
percent and 20 percent of Americans will get the flu) and because people
tend to call any illness with fever, sore throat, vomiting, or diarrhea
a "flu," it is often taken casually--more a fact of life than a cause for
anxiety. Many of these misnamed infections are pretty minor, but true
influenza is often quite a serious disease, leading to more than 200,000
annual hospitalizations in the United States and about 36,000 deaths
every year..." |
|
|
Groups Work to Boost Support for Vaccines |
|
| Journal of the American Medical
Association |
|
| November 19, 2008 |
|
| "Concerned about public skepticism
regarding the safety of childhood vaccines, a skepticism exacerbated by
misinformation on the Internet and from other sources, members of the
medical and public health communities are launching a coordinated effort
to bolster public support of childhood immunizations. The Immunization
Alliance, an organization that includes the American Academy of Family
Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the American
Medical Association, the American Public Health Association, Parents of
Kids with Infectious Diseases, the March of Dimes, and several other
groups, issued a call to action in September urging policymakers, public
health officials, physicians, and the public to join in an effort to
boost confidence in childhood vaccines..." |
|
|
Chelation Therapy Trials Halted |
|
| Journal of the American Medical
Association |
|
| November 19, 2008 |
|
| "The federal government and
investigators have called off or suspended enrollment for 2 clinical
trials testing chelation therapy as a treatment for autism or coronary
artery disease. Critics charged that the studies had little scientific
merit and exposed participants to unacceptable safety risks. The US Food
and Drug Administration has approved chelating agents, which bind and
remove heavy metals from the body, for treating acute toxicity of heavy
metals. But, according to the National Center for Complimentary and
Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), off-label uses of chelating agents
contribute to an estimated 800 000 physician visits annually..." |
|
|
Really? The Claim: Nasal-Spray Flu Vaccine Can Make you Sick |
|
| New York Times |
|
| November 18, 2008 |
|
| "Every year, myths about the flu
vaccine spread as widely as the flu itself. Most people seem to know
that the flu shot, which uses killed viruses, cannot cause symptoms. But
its newer counterpart, the nasal spray FluMist, is slightly different.
It uses live but weakened viruses, which can still replicate for as long
as three weeks. But that alone is not enough to cause sickness or result
in passing the virus to others..." |
|
|
Academy Names Midshipman Who Died from Meningitis; 66 at Academy get
Antibiotics, Monitoring as Precaution |
|
| The Capitol (MD) |
|
| November 18, 2008 |
|
| "It was Naval Academy Midshipman 4th
Class Frederick Henry Eissler, 20, of West Chester, Pa., who died Monday
from complications due to an infection of Nieserra meningitis, the Naval
Academy reported Tuesday evening..." |
|
|
Workers Get Health Care at the Office |
|
| Wall Street Journal |
|
| November 18, 2008 |
|
| "Even as employers push a greater
share of rising medical costs on to workers, a growing number of
companies also are providing services like free check-ups, screening
exams and prescription drugs that potentially can save employees
hundreds of dollars a year. Companies say the programs also will save
them money in the long run. Although a few employers have long offered
on-site clinics, the trend is gathering steam as more companies expect
to reduce their overall health-care spending by focusing more attention
on preventing illness, including complications from such conditions as
hypertension and diabetes..." |
|
|
Brazilian Boy with Rabies in Recovery |
|
| Milwaukee Journal Sentinel |
|
| November 16, 2008 |
|
| "A 15-year-old boy from Brazil who
contracted rabies from the bite of a vampire bat is recovering after
doctors used a novel treatment developed at Children's Hospital of
Wisconsin. "This is wonderful news," said Rodney Willoughby Jr., a
pediatric infectious disease specialist at the hospital and the Medical
College of Wisconsin, on Saturday. Willoughby supervised a team that
used the same type of treatment protocol in 2004 to save the life of
Jeanna Giese, a Fond du Lac teenager. At the time, Giese was the only
person known to have survived rabies without having been vaccinated. To
date, three people, all of them children, have been successfully treated
using what is referred to as the "Milwaukee protocol," according to
Willoughby and the Brazilian health ministry..." |
|
|
Drive-By Flu Shots |
|
| Time Magazine |
|
| November 13, 2008 |
|
| "More hospitals are offering curbside
vaccinations. Sure, it's convenient, but is it safe?...But critics say
that the process is dangerous and that the last place you want to be if
something goes wrong is speeding down the highway. It takes time to hash
out the risk factors associated with flu shots, such as being allergic
to eggs or already having a fever when you get vaccinated..." |
|
|
Merck Study Shows Promise for Gardasil in Boys |
|
| Wall Street Journal Health Blog |
|
| November 13, 2008 |
|
| "Merck is moving ahead with plans to
extend the use of its controversial Gardasil vaccine to boys and young
men. Girls may not be the only ones getting Gardasil injections for
long. Scientists are reporting at a scientific meeting in Nice, France,
today that 90% fewer men ages 16 to 26 years developed genital warts and
other lesions after receiving Gardasil..." |
|
|
Pennsylvania Whooping Cough Outbreak |
|
| The Examiner |
|
| November 13, 2008 |
|
| "An increased number of
pertussis cases in Pennsylvania, including an outbreak in a western
Pennsylvania school district where at least 16 students were affected,
has prompted the Pennsylvania Health Department to release a reminder to
parents about the importance of immunizing their infants and children..." |
|
|
Listen for Whooping Cough this Winter |
|
| Minneapolis Star Tribune |
|
| November 13, 2008 |
|
| "It's beginning to look like a
bad year for whooping cough. State officials on Thursday reported
several new outbreaks of pertussis around the state, primarily among
elementary and high school students. Cases have been reported in Fergus
Falls and Albert Lea and in Douglas and Dakota counties..." |
|
|
Google Tool Uses Search Terms to Detect Flu Outbreaks |
|
| CNN |
|
| November 12, 2008 |
|
| "If you have a fever, headache and
runny nose, you might go to Google and type the words "flu symptoms" to
see whether you've come down with influenza. Google Flu Trends provides
a map of influenza activity in the U.S. at www.google.org/flutrends...
Google's new public health initiative, Google Flu Trends, looks at the
relative popularity of a slew of flu-related search terms to determine
where in the U.S. flu outbreaks may be occurring..." |
|
|
Gibraltar Suffers Fast-Spreading Measles Outbreak |
|
| The New York Times |
|
| November 11, 2008 |
|
| "A measles outbreak in Gibraltar
has infected almost 1 percent of the territory's 28,000 people in just
three months, according to a report by its public health director. The
outbreak, mostly in schoolchildren, made it clear that the authorities
had been wrong in assuming that more than 90 percent of children had had
measles shots, the report said. Gibraltar is a British territory, and
resistance to the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine has been high in Britain
since a 1998 report in The Lancet speculated that it could cause autism.
