December 12, 2003          

December 12, 2003 - Mandatory anthrax shots stir health fears, sap morale - USA Today - "The Pentagon insists its vaccinations are safe. And for most people, they are...But they aren't risk-free. Last year, the Food and Drug Administration warned that 5% to 35% of those who get shots could experience any of 40 side effects. About 6% of reactions can cause death, hospitalization or permanent disability."

Comment: 5% to 35% is a rather large range.  Is the FDA satisfied with such an inexact figure?  Should we be satisfied with such an inexact figure?

Comment:  According to the GAO, adverse reaction rates are considerably higher than what is generally acknowledged: "The Pentagon's mandatory anthrax shots caused adverse reactions in most recipients and helped prompt many Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard members to transfer to other units or leave the military between 1998 and 2000, according to a survey by Congress's General Accounting Office (GAO)...The survey indicated that 85% of troops who received an anthrax shot had an adverse reaction, a rate far higher than the 30% claimed by the manufacturer in 2000, when the survey was conducted. Sixteen percent of the survey respondents had either left the military or changed their status, at least in part because of the vaccination program."

Comment: Does the 6% that potentially have had a serious reaction (i.e., "death, hospitalization or permanent disability") apply to the 85%?  If so, that means that around 5% of those who received the vaccine had a serious reaction to it.

For more on this check out Direct Order - "Direct Order tells the story of members of the military who were ordered against their will to receive the controversial anthrax vaccine. Years later, after all the disturbing facts about the vaccine have surfaced, the US military still intends to vaccinate all our troops." - documentary narrated by Michael Douglas 

Non-vaccine from a non-VA - The Journal Online - "On Nov. 26, Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.H.) introduced a Sense of the Senate resolution asking the Pentagon to reconsider its mandatory anthrax vaccine. This welcome move is long overdue.  Senate Resolution 278 restates some acknowledged problems: (including that) a startling 84 percent of personnel who had anthrax vaccine shots from 1998 to 2000 had side effects or reactions, of which 24 percent were `systemic'"

Comment:  According to Senator Bingaman's resolution, 24% were systemic.  That's 24% of 84%, or approximately 20% of those receiving the vaccine! 

Comment:  To learn more about the early history of this issue, go to http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/anthrax.htm.

December 11, 2003 - Dearly deported - Just months after Zeferino Colunga Sr. lost his GI son in Iraq, the government arrested him and sent him back to Mexico. (requires subscription or free one day pass) - www.salon.com - "Now family members wonder if the deportation of Zeferino Colunga Sr. was connected to their public demand for an independent investigation into the young soldier's death."

December 13, 2003 - Hear the Silence - A forthcoming drama about the MMR controversy has angered many doctors. A general practitioner and two child health experts, who have all seen a preview, explain why - journal article (BMJ)

December 12, 2003 – The editor of Lancet on Hear the Silence - letter (BMJ)

December 2003 - New Hepatitis A Vaccine Efficacy May Last 21 Years - Few local side effects (requires registration) - ePediatric News - "Based upon the slow yearly rate of decline in anti-hepatitis A virus antibodies in the vaccinated children, it was calculated using standard models that the median duration of protection will be 28.1 years. An estimated 95% of children will remain protected for 21.1 years. The advantage of an aluminum-free hepatitis A vaccine over current vaccines that rely upon aluminum hydroxide as an immunopotentiating adjuvant is markedly fewer adverse effects at the injection site. The aluminum-free vaccine uses reconstituted influenza virosomes as a carrier system for hepatitis A antigen."

Comment:  Given how questionable antibodies are in terms of reflecting immunity, it is hard to trust any antibody decay-rate- based extrapolation of a vaccine's duration of immunity.

Comment: Another reason to avoid aluminum in vaccines is the arguable hypothesis that aluminum may in some way be connected to Alzheimer's.

