Vaccine News
Editorial: Vaccination change would put all at risk
Clinton News (MS)
December 18, 2008
“Just 100 years ago when childhood diseases like measles, mumps and whooping cough were more prevalent, too many children lost their sight, their hearing, their mental aptitude, or worse, their life. That is why Mississippi, just like every other state, requires that before children enter school they receive vaccinations to prevent what used to be common but serious childhood diseases.”
Measles and MMR: Sow the wind
The Economist (UK)
December 4, 2008
“The rise [in measles cases], says the Health Protection Agency, is due to a fall in vaccination rates...Reluctance to vaccinate stems from a health scare surrounding MMR, a three-in-one vaccine designed to protect children from measles, mumps and rubella...A string of subsequent studies (and a meta-study of 31 other papers) found nothing to suggest that MMR has anything to do with autism.”
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...The U.S. goal is to increase immunization rates by 2010 to 95 percent, the level needed to stop outbreaks through so-called ‘herd immunity,’ where even unvaccinated people are protected.”
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...in a matter of days in February 2007, the 8-year-old girl was gone...Parents have started a series of after-school clinics to ensure that the Laurelhurst Elementary community is immunized.”
Editorial: High Court Should Reject Vaccine Suits
The Oklahoman
November 12, 2008
“The Supreme Court recently heard arguments in a case likely to have profound effects on how vaccines are marketed, distributed and developed...More than 20 scientific studies have found that the vaccine doesn’t raise a child’s risk for autism. But her efforts have scared countless parents from getting their kids inoculated.”
Mother Load: Analyzing the great child-vaccination debate
New Jersey Record
November 5, 2008
“A decade ago, parents didn't routinely question doctors about the benefits of vaccines. My 4-year-old will be making two trips to the doctor this month, first for booster shots for chickenpox and measles, mumps and rubella, and then for vaccinations against influenza and pneumonia...So instead of bringing a picket sign to Trenton last month, I was calling the pediatrician's office to schedule my 4-year-old for his next round of immunizations.”
Doctor disputes autism, vaccine link
NBC: Today Show
October 30, 2008
Injecting trust into vaccines
Nature (UK)
October 2008
“Paul Offit's distinguished academic credentials and long-standing advocacy for vaccines in the United States provide the weight behind this forceful book. Autism's False Prophets focuses on the people and events in that country that were central to the claimed link between vaccination and autism...”
Editorial: Vaccinations’ Benefits Proved; Enforce the Law
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 vaccine-autism link has been thoroughly debunked. States should not back off mandatory vaccination laws, and local school districts and health departments should do a better job of enforcing compliance.”
Stomping Through A Medical Minefield
Newsweek
October 25, 2008
"Paul 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...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.”
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…Romaguera shared Brie's story, with the hope of increasing awareness of the dangers of pertussis and the need for adults and adolescents to be vaccinated against it to prevent transmission of the disease.”
Editorial: Forgoing Vaccines has a Social Cost
Boston Globe
October 20, 2008
"...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...This year, for the first time, federal health authorities recommend that nearly all children from 6 months up be immunized against flu."
Opinion: 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… 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... By 2000, the number of reported cases of measles had decreased to 86 and the number of deaths to one. So it is distressing to see that this year measles is on the upswing.”
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.”
Celebs, Stop Taking Poisonous Shots at Vaccines
New York Daily News
September 24, 2008
"Earlier this month, researchers at Columbia University concluded that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine doesn't raise a child's risk for autism. It was the most rigorous look at the issue to date. Since 1998, more than 20 scientific studies have reached the same conclusion...But many activists and celebrities - most notably comedian Jim Carrey and actress Jenny McCarthy - are continuing to perpetrate the myth linking autism and vaccination. In the process, they're endangering public health..."
Expert Sees No Link between Vaccines and Autism
Philadelphia Inquirer
September 17, 2008
"[Dr. Paul] Offit, 57, has been defending the safety of vaccines for years, in response to beliefs that they are tied to autism-related disorders. He continues in the same vein with his new book...The mainstream scientific and medical communities overwhelmingly agree there is no evidence that vaccines cause autism..."
Vaccine Skeptics vs. Your Kids
Mother Jones Magazine
September/October 2008
"In the last trimester of her pregnancy, Helena Moran caught a cough that she couldn't get rid ofBut the real nightmare began after her daughter, Evelina, was born: The baby began to cough and cough, and then she'd curl up in a little ball and turn blue...It turned out that by working in Boulder...Moran had put herself at risk of contracting a disease that largely disappeared after widespread vaccination against it began in the 1950s. Since the early 1990s, whooping cough has periodically whipped through Boulder, where a large percentage of parents do not immunize their children, public health officials say."
Editorial: Debunking an Autism Theory
New York Times
September 9, 2008
"...The new [MMR] study adds weight to a growing body of epidemiological studies and reviews that have debunked the notion that childhood vaccines cause autism...Sadly, even after all of this, many parents of autistic children still blame the vaccine. The big losers in this debate are the children who are not being vaccinated because of parental fears and are at risk of contracting serious -- sometimes fatal -- diseases."
Editorial: Measles is Dangerous; Vaccine for it is Not
San Jose Mercury News (CA) September 8, 2008
"A serial killer is on the loose: Measles, which killed 400 to 500 Americans annually before a vaccine went into use in 1963, is back as more parents reject vaccination for fear it causes autism. Those fears have put children at risk of measles without protecting them from autism, which keeps rising even as parents reject the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine...But this should be easy: The vaccine is safe; measles is dangerous."
Childhood Vaccination Rates Remain High Despite Worries
Wall Street Journal Health Blog
September 4, 2008
"Despite the hullabaloo over alleged vaccination risks, the rate of young children getting their shots has remained high -- and largely unchanged -- over the past several years...The vaccine skeptics have received widespread media attention, but almost all children are still getting at least some vaccines. And the vast majority are still getting all of the shots that public health officials recommend, according to a survey published today by the CDC."
Study: No Link Between Measles Vaccine and Autism
Associated Press
September 3, 2008
"New research further debunks any link between measles vaccine and autism, work that comes as the nation is experiencing a surge in measles cases fueled by children left unvaccinated...Years of research with the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, better known as MMR, have concluded that it doesn't cause autism."