That report has been widely discredited, and numerous later studies
showed no link between vaccines and autism. Nonetheless, as a
consequence of dropping vaccination rates, Britain has had several local
measles outbreaks..." |
|
|
In a Novel Theory of Mental Disorders, Parents' Genes Are in Competition |
|
| The New York Times |
|
| November 11, 2008 |
|
| "Two scientists, drawing on
their own powers of observation and a creative reading of recent genetic
findings, have published a sweeping theory of brain development that
would change the way mental disorders like autism and schizophrenia are
understood..." |
|
|
Meningitis Vaccine is Revisited |
|
| Houston Chronicle |
|
| November 10, 2008 |
|
| "Local immunization advocates
are renewing their call for Texas to require a meningitis vaccine for
middle-school students after the recent death of a 13-year-old Houston
girl..." |
|
|
From Influenza A to Zanamivir, What You Need to Know This Flu Season |
|
| Chicago Daily Herald |
|
| November 10, 2008 |
|
| "It's a rite of autumn. The days
grow shorter, the temperature drops, footballs fly - and the flu
strikes. Influenza is so common that it's easy to dismiss this seasonal
affliction as "just a virus" or "just the flu." It's true that the flu
is caused by a virus and that most patients recover without specific
therapy. But it's also true that thousands of Americans die from the flu
each year, and millions are sick enough to miss work or school..." |
|
|
African Researchers Plan Malaria Vaccine Trial |
|
| Washington Post |
|
| November 10, 2008 |
|
| "A medical trial involving
16,000 children across Africa will be a challenge to human, scientific
and communications resources on the world's poorest continent, three
researchers hoping to develop the first malaria vaccine said Monday.
Malaria, caused by parasites and spread by mosquitoes, kills nearly 1
million people every year, most of them children in Africa. GSK is
working with the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, which is an
anti-malaria charity funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and
clinics and research centers in Africa..." |
|
|
Whooping Cough Spreading Through Area |
|
| Brookings Register (SD) |
|
| November 9, 2008 |
|
| "A highly contagious and
potentially deadly disease is currently moving through Eastern South
Dakota, and it's already hitting area schools. The South Dakota
Department of Health reports 17 recently confirmed cases of whooping
cough, or pertussis , in the area..." |
|
|
Op-ed: Childhood Vaccinations Prevent Millions of Deaths |
|
| The Star Press (IN) |
|
| November 9, 2008 |
|
| "Actress Jenny McCarthy, the
parent of an autistic child, believes that infants are dangerously
receiving too many vaccinations too quickly and that immunizations cause
autism. She uses her fame to bring these convictions to the forefront of
public attention. Her crusade, although well-intentioned, is misguided
and not based on sound scientific evidence. When questioned, she
admitted that her conclusions were based mostly on anecdotal
information. This very lack of scientific rigor among anti-vaccine
activists confounds the ongoing debate regarding the
childhood-immunization safety. At least 16 well-designed scientific
studies have found no connection between immunizations or thimerosol (a
mercury-based preservative in some vaccines) and autism. These studies
were conducted by multiple independent investigators and involved large
numbers of children...Vaccine-preventable diseases smolder along waiting
for a chance to re-emerge as a result of under-immunization..." |
|
|
Op-ed: Dangerous Kook At The EPA? |
|
Author: Walter Olson, a senior fellow
at the Manhattan Institute
Forbes |
|
| November 7, 2008 |
|
| "Obama is considering Robert F.
Kennedy Jr. Yikes! You may remember the furor that played out over the
past few years regarding the so-called Republican 'war on science.' In
campaign literature, Barack Obama pledged to break with his predecessor
and not run an administration in which 'ideology trumps scientific
inquiry and politics replaces expert opinion'..." |
|
| Giving Whooping Cough Vaccine Earlier Has Benefits |
|
| Reuters |
|
| November 6, 2008 |
|
| "Vaccinating children against whooping cough at 6 weeks of age rather than at 2 months could markedly reduce the number of cases seen each year in the US and help prevent serious complications, new research suggests. Whooping cough -- known medically as pertussis -- is a highly contagious respiratory infection that causes uncontrollable attacks of coughing and breathlessness. Before a vaccine became available, whooping cough was a major, sometimes fatal childhood disease..." |
|
| Kid Vaccines Okay for Kids at Risk for Allergies |
|
| Reuters |
|
| November 6, 2008 |
|
| "In children at increased risk for developing allergies, common childhood immunizations do not increase the risk of more severe eczema or allergies, according to a study published in the journal Allergy. Infant vaccinations have been suggested as the cause of atopic disease. Atopy refers to the tendency to develop allergies, such as ‘atopic’ dermatitis, hay fever and asthma. Atopy occurs as a result of an excessive inflammatory response to everyday environmental substances, such as dust mites and grass pollen..." |
|
| Op-ed: When Not to Write About Autism |
|
| New Scientist |
|
| November 4, 2008 |
|
| "USA Today heads its story: Study: Counties with more rainfall have higher autism rates. The BBC has Rainfall autism theory suggested, while The Daily Telegraph opts for Heavy rainfall could be linked to autism, scientists claim. These were some of the headlines in stories reporting a paper from scientists at Cornell University showing that between 1987 and 1999, counties in Washington, Oregon and California that got more rain had more cases of autism. But should the story have been reported in the mainstream media at all? It offers nothing useful for the general public, parents, and even physicians. And press reports, blogs and other accounts of the study could even mislead the public..." |
|
| Earlier Vaccination Could Cut Whooping Cough Deaths |
|
| HealthDay News |
|
| November 3, 2008 |
|
| "Giving infants a routine pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine two weeks earlier than normal could prevent at least 1,236 cases of pertussis, 898 hospitalizations and seven deaths each year in the United States, a new study finds. 'Pertussis vaccine has been highly effective in defending children against the disease, and we find that modest adjustments in the timing of vaccine administration may offer enhanced protection to very young infants who are especially susceptible to severe disease,' co-lead author Dr. Timothy R. Peters, assistant professor of pediatrics at Brenner Children's Hospital (part of Wake Forest), said in a university news releases..." |
|
| Op-ed: Benefits of HPV Vaccine Outweigh Risk |
|
| Toronto Star (CAN) |
|
| November 3, 2008 |
|
| "This fall the Ontario government is once again offering the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine at no cost to Grade 8 girls across the province. The goal is to vaccinate the girls during the school year against HPV, which has been identified as being the main cause of cervical cancer. As a gynaecological oncologist who treats cervical cancer patients every day, it is very encouraging to see the provincial government taking a proactive stand on this issue..." |
|
| Study Backs Up Flu Shot Advice for Kids |
|
| USA Today |
|
| November 2, 2008 |
|
| "New research confirms the benefits of vaccinating children against respiratory diseases. In a study in today's Pediatrics, doctors found that flu shots can keep kids out of the doctor's office, even when that season's vaccines aren't a perfect match for viruses in the community..." |