December 2003 - Two-Dose Hepatitis A, B Vaccine Combo Appears Effective - Investigational drug (requires registration) - ePediatric News

December 2003 - Combined Hexavalent Vaccine Good for Preemies - DTAP-HBV-IPV/HIB vaccine (requires registration) - ePediatric News

July-August 2003 - Reemergence of Pertussis in the Highly Vaccinated Population of The Netherlands: Observations on Surveillance Data - journal article - (Emerging Infectious Diseases) via CDC

December 2003 - Prevnar ‘Herd Immunity’ Tied to Drop in Pneumococcal Disease - Results from large California study (requires registration) - ePediatric News

December 2003 - Pneumococcal Vaccine Effective Despite Some Missed Doses - Data from eight CDC sites (requires registration) - ePediatric News

December 2003 - Vaccine Could Restrain Severe Flu Season - Variant, virulent strain identified (requires registration) - ePediatric News

Comment:  It would appear that the study was paid for by MedImmune, the maker of the vaccine.

December 12, 2003 - The Shortage of Flu Vaccines (requires subscription or registration) - The New York Times

December 6, 2003 - Race for flu shots depletes firm's reserves - The Globe and Mail

December 5, 2003 - Makers of flu vaccine ship last of season's shots - Shortages reported in some areas - CNN

December 5, 2003 - As the Flu Spreads Early and Quickly, Colorado Expands Its Vaccination Campaign - (registration or subscription required) - The New York Times

December 5, 2003 - Who should be vaccinated - The Seattle Times

December 6, 2003 - Events: Maxvax is canceled - Officials cite nationwide shortage of flu vaccine - Grand Forks Herald

December 11, 2003 - Advocate Says Government Should Release Flu Shot Data - www.newsmax.com - "A leading vaccine safety and informed consent advocate is calling on federal health officials and flu vaccine makers to be honest with the American people about the effectiveness of this year's flu vaccine...Transcripts from the February 20 and March 18, 2003 meetings of the FDA Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) reveal that health officials around the world knew the genetically mutated Fujian strain was associated with significant morbidity and mortality and that last year's vaccine showed little protection against it.

December 12, 2003 - Miscalculations Lead to Flu Vaccine Shortage - Fox News - "Last year, three manufacturers made 95 million doses of the flu vaccine. Eighty million doses were used, and companies were forced to eat the cost of the unused portions. The outcome was costly — with pharmaceutical giant Wyeth (search) dropping out of producing vaccines this year, and the remaining two companies — Aventis Pasteur (search) and Chiron Corp. (search) — hoping not to make the same mistake...The government does not pay for the extra doses of flu vaccine. It works with drug companies to guess yearly demand based on the previous year's use."

December 11, 2003 - Flu Mist anyone? - Does This Smell Bad? from the Health Sciences Institute newsletter via www.newmediaexplorer.org

Vaccine - Volume 22, Issue 2, Pages 145-292 (12 December 2003) - Table of Contents - Elsevier, Ltd.

Autism-related

December 5, 2003 - Concern over new federal rules governing special ed - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Understanding the Biology of Autism and Related Disorders: A Guide to Biomedical Interventions - www.fightingautism.com - conference alert - Saturday February 28th, 2004 in Pittsburgh, PA

December 12, 2003 - Notice to Readers: Request for Information About Acute Encephalopathy Associated with Influenza Virus Infection in U.S. Children -  CDC via MMWR - "Reports of influenza-associated encephalopathy have been uncommon in the United States (3,4). To determine if a similar pattern is occurring in the United States, CDC is requesting information on any case meeting certain criteria. The criteria include a person aged <18 years with altered mental status or personality change lasting >24 hours and occurring within 5 days of onset of an acute febrile respiratory illness, laboratory or rapid diagnostic test evidence of acute influenza virus infection associated with the respiratory illness, and diagnosis of the condition in the United States."

Comment:  Might at least some of this be Reye's syndrome, which can be confused with encephalitis?  If so, and in those cases, might the "influenza-associated encephalopathy" be treatment related, i.e., caused by treating the flu with aspirin, rather than a direct consequence of the flu?

December 13, 2003 - Children have been neglected in flu prevention strategy - journal article (BMJ)

December 12, 2003 - Flu Illnesses Are Widespread in 24 States (requires subscription or registration) - The New York Times

December 5, 2003 - Parents warned as flu hits early, hard - The Seattle Times

December 6, 2003 - Some Questions and Answers About Flu - CDC via Yahoo!

December 5, 2003 - Flu likely cause of 2 more deaths - State's outbreak already tops previous 2 seasons combined - Daily Camera - "If confirmed, it would mean at least seven flu deaths in Colorado this season, she said. All of them have been children."

