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Search Results for: label/vaccines

  • Why a UN ban on thimerosal in vaccines would be a big mistake

    …y’s three AAP articles drive the point home. One of these provides some  historical context for why thimerosal was removed from childhood vaccines in the U.S. (as  recommended by the AAP and the U.S. Public Health Services in 1999) and in other high-income countries. The other two emphasize just how important it is – and how ethically essential it is –that the ban not be included in the UN treaty. Here’s the back story: A  1997 US FDA review of t…

    Authored by on December 18, 2012

  • Vaccine fears: What can you do?

    …ad out” the schedule or reduce the number of vaccinations. In fact, the evidence supports the schedule as it’s recommended. The fear of vaccination is not new. Since Edward Jenner and his cowpox inoculation at the turn of the 19th century, people have latched onto the fear of the known—those needles!—and unknown—what’s in those things? What might be considered the first anti-vaccine cartoon appeared in response to Jenner’s proposed inoculation of…

    Authored by on December 4, 2011

  • YES. The CDC childhood immunization schedule is safe. For reals.

    …members who review the evidence to make their assessments are not all necessarily experts specifically in the field in question and are “selected to avoid any real or perceived biases or conflicts.” That means the 14 committee members are not all vaccine researchers, pediatricians or infectious disease epidemiologists. In the report’s appendix, you can read the bios of all the committee members, who include a nursing professor,…

    Authored by on January 24, 2013

  • Pertussis: Get the vax or at least listen to why you should

    …rently September of 2012, and the numbers last reported to the CDC were at 29,834, and that doesn’t even include over 3,700 cases in Minnesota that haven’t been officially reported to the CDC yet. These numbers, which include 14 deaths (primarily of babies under 3 months), may very well end up doubling the 2011 total of 18,719 if they continue at the current rate through the end of the year. It’s the biggest pertussis outbreak since 1959. Not…

    Authored by on October 10, 2012

  • A Decision Based on Logic – Why I Choose to Vaccinate

    Source By Anna K. Eaton, PhD This post is a response to Alice Callahan’s post on vaccines (republished here).  Please note: the author is not advocating distrust towards doctors, scientists and the medical community.  Rather she advocates that clear rationale and logic should be the basis for making important decisions. Anna K. Eaton is a former research scientist who currently teaches part-time at a local community college.  Sh…

    Authored by on August 27, 2012

  • Bad flu season in full swing, but flu shot still helpful

    …tbreak arrived early and features a strain that is infamous for its virulence. Forty-four states now have met the cutoff for “widespread” flu activity as of this writing, and in hotspots like Boston, MA, cases are 10 times the number from the same time last year. In many areas, hospitals have taken to setting up temporary tent shelters outside the buildings to manage the flood of cases and prevent spread inside the facility. ETA: This…

    Authored by on January 21, 2013

  • Creating viruses to create the vaccines?

    …world had to wait several months for the right virus to be isolated for use in a vaccine. In March, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a report indicating that H1N1 vaccination prevented 700,000 to 1,500,000 cases. But the report authors note that more illnesses and deaths could have been prevented if the vaccine had been available earlier. In spite of being a public health threat, the influenza virus holds a major adv…

    Authored by on May 20, 2013

  • Selling the flu shot

    …ew bright spots. For most age groups, vaccination rates have been gradually ticking up over the past two decades, or at least holding steady. According to the National Health Interview Survey from the year 2000, approximately 17% of adults age 18–49 received a flu shot. That value had increased to 29% for the 2011–2012 season. Although this isn’t exactly a stellar improvement, a more promising picture emerges when looking specifically at ce…

    Authored by on May 2, 2013

  • Vaccination attitudes are contagious

    …ts make about vaccinating their children. It’s a tragic irony that the United Kingdom is in the throes of one of the worst measles epidemics in decades just as the United Nations World Immunization Week is upon us. Over 1,000 cases of the highly contagious and potentially fatal disease have been reported in Wales and in northeast England. Yet measles is preventable with the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine – as long as enough people are…

    Authored by on April 24, 2013

  • Calculating vaccine risk

    …P). Anti-vaccine advocates use the fact that this program exists, and that it has paid out over 3,000 claims since its creation, to “prove” that vaccines are dangerous. Let’s talk numbers. The NVICP was created in 1988. The reasons for its creation are complex, and a topic for another post. Since then, as of March 4, 2013, 14,548 petitions have been filed under the program, 12,566 have been adjudicated by the program, 3,256 have been…

    Authored by on May 29, 2013

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