|
| Pakistan Introduces Vaccine To Prevent Top Child Killer |
|
| Science Daily |
|
| November 1, 2008 |
|
| "This month, Pakistan is introducing a new combination vaccine that will protect its children against the bacterium Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) and four other common childhood diseases. Hib, a bacterium that can cause deadly meningitis and pneumonia, is one of the top killers of young children in the developing world..." |
|
|
|
|
|
| A Dozen Cases Alone at One Omaha School |
|
| NBC News 6 (NE) |
|
| October 31, 2008 |
|
| "An outbreak of whooping cough has Douglas County Health Department officials concerned as 48 cases have been reported in recent days, 12 of those at Omaha's St. Robert Bellarmine Catholic School. Also known as pertussis, whooping cough is highly contagious...Dr. Adi Pour with the Douglas County Health Department expects those numbers to grow. 'Let's say you've been vaccinated. The likelihood is much less that you're going to be infected. 'The whooping cough vaccine looses it's potency, so many school age kids are more susceptible. 'What we are most concerned is in families where you have an individual with pertussis and you have a small infant that hasn't been able to be immunized yet, that's when we are most concerned,' says Dr. Pour.".." |
|
| Doctor Disputes Autism, Vaccine Link |
|
| Video link: www.msnbc.com |
|
| NBC: Today Show |
|
| October 30, 2008 |
|
| "In his book, “Autism's False Prophets,” Paul A. Offit, a national expert on vaccines, recounts the history of autism and challenges the idea that vaccines lead to autism. An excerpt. From the prologue: Although most of my hate mail mentions my work with Merck on a rotavirus vaccine, that alone doesn’t explain why some people hate me..." |
|
| Op-ed: Our Vote to End Cervical Cancer |
|
| Author: Lance Armstrong and John Seffrin |
|
| Washington Post |
|
| October 30, 2008 |
|
| "Preventing, treating and defeating cancer are among the greatest scientific challenges and personal triumphs of our time. And right now, we have the power to save our mothers, sisters and daughters from a type of cancer that claims a life every two minutes globally..." |
|
|
Idaho Health Officials Report First Flu Death |
|
| Associated Press |
|
| October 29, 2008 |
|
| "State health officials say a
50-year-old woman from northern Idaho has died from influenza
complications. The case was reported Tuesday and is the first
flu-related death of the season in Idaho. The case was reported Tuesday
and is the first flu-related death of the season in Idaho..." |
|
| Flu Widow's Message: Get your flu shot |
|
| Star Tribune |
|
| October 29, 2008 |
|
| "As the daughter of one Minneapolis firefighter and the wife of another, Linda DeLude thought she knew the dangers that her husband, Barry, faced on the job. The flu virus didn't even make the list. Until one day in 2007. In late January, Barry DeLude and his crew responded to a medical emergency at a nursing home. Two days later, he started feeling achy and complained of the worst headache of his life..." |
|
| Cast a Vote, Get Vaccinated, Nonprofit Urges |
|
| CNN.com |
|
| October 29, 2008 |
|
| "Record numbers of early voters are lining up across America, and one nonprofit hopes health is on at least some of their minds. The non-partisan program Vote & Vax is teaming up with local health agencies to provide flu vaccinations at 250 polling locations around the country. "It's a win-win situation for everyone," said Dr. Doug Shenson, national program director of Vote & Vax. "The providers are delivering flu shots. The community is protected. The election experience is an efficient and good one..." |
|
| Vaccinations’ Benefits Proved; Enforce the Law |
|
| The Atlanta Journal-Constitution |
|
| October 29, 2008 |
|
| "Unfounded fears about vaccines are causing too many parents to forgo getting the shots their children need to stay healthy and not spread dangerous diseases among their playmates. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last month that measles cases in the United States had reached the highest level in more than a decade, an alarming rise in a disease thought to be eliminated in the United States eight years ago. The spike is directly linked to parents refusing to get their children inoculated against the easily spread disease..." |
|
| Letter: Is Gardasil Safe? |
|
| Washington Post |
|
| October 28, 2008 |
|
| "Fretting about whether to get your daughter vaccinated against cervical cancer? Or perhaps about getting the Gardasil shots yourself? The federal government has new information that officials say should help calm fears about the safety of the shots. The analysis of data collected from about 190,000 women and girls who got at least one Gardasil shot found no evidence that the vaccine increased the risk for any serious complications, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention..." |
|
| Promising Results for Wyeth Vaccine |
|
| Wall Street Journal |
|
| October 28, 2008 |
|
| "An investigational Wyeth vaccine known as Prevnar-13 appears to offer enhanced protection against pneumococcal disease in young children, compared with the company's current blockbuster vaccine, Prevnar, according to new data presented Monday. Wyeth has high commercial hopes for Prevnar-13, which is designed to protect against six more disease-causing types of the bacteria streptococcus pneumoniae than does Prevnar...The data on Prevnar-13 come from findings of four European studies, including a 604-infant trial conducted in Germany, which will be part of the package to be submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration when the company files for approval of the vaccine in the first quarter..." |
|
| Vaccination Programmes Avert 3.4 Million Deaths: GAVI Alliance |
|
| AFP (Global) |
|
| October 28, 2008 |
|
| "Immunisation programmes against meningitis and hepatitis in the world's poorest countries will have averted 3.4 million deaths by the end of the year, the public-private GAVI alliance said Wednesday. The alliance, set up by IT magnate Bill Gates and funded by donor governments, international institutions and private philanthropists, also said that 213 million children will have been reached with GAVI-supported vaccines in the period 2000-2008..." |
|
| A Rotavirus Vaccine a Success Story |
|
| WebMD |
|
| October 27, 2008 |
|
| "A vaccine against rotavirus, an infectious disease that causes potentially deadly diarrhea in infants, has led to a remarkable drop in hospitalizations and visits to the emergency room, researchers say. Since it was introduced two years ago, the RotaTeq vaccine has cut the number of new rotavirus cases by 66% to 100%, according to a number of studies. There's even evidence the vaccine reduced spread of the infectious disease to children who were not immunized, the researchers say..." |
|
| Survivor Stresses Importance of Flu Shots |
|
| Lawrence Journal World (KS) |
|
| October 27, 2008 |
|
| "When doctors at St. Francis Hospital in Topeka gave Ed Barnhart less than a 10 percent chance to live, pus had wrapped around his lungs and leached the air out of them, suffocating him from within. His temperature hit 106; his heart was beating dangerously fast. He'd contracted staph, strep throat and pneumonia. Barnhart, 57, was battling for his life against influenza A..." |
|
| Massive Flu Vaccine Dose Protects Elderly Better |
|
| Reuters |
|
| October 26, 2008 |
|
