Vaccine News
Latest News
1) "Meningitis vaccine law awaiting Perry signature targets students at highest risk?"
Houston Chronicle Blog
May 24, 2013
"For more than a year, a new meningitis vaccine law aimed at protecting college students from a debilitating infection has sent older adults trying to get their educations on the additional hunt for a shot. And, sometimes, struggling to come up with the extra $100 to pay for it. As of Jan. 1, 2012, all entering post-secondary students 29 and younger were required to have the meningitis vaccine, which presented a challenge for community colleges that typically have open enrollment and many students outside the typical 17-to-22 age range. The new rule caused confusion and frustration. It's unclear how many, but based on calls, emails and comments to the Houston Advocate, some students haven't gone to college in the last 17 months because they couldn't afford the vaccine or didn't file timely exemptions."
2) "Princeton Expecting 24,000 at Reunion Amid Meningitis Outbreak"
Business Week (
May 23, 2013
"Princeton University is moving forward with its annual alumni reunion at the end of the month, and the New Jersey school is urging as many as 24,000 attendees to take added precautions in light of a meningitis outbreak. The most recent case is a Princeton student who traveled to his home state and was receiving treatment in a hospital there after he was diagnosed with meningitis on May 20, according to a statement from the Ivy League school. No campus events have been canceled, Martin Mbugua, a spokesman, said in an e-mail today."
3) "Drs. Oz and Roizen: Lack of vaccination triggers epidemic"
Oregon Live
May 23, 2013
"It's been years since discredited London doctor Andrew Wakefield lost his medical license after claiming children were harmed by the MMR (mumps, measles, rubella) vaccine. If you recall, a reporter for the Sunday Times of London discovered the doc was on the take from a personal injury lawyer and had trumped up a study to collect damages from a vaccine manufacturer. Since then, there's been good news and not-so-good news about vaccinations and peoples' fear of side effects."
4) "LETTER: "Cervical Cancer Vaccine"
New York Times
May 23, 2013
"Re "Cancer Vaccines Get a Price Cut in Poor Nations" (front page, May 10): The recent decision to cut the price of vaccines to protect against the most important cancer-causing strains of the human papillomavirus, or HPV, should be applauded, but the ultimate success of the effort depends on more than access...GROESBECK PARHAM, Director of the Cervical Cancer Prevention Program, Center for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia."
5) "OPINION: "Mandatory vaccinations deserve vigorous debate"
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (WI)
May 22, 2013
"The debate over the mandatory influenza vaccinations of employees is worthy of a vigorous public airing. Controversy has been growing nationwide over the plight of employees, particularly health care workers, being dismissed from jobs due to their refusal to accept this unwanted intrusion into their personal health care decisions. I fully recognize this argument pits two groups advocating against each other over a position based on rights. Employers demand flu vaccinations of employees, with extremely limited exceptions, as a fundamental right of an employer. Those who object stand on individual liberties to make their own personal health care decisions without the threat of dismissal...REP. JEREMY THIESFELDT."
6) "MMR clinics to come to an end, as health officials say 60,000 vaccinations have been given since March"
Wales Online (UK)
May 23, 2013
"Health officials have thanked the people who came forward for vaccinations against measles, with the number of MMR vaccinations now totalling more than 60,000 since March, but said there remains a possibility of outbreaks happening elsewhere in Wales. Efforts to vaccinate people who had missed doses of MMR have seen 61,396 people given non-route vaccinations since March 1, including 17,440 people aged 10 to 18 - the age group has been the hardest hit by the measles outbreak centred on the Swansea area. This week is the last chance for people to get vaccinated against measles through drop-in-clinics and school vaccination sessions."
7) "New, stripped-down flu vaccine might work better, study finds"
NBC News Vitals Blog
May 22, 2013
"Researchers have developed a "stripped down" synthetic flu vaccine that they believe will not only work better than current vaccines, but might last longer, too -- saving people from having to get a fresh flu shot every year. They say it's the first step toward a new generation of influenza vaccines, designed entirely in the lab, using nanoparticles instead of the decades-old approach that uses chicken eggs. The nanoparticles assemble themselves into an imposter of the flu virus -- one that seems to excite the immune system far more than the real thing."
8) "New pneumococcal vaccine as safe as previous version"
UPI
May 23, 2013
"The new 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine appears to be as safe as the previous version used prior to 2010, U.S. researchers say. Study lead author Hung Fu Tseng, a research scientist at the Kaiser Permanente Southern California Department of Research & Evaluation, said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved PCV13 for use beginning in 2010 after a series of trials."
9) "New oral diarrhoea vaccine developed"
Business Standard
May 23, 2013
"Researchers have developed a new oral diarrhoea vaccine which in a clinical phase I-study has shown promising results to combat the disease that kills 300,000 children per year in the developing world. The University of Gothenburg Vaccine Research Institute (GUVAX) announced successful results in a placebo controlled phase I study of an oral, inactivated Escherichia coli diarrhoea vaccine."
10) "cience and fear: a review of vaccination documentary Jabbed"
The Conversation
May 23, 2013
"In April 1939, measles was coursing through the industrial suburbs of North Melbourne, Carlton and Fitzroy, but the city medical officer assured the public it was not severe. He noted there had been just over a 1000 cases, only one of which was fatal, and enough children from the area had previously been infected to limit the outbreak. In April this year, an outbreak of measles peaked in South Wales (in the UK) at just over 1000 cases, with one possible fatality. Anxiety has been high, and made evident in the outbreak being reported around the world."
11) "Quote antivaccinationist Hilary Butler: Non-vaccinators are the "new Jews""
Respectful Insolence
May 24, 2013
"I've never been able to figure it out. Antivaccine zealots seem to have an intense love of Nazi analogies and comparing those supporting science-based medicine to Nazis. While from a strictly nasty point of view, I can sort of understand the utility of such analogies to demonize one's opponents. After all, to political extremists of nearly all stripes (excluding actual real neo-Nazis, of course) Adolf Hitler is the gift that keeps on giving. Antiwar activists liked to try to tar George W. Bush with the Hitler appellation, and, now that Barack Obama is in power, right wing Tea Party types have an even greater tendency to try to paint (or to slime) Obama with the very same brush. So, from that perspective, I get it. Hitler and the Nazis are an excellent all-purpose tool to demonize your opponents. Just compare them to Hitler! It's easy! It's also incredibly stupid in most cases. If you don't believe me, just check out the last couple of times that I've seen antivaccinationists comparing their opponents to the Nazis or likening vaccine programs to the Holocaust."