| "Giving four times the usual dose of flu vaccine helps protect elderly people better than the usual dose, researchers reported on Sunday, offering a potential solution to the problem of vaccinating seniors. Recent research has shown the standard flu vaccine does not reduce deaths noticeably among the elderly….but the high-dose vaccine appeared to work well in them all...Annual flu vaccines are recommended for most of the U.S. population, including people over the age of 50, people with chronic conditions such as diabetes, children and pregnant women. Globally, seasonal influenza kills between 250,000 and 500,000 people every year..." |
|
| Vaccine Brings Dramatic Drop in Rotavirus |
|
| Pittsburgh Post-Gazette |
|
| October 26, 2008 |
|
| "A vaccine against rotavirus, the leading cause of diarrhea in infants, has led to a dramatic drop in hospitalization and emergency room visits since it came on the market two years ago, doctors reported yesterday. A bonus: The vaccine seems to be preventing illness even in unvaccinated children by cutting the number of infections in the community that kids can pick up and spread..." |
|
| Stomping Through A Medical Minefield |
|
| Newsweek |
|
| October 25, 2008 |
|
| "Paul Offit--salt-and-pepper hair, wire-rimmed glasses, Phillies fan--hardly seems like the kind of guy who'd receive a death threat. He's a father who likes to hang out with his teenage kids, a doctor who wears khakis until they're frayed. But Offit, chief of infectious diseases at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the nation's most outspoken advocate for childhood immunizations, is at the center of a white-hot medical controversy. He believes passionately in the safety of vaccines; his enemies, many of them parents who blame these shots for their children's autism, do not. He believes passionately in the safety of vaccines; his enemies, many of them parents who blame these shots for their children's autism, do not. In his new book, 'Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure,' Offit takes on his critics full-force, challenging them to prove the science wrong..." |
|
| Smokers Should Get Pneumonia Vaccine: US Advisers |
|
| Reuters |
|
| October 24, 2008 |
|
| "Smokers should be vaccinated against a pneumonia-causing germ, along with children and the elderly, U.S. federal advisers recommended on Wednesday. If accepted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it would be the first vaccine recommendation aimed specifically at smokers..." |
|
| Miracle Boy Wins Battle with Bacterial Meningitis |
|
| Daily Register (Iowa) |
|
| October 24, 2008 |
|
| "Doctors in Iowa City have named him “The Miracle Boy.” Hunter Fuller, the four-year-old from Fairbank who was airlifted from Waverly Hospital to University Hospitals in Iowa City with the onset of bacterial meningitis on Sept. 23, went home Wednesday..." |
|
|
Family's Loss Spurs Immunization Activism; Mother Told Caucus of Daughter's Death |
|
| Times-Picayune (LA) |
|
| October 23, 2008 |
|
| "Five years ago when Danielle Romaguera's newborn daughter, Gabrielle, developed a runny nose and a cough, Romaguera figured she had picked up a cold. Danielle, and her husband, Ralph Jr., spent 22 days at the hospital with their 1-month-old daughter before she died of pertussis, also known as whooping cough..." |
|
| Adult Smokers Need Pneumococcal Vaccine |
|
| WebMD |
|
| October 22, 2008 |
|
| "All adult cigarette smokers should get the pneumococcal vaccine, the CDC's vaccine advisory committee today recommended. The panel previously recommended that as of 2009, adults with asthma should get the vaccine. Adults aged 65 or over, and those with chronic illness, are already advised to get the vaccine. But more than half of serious invasive pneumococcal diseases occur in people who smoke cigarettes..." |
|
| Op-ed: Flu Vaccine for Preschoolers |
|
| New York Times |
|
| October 22, 2008 |
|
| "Hundreds of protesters rallied at the State House in Trenton in support of a bill that would allow parents to opt out of the mandate and all vaccine requirements. That would be a serious mistake for children and their parents. Both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend that children from the ages of 6 months through 18 years be vaccinated annually against the flu..." |
|
| Cervical Cancer Vaccine Called Safe |
|
| Washington Post |
|
| October 22, 2008 |
|
| "Gardasil, the two-year-old vaccine that's designed to prevent cervical cancer, is safe, U.S. officials said Wednesday. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Immunization Safety Office said a study of 370,000 doses given to girls and young women over the past two years found no evidence that the vaccine causes an increased risk of blood clots or other serious conditions, Bloomberg News reported..." |
|
| Gardasil Passes a 2-Year Safety Check |
|
| WebMD |
|
| October 22, 2008 |
|
| "Two years after Gardasil's approval, safety monitors detect no major safety problems with the HPV vaccine. Gardasil protects against infection with dangerous strains of HPV, the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer and genital warts. The CDC recommends that girls get the vaccine at age 11 or 12 years -- long before they become sexually active..." |
|
| Op-ed: Edging Away from Lifesaving Vaccines |
|
| The Oregonian |
|
| October 21, 2008 |
|
| "No single medical advance has had a greater positive impact on human health than vaccines. Largely because of vaccines, deadly or disfiguring diseases such as diphtheria, rubella, pertussis, polio and other diseases have been completely or virtually eliminated from the United States. Vaccines also stand as the best chance to prevent pandemic influenza and AIDS, and to prevent certain common cancers..." |
|
| Op-ed: Forgoing Vaccines Has a Social Cost |
|
| Boston Globe |
|
| October 20, 2008 |
|
| "I love vaccines. The other day, at my 4-year-old son's annual check-up, a physician's assistant asked me whether I had any questions before she shot him up with a half-dozen varieties, including polio, mumps-measles-rubella and flu, and I said, 'Heck no, bring them on!' I have long known that vaccines are considered among the greatest advances of modern medicine. But it was last winter's flu epidemic that turned me into a fervid vaccine fan. In a flukish cluster of tragedy, I happened to know the families of two otherwise healthy children who died of complications of influenza..." |
|
| Measles Risk from Perth Airline Flight |
|
| EmaxHealth |
|
| October 20, 2008 |
|
| "The Department of Health has today confirmed measles in a passenger who arrived in Perth [Western Australia] aboard a Royal Brunei Airlines flight from Thailand on 1 Oct 2008. The passenger also attended funeral services held on Fri 3 Oct 2008 before developing a measles rash the following day. Medical Coordinator Communicable Disease Control Dr Paul Effler said measles was contagious for up to 5 days before the development of the rash and passengers on the same flights and those at the funeral service may be at risk of developing measles if they were not immune. "A person is considered immune to measles if they have received 2 doses of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine or were born before 1966," he said..." |
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| Parents Question Vaccine Mandate |
|
| Times of Trenton (NJ) |
|
| October 17, 2008 |
|
| "Hundreds of impassioned parents rallied outside the Statehouse yesterday demanding legislation that would allow them to decide when -- and if -- to vaccinate their children against disease. Touting signs declaring ‘Parent Power’ and ‘My Child, My Choice,’ they voiced support for a ‘conscientious objector’ bill that provides an out from New Jersey's childhood vaccine mandates -- including the new preschool flu vaccine. Many parents fear that ingredients in some vaccines, particularly mercury and formaldehyde, are responsible for autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and other increasingly common neurological problems in children. However, the State Department of Health said the vaccines are important measures in improving public health and oppose laws allowing parents to opt out of the program..." |
|
| Study: Old Polio Vaccine Four Times More Effective than Newer Drug |
|
| Voice of America |
|
| October 15, 2008 |
|
| "According to a study published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers report that a polio vaccine developed years ago is much more effective at protecting children against the paralytic disease than a newer formulation. Researchers say nowhere is this more evident than Nigeria, which harbors the lion's share of global polio cases. VOA's Jessica Berman reports..." |
|
| JMU Confirms Meningitis Case |
|
| Daily News Record |
|
| October 15, 2008 |
|
| "James Madison University confirmed a single case of bacterial meningitis on Tuesday and is asking the public's help in identifying anyone who may have come into contact with the patient. Freshman Taylor Rash, a resident of Weaver Hall, is being treated at Rockingham Memorial Hospital, according to a statement from the university's office of Public Affairs. Bacterial meningitis, while contagious, is spread by direct exchange of nose and throat secretions, usually through prolonged contact with the infected person..." |
|
| Worrisome Infection Eludes a Leading Children’s Vaccine |
|
| New York Times |
|
| October 14, 2008 |
|
| "A highly drug-resistant germ has become a common cause of meningitis, pneumonia and other life-threatening conditions in young children. The culprit
-- a strain of strep bacteria -- can conquer almost all antibiotics in pediatrics, and has dodged a vaccine otherwise credited with causing the number of serious infections in children to plummet..." |
|
| Op-ed: Healthy People Need Healthy Information |
|
| The Statesman (NY) |
|
| October 13, 2008 |
|
| "Although there are many diseases that still need cures and many people worldwide who need medicine, the most important problem that needs to be addressed in the United States today is the lack of information easily available to the average citizen about medical issues. In a society where much of the funding for medical research comes from public funds in order to treat the public, it is vital that the people who scientists and doctors are seeking to treat understand the causes and consequences of specific diseases that they or their loved ones may be suffering from..." |
|
| 25% of Teen Girls Vaccinated for Cervical Cancer, US Says |
|
| Los Angeles Times |
|
| October 10, 2008 |
|
| "About a quarter of the nation's teenage girls received the controversial cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil last year in its first full year of distribution, federal authorities said Thursday. ‘For a new vaccine, 25% is really very good,’ Lance Rodewald, director of the division of immunization services at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a telephone news conference releasing the data..." |
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| Mumps Case Reported in Adams County |
|
| KHQA |
|
| October 9, 2008 |
|
| "There's a confirmed case of the mumps in Adams County. According to a news release from the Adams County Health Department, health care workers are taking necessary action to limit the disease as much as possible..." |
|
| Op-ed: Measles not Worth the Risk |
|
| Atlanta Journal-Constitution |
|
| October 9, 2008 |
|
| "I’m in a hospital bed, gasping for breath. Through the clear plastic of an oxygen tent, I see my Mom. Her face is red and she’s crying and crying. I feel hot. Every few hours a nurse opens the oxygen tent and gives me a shot. It hurts. It’s 1959. I’m in second grade…my measles didn’t go away. It got worse and turned into something I’d never heard of: pneumonia. I spent a month in the hospital, survived, and spent a few more months recovering at home. But more than four million children got measles in the United States in that year and 385 died. Most Americans don’t remember those days. Why? Because four years after I got sick, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began a mass measles immunization program. By 2000, the number of reported cases of measles had decreased to 86 and the number of deaths to one..." |
|
| She Lost Son; Now Stresses Flu Shot Value |
|
| Register-Herald Reporter (WV) |
|
| October 9, 2008 |
|
| "When Diane McGowen of Nazareth, Pa., gave her son Martin Tylenol before putting him to bed on Feb. 8, 2005, she never imagined it would be the last time she would say goodnight to her son..." |
|
| School-Aged Children Advised to Get Flu Vaccine |
|
| Wasau Daily Herald (WI) |
|
| October 8, 2008 |
|
| "It's time to roll up the sleeves: Influenza season is around the corner, and this year, federal officials are advising school-age children become vaccinated, too. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began recommending children ages 5 to 18 receive influenza vaccinations this year, said Eva Scheppa, a nurse who leads Marshfield Clinic's quality improvement and care management initiatives. Though healthy children in this age group are not likely to experience complications from influenza, they can spread the illness to younger siblings and older adults..." |
|
| Treatment: Flu Vaccine for Pregnant Women is 2 for 1 |
|
| New York Times |
|
| October 7, 2008 |
|
| "For the first time, a clinical trial has shown that pregnant women who receive the influenza vaccine provide immunity to their newborns as well. The vaccine is not licensed for infants younger than 6 months, but is recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for all pregnant women. Babies whose mothers took the flu vaccine had a 63 percent reduction in influenza compared with the controls, and a 29 percent reduction in rates of respiratory illness with fever. 'I think that when it’s clear that immunizing the mother also has an effect on the baby’s health, there may be more interest in immunizing mothers,' said Dr. Mark C. Steinhoff, the senior author and a professor of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins. 'This is a real two for one. You immunize the mother, you protect two people.' The small study was supported in part by money from two pharmaceutical companies..." |
|
| Campaign Promotes Childhood Vaccinations |
|
| Telluride Watch (CO) |
|
| October 7, 2008 |
|
| "Telluride’s kids have every opportunity to lead a healthy lifestyle, with ready access to organic produce, fresh mountain air and an abundance of outdoor activities. According to data collected from the Colorado Immunization Reporting System, only 31 percent of the area’s children between the ages of 15-36 months receive vaccinations on the recommended schedule. Through a Vaccine Awareness Campaign, a series of newspaper ads and a community lecture will be aimed at convincing more parents of the benefits of timely immunizations..." |
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| Ask a Doctor: Vaccines are safe, necessary |
|
| Wausau Daily Herald (WI) |
|
| October 6, 2008 |
|
| "Question: Are all childhood immunizations really necessary? Answer: Yes, they are. Childhood immunizations are the SANER approach to disease prevention -- Safe, Available, Necessary, Effective and Responsible. We know that today's vaccines are quite safe. Reactions are few and mild compared to the frequency and severity of the diseases they prevent...Vaccination is a part of being a responsible parent and a responsible citizen...Parents who choose not to vaccinate their children can get away with this only because other parents did have their children vaccinated. Time and again, vaccines have been proven safe and far preferable to the alternative: Epidemics of diseases that can cause long-term complications and even death. Vaccination schedules ensure that the vaccines are given safely and given soon enough to provide the best protection..." |
|
| Jump Seen in Staph-Linked Flu Deaths in Kids |
|
| The Associated Press |
|
| October 6, 2008 |
|
| "More children have died from flu because they also had staph infections, according to a new government report that urges parents to have their kids get the flu shot. The number of deaths wasn't high -- 73 during the 2006-07 flu season -- but there was more than a fivefold increase in hard-to-treat complications...Public health officials say the numbers underscore the importance of a brand new recommendation that all children, from 6 months through 18 years, get routine flu shots..." |
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| Hayek Leads Tetanus Campaign |
|
| San Francisco Chronicle |
|
| October 6, 2008 |
|
| "Salma Hayek is leading a new UNICEF campaign aimed at helping young African moms fight tetanus. The actress, a new mom, was so moved by the efforts teenagers are taking to stay healthy on a recent fact-finding mission to West Africa she felt compelled to tell Americans what she had witnessed. At a press conference for the Pampers' tetanus vaccine program on Thursday, Hayek revealed she was stunned by the efforts being made to eradicate the disease in Sierra Leone, where she also met with tetanus victims. She says, 'One of the things that was very moving about the trip was to see 15-year-old girls, really young, taking responsibility for their lives and their children before they're born by saying, 'I am going to be healthy, I am going to take this vaccination'..." |
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| Blog: Autism and vaccines, Chapter 10,000 |
|
| Los Angeles Times Blog: Booster Shots |
|
| October 1, 2008 |
|
| "Haven't read enough about autism lately? Even if you have -- and we're betting that you have -- you might nonetheless head on over to Scienceblogs.com for their ScienceBlogs Book Club, which right now is a multi-blogger review of a new book on the vaccine-autism brouhaha. 'Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure' by Dr. Paul A. Offit (Columbia University Press, 2008) examines the rise of the autism-vaccine theory after the (later-debunked) research of the British surgeon Dr. Andrew Wakefield (you can read a summary of that research here) and a second assertion, by parent advocacy groups, that use of the mercury preservative thimerosal in vaccines was to blame for a rise in autism cases. Offit, who is chief of the division of infectious diseases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, says that he was driven to write the book after study upon study failed to find an autism-vaccine link -- and yet, as a result of those studies, the press took the matter up and continues to present the issue as if it were a controversy. It's not, he says -- at least not a scientific one..." |
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| Gardasil Requirement for Immigrants Stirs Backlash |
|
| Wall Street Journal online |
|
| October 1, 2008 |
|
| "Even as the medical community debates the widespread use of Gardasil, a vaccine that helps prevent cervical cancer, the government has made it a mandatory treatment for young women seeking to immigrate to the U.S. The policy, which went into effect Aug. 1, has angered some immigrant advocates, who say that forcing foreigners to take the costly vaccine saddles them with an unfair financial burden. The decision has also upset health policy experts in the U.S., who see the requirement as excessive. However, even some of the CDC physicians and experts who promoted Gardasil in the U.S. say they never intended to make the vaccine mandatory for young female immigrants. 'If we had known about it, we would have said it's not a good idea,' said Jon Abramson, who was chairman of the CDC's Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices when the body recommended the vaccine for U.S. citizens last year..." |
|
| First National Public Opinion Survey: Americans’ Knowledge and Understanding of Autism |
|
| School of Psychology, Florida Institute of Technology |
|
| October 2008 |
|
| "The first national survey of the public’s knowledge and understanding of autism was conducted for the School of Psychology at Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Florida. The survey includes responses from 1000 men and women, 21 years old or older, randomly selected from throughout the nation. The poll has a plus or minus 3.1% confidence interval at a 95% level of confidence. The telephone interviews were conducted between August 1 and August 29 by GDA Education Research, Mount Pleasant, SC..." |
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| Link Between Vaccine and MS Unproven |
|
| HealthDay News-Washington Post |
|
| September 30, 2008 |
|
| "Children vaccinated against hepatitis B probably are not at an increased risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS) unless they were inoculated with a particular brand of the vaccine, according to a new study. The French study found that children with MS were almost twice as likely to have received the vaccine called Engerix B three or more years before the disease's onset. Further studies will need to be done to determine whether the vaccine is a direct cause of the development of MS. The study, which involved 349 children with MS and 2,941 children without the disease, is to be published in the Oct. 8 online issue of Neurology..." |
|
| 86% of Americans Told to Get Flu Shot |
|
| Washington Post |
|
| September 25, 2008 |
|
| "A record-setting amount of influenza vaccine is available this fall for a record-setting number of people being advised to get it. That was the message yesterday from officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and several private organizations, who convened in Washington to urge Americans to get flu shots. The number of people targeted for flu vaccination has grown steadily in recent years and now constitutes 86 percent of the population. For the first time, the federal government is recommending this year that children 5 to 18 years old get vaccinated, along with the previously targeted group of 6 months to 5 years..." |
|
| Schools Could Star in Battle vs Flu |
|
| Boston Globe |
|
| September 25, 2008 |
|
| "It is a black-and-white portrait from a bygone era: children queued up in a school auditorium, arms bared for a shot of protection against a deadly disease...With the federal government urging for the first time that all children 6 months and older get the flu vaccine, the state is preparing for one of the most ambitious public health campaigns undertaken in years. Pediatricians would be inundated if they had to vaccinate most of the state's 1.5 million children every year, authorities said yesterday. So schools have emerged, much as they did half a century ago, as central to the effort. Pilot programs making the flu vaccine available in schools could start as early as influenza season this fall, said John Auerbach, the state's public health commissioner. And if those succeed, Auerbach said yesterday, the initiative would be primed for expansion...While the disease poses the greatest threat to the aged and infirm, it can prove deadly to children: Last flu season, more than 70 youngsters died from the illness. And researchers have found that children play a major role in spreading the disease, with day-care centers and schools acting like incubators for the virus..." |
|
| Measles Are a Growing Threat |
|
| Louisville Courier Journal (KY) |
|
| September 25, 2008 |
|
| "Measles cases in the United States are at the highest level in more than a decade with almost half of them involving children whose parents rejected vaccination, federal health officials report. Concerned pediatricians are troubled by the trend and by the failure of parents to realize that measles is a highly contagious and potentially deadly disease…'By getting the immunization, you are not only protecting your children, but the elderly, the immune-compromised and babies,' said Dr. Joshua Honaker, an Oldham County pediatrician who is chairman of the Kentucky Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics...Apparently, Internet-based reports and celebrities on TV talk shows have created anxiety in parents about the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, Honaker said. 'I tell them there is no connection between the vaccine and autism,' he said...Honaker is a member of a newly formed local group of academic and practicing pediatricians who call themselves Pediatricians for Immunization. They hope to develop more avenues for educating parents and getting them the information they need so they aren't scared about vaccinations of all kinds..." |
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| Charlatans to the Rescue |
|
| Wall Street Journal |
|
| September 23, 2008 |
|
| "Ever since psychiatrist Leo Kanner identified a neurological condition he called autism in 1943, parents whose children have been diagnosed with the most severe form of the illness -- usually in the toddler stage, before age 3 -- have found themselves desperately searching for some way not to lose their children to autism's closed-off world. Unfortunately, such parents have often found misguided doctors, ill-informed psychologists and outright charlatans eager to proffer help..." |
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| Blog: To vaccinate or not to vaccinate? |
|
| Consumer Reports Blog |
|
| September 23, 2008 |
|
| "For parents looking for information on vaccines, the Web can be a confusing place. Misinformation abounds about a purported link between childhood vaccines and autism, and anti-vaccination Web sites have been on the rise in recent years. Naturally, that can cause parents anguish about when and whether to vaccinate their children. But the science is clear; there is no concrete evidence of a link between vaccinations and autism. Meanwhile, largely because of the movement by a determined minority against vaccination, long eradicated diseases are gaining a new foothold, making vaccination as important as ever..." |
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| Clinic on Wheels Called a Success 1385 People Received Hepatitis A Booster |
|
| Buffalo News (NY) |
|
| September 22, 2008 |
|
| "A total of 1,385 people received the hepatitis A vaccine in Amherst on Sept. 13, and most never got out of their cars. Instead, they were funneled through an Amherst town highway garage and received a hepatitis booster shot by sticking their arms out of car windows. The event provided a public service. But its main purpose was to see if a drive-through emergency response program using real patients and real vaccine could succeed on a large scale. Bottom line: It can. In fact, while the event had some glitches, it was successful enough to gain praise from affiliates with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the University at Albany School of Public Health..." |
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| Inside the Vaccine-and-Autism Scare |
|
| Salon.com |
|
| September 22, 2008 |
|
| "Early in Dr. Paul A. Offit's new book, "Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure," he describes a threatening letter he received from a man in Seattle. The threats against him and his family have come not from antiabortion advocates, but rather from anti-vaccine crusaders who believe that vaccines cause autism. Offit, it turns out, has been targeted by them because he helped to develop a vaccine that prevents rotavirus, a serious gastrointestinal infection in children, and because he has been staunchly pro-vaccine in a time when there are many doubts about their safety. Offit begins by tracing the history of the anti-vaccine movement to its roots in England in 1998..." |
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| Defending Vaccines in the Autism Debate |
|
| Philadelphia Inquirer |
|
| September 21, 2008 |
|
| "Next to clean drinking water, vaccines are arguably the most important advance in public health in the last 300 years. Thanks to vaccines, we have eradicated smallpox, wiped out polio virus in the Western hemisphere, closed in on measles, and brought many other once fatal or debilitating diseases under control. But despite the indisputable track record of vaccines in lowering mortality and morbidity here and around the world, the American public has been embroiled, over the last decade, in a heated debate about whether vaccines are safe. In particular, the notion that vaccines cause autism has taken hold of the public imagination and refuses to let go, even in the face of growing scientific evidence to the contrary. In Autism's False Prophets, Paul A. Offit, co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine and chief of infectious disease at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, helps to explain why..." |
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| Blog: NIH Wakes Up |
|
| Discover Magazine Blog |
|
| September 21, 2008 |
|
| "The National Institutes of Health has shut down a study based on antivaccination garbage. Hurray! The research was looking into chelation, the idea that an amino acid can be pumped into the bloodstream where it will remove some potentially toxic metals. What spurred this? The nonsense that mercury is present in the blood due to childhood vaccines...So why was the study stopped by NIH? The board determined that there was no clear evidence for direct benefit to the children who would participate in the chelation trial and that the study presents more than a minimal risk. In other words, they looked into chelation, and it doesn’t work well enough to risk performing it on children. In fact, it can do substantial harm, and can even be fatal: children have died because they were chelated. Isn’t it bad enough that antivaxxers want to see kids suffer through preventable diseases like measles and rubella? Do we have to make people sicker or even kill them to make some antiaxxers happy? I’m actually happy the NIH saw fit to look into this
-- it’s always better to investigate and be sure -- and I’m not surprised they found it to be not worth the risk, especially given that it was based on nonsense to start with..." |
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| Behind The Scenes Of The Flu Vaccine |
|
| ABC News: Medical Unit |
|
| September 19, 2008 |
|
| "Each year, millions head to their doctors' offices for a shot to protect them from the strains of influenza that keep many in bed sick come the winter months. Simply developing that vaccine is a complicated process, involving guesswork, observation and even a trip to the farm..." |
|
| Public Needs to Know Vaccines Are Safe, Docs Say |
|
| Associated Press |
|
| September 18, 2008 |
|
| "A new coalition of 22 major medical groups says public confidence in vaccine safety needs to be restored to avoid risks for deadly disease outbreaks. Thursday's message comes from the Chicago-based American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and 20 more of the nation's most influential health-related groups. Their concern stems from recent measles outbreaks in several U.S. cities. Last month, health officials said 131 children had gotten the measles so far this year
-- the highest number in more than a decade. Nearly half of the cases involved children whose parents rejected vaccination and many of the cases were traced to outbreaks overseas...The alliance said public health officials need to counteract campaigns by advocacy groups who believe vaccines can cause autism, despite scientific evidence to the contrary...The alliance suggests several ways to boost confidence in vaccines, including urging the government to create a public information campaign, and calling for more vaccine research..." |
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| Chickenpox Parties Popping up Despite Vaccine, Some Parents Still Want Kids to Get Illness |
|
| Chicago Tribune |
|
| September 16, 2008 |
|
| "As Tabitha Keller drove her two young children to attend a chickenpox party earlier this year, she felt a moment of doubt about the wisdom of intentionally infecting her kids with the bug. Keller did not trust the chickenpox vaccine, so she was arranging for her children to get immunity the old-fashioned way, by catching the disease from an infected child and muddling through weeks of itchiness. Such chickenpox parties were also held in the pre-vaccine era because some experts argued it was safest for kids to get the disease early in life, when the effects tend to be relatively mild. Although most pediatricians today advise against chickenpox parties, some parents who avoid the vaccination for medical or religious reasons seek out such get-togethers on Internet message boards..." |
|
| Op-ed: One More Reason to Vaccinate Children |
|
| Grand Rapids Press (MI) |
|
| September 15, 2008 |
|
| "Childhood vaccines safely prevent life-threatening diseases and are well worth the slight statistical risk that they may cause health problems. A new study offers additional evidence of the safety of childhood vaccinations -- and further reason for parents to have their kids immunized against potentially fatal, and now resurgent, diseases... the National Academy of Sciences, the CDC and the World Health Organization, all respected agencies, have consistently found no credible scientific evidence showing that immunizations cause autism. This study says the same. Parents who don't immunize their children put at risk not only their own youngsters, but the kids around them. This study will not be the final word on the simmering autism-vaccine debate. But it should offer added comfort to parents who have lingering questions about vaccinations. The MMR and other shots continue to represent some of the most effective and sweeping advances in preventive medicine. There is every reason to make sure kids have that protection..." |
|
| Hospitals Vaccinating Parents of High-Risk Infants |
|
| Reuters |
|
| September 9, 2008 |
|
| "New research suggests that the newborn (neonatal) intensive care unit (NICU) is a good setting for offering the tetanus, diphtheria, and acellular pertussis vaccine (TdaP) to the parents of high-risk infants to protect them against common childhood infections..." |
|
| More Flu Vaccine Aimed at Key Flu Spreaders: Kids |
|
| Boston Globe |
|
| September 8, 2008 |
|
| "Lots of youngsters on your street? Watch out: Flu may strike your community sooner and harder than it hits the hip singles neighborhood down the road. Flu-shot season begins this month, and for the first time vaccination is being pushed for virtually all children
-- not just those under 5..." |
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| Child Vaccination Rates Hit Record Levels |
|
| Reuters |
|
| September 5, 2008 |
|
| "U.S. toddlers got the recommended vaccinations against childhood diseases at record levels in 2007, federal health officials said on Thursday, as they urged parents to continue to trust vaccine safety. Public health officials have expressed concern in recent years that some parents fearful about vaccine safety were declining to get their children vaccinated, making them more apt to catch and spread preventable diseases. 'We really recognize that ultimately our program is dependent on trust -- trust of moms and dads, trust of caretakers and trust of the clinicians, pediatricians (and) family practice professionals who take care of our children,' Gerberding told reporters in a conference call..." |
|
| Chickenpox Vaccine Does a Number on the Number of Cases |
|
| USA Today |
|
| September 1, 2008 |
|
| "Cases of chickenpox -- a childhood infection that was once nearly universal
-- have fallen 57% to 90% in communities across the USA since a vaccine was introduced in 1995, a new report shows. Before the vaccine, 4 million Americans a year came down with chickenpox, nearly 11,000 were hospitalized and more than 140 died, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in today's Pediatrics..." |
|
| The Risks of Skipping Kids' Vaccines |
|
| MSN Health & Fitness |
|
| September 2008 |
|
| "Before the days of vaccinations and antibiotics, early childhood used to be an especially risky time. Today, as many deadly or permanently debilitating diseases slip into the realm of forgotten history, many parents seem more concerned about the potential dangers of vaccinations than about the diseases themselves. In previous decades, the biggest concern was vaccination-related mercury exposure from the preservative thimerosal, which has since been removed from the pediatric version of most vaccinations..." |
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| Washington Post Investigations: Measles on Rise as Parents Question Vaccine |
|
| Washington Post |
|
| August 28, 2008 |
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| "Reports of measles are on the rise, with health experts attributing the increase to the decision by some parents to forego vaccinations for their children out of fears the shots could trigger diseases...The American Academy of Pediatrics says extensive reports from several leading researchers have found no 'proven association' between autism and measles vaccines. Experts recently told the Chicago Tribune that autism 'tends to emerge at the same age children receive their shots, leading to a false sense of cause and effect...' Many parents of children afflicted with autism continue to argue that a link exists, pointing to a legal dispute in Georgia between the family of 9-year-old Hannah Poling and the federal government...At the time, several researchers -- including Dr. William Schaffner, professor and chairman of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University, and Dr. Ira Rubin of Naperville Pediatrics in Naperville, Ill. -- said legal action does not equate with scientific proof of a link between vaccines and autism..." |
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| Vaccines Seek to Offer Cradle-to-Grave Protection |
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| Forbes (NY) |
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| August 28, 2008 |
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| "Immunization shots used to be the realm of the young. Babies would go through series after series of vaccinations. And toddlers would take their shots before entering preschool. And they still do. But vaccines are now expanding to include all age ranges, in an attempt to ward off disease from the cradle to the grave. What's more, immunization rates continue to gradually improve in the United States, although not as quickly as p
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