December 11, 2003 - Husband's long battle to prove wife's innocence - Times Online - "After her eight-week trial last year, Mrs Cannings told an interviewer she had done “everything in my power to show the jury what I was like as a person”; a person known to family and friends as a devoted mother. Yet her performance as a witness was eclipsed by those of expert prosecution witnesses who damned her on the basis of statistics."

December 11, 2003 - Unexplained deaths fall but claim 7 lives a week - Times Online - "According to the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths (FSID), 89 per cent of all cot deaths in England and Wales occur in babies aged under six months. Boys appear to be at higher risk than girls."

December 12, 2003 - Alarm as cot deaths double in Scotland - Evening Times Online - "Over the next two years experts are to review many Scots cot death cases to try to learn more about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome."

Comment:  Will the often close temporal relationship between vaccination and SIDS be one of the factors even considered?  For more on this go to Scandals: Whooping cough vs. whooping cough vaccine-associated infant deaths; Scandals: Infant Vaccine Deaths - But Who's Counting? (No news is NOT good news.); Scandals: Vaccine-related infant deaths - When is enough, enough? and A Not-So-Perfect Vaccine: The Diphtheria, Tetanus and Acellular Pertussis vaccine: An Investigation - by RFD columnist F. Edward Yazbak, MD, FAAP in the Online Vaccine Conference at www.redflagsdaily.com.

December 2003 - SARS Appears to Be Less Virulent in Children - May be true of West Nile virus, too (requires registration) - ePediatric News

December 5, 2003 - Nigeria: Gombe to Fight HIV/Aids Scourge - Goje - Daily Trust via www.allafrica.com

December 6, 2003 - Cheap drugs give hope to Aids patients in war zone - Christmas charity appeal - Pioneering project begins in isolated Congo province - The Guardian, UK

December 9, 2003 - HIV - tailored to fit (requires registration) - BioMedNet - "New research on HIV shows that the virus mutates throughout its genome to evade each particular individual's immune system, report Australian immunologists. The results could have important implications for vaccine design, they say."

December 12, 2003 - Scientists Report Progress in Ebola Treatment (requires subscription or registration) - The New York Times

December 12, 2003 - Boom, or bust? - Hundreds of millions of dollars are pouring into US biodefence research. You might expect scientists working on infectious diseases to be unequivocally delighted. But things aren't that simple, says Erika Check. (requires registration) - drug discovery @ www.nature.com

December 6, 2003 - Tiny Bubbles - Vesicles that cells spit out are implicated in cancer and AIDS - Science News

December 5, 2003 - Auckland Asthma Achievers Celebrated - Asthma and Respiratory Foundation of New Zealand via www.scoop.co.nz - "Six Aucklanders are being celebrated today in recognition of their individual achievements in meeting and overcoming the extra challenges they face because of a respiratory condition."

December 5, 2003 - Red Cross hopes to start testing blood supply for Chagas disease - AP via Tallahassee Democrat

December 6, 2003 - Mortality Rates Drop With Tech Advances - AP via Yahoo!

December 8, 2003 - For hospitals, dirty hands still a danger - Infections: Although the importance of washing was discovered more than 100 years ago, busy health care workers often forget to scrub.- www.sunspot.net

Comment:  There is simply no excuse for this. Is it laziness?  Is it misplaced faith in, and an over-reliance on, drugs to solve the problems caused by their own bad behavior?  If so, have they not noticed that another "bad behavior", i.e.,  over- and incorrect use of antibiotics, has severely limited antibiotic usefulness and may have even destroyed the "miracle"?

December 11, 2003 - Medical expert faces inquiry - Times Online - "SIR ROY MEADOW, the expert whose evidence helped to convict at least three mothers of murdering their children, first came to prominence in the late Seventies...He claimed that many parents deliberately harmed their babies in order to draw attention to themselves, the condition known as Münchausen syndrome by proxy."

December 8, 2003 - Cost of developing a new drug increases to about $1.7 billion - Wall Street Journal (requires subscription )

December 9, 2003 - Insulin Among Several Drugs on Error List - AP via Yahoo!

December 10, 2003 - Group Seeks Toss of Patient Privacy Rules - The Washington Post - "A group of doctors and patient advocates asked a federal judge Wednesday to throw out new health care privacy rules, claiming they're inadequate...The federal regulations, which took effect in April, were designed to tighten patient privacy protections. But the group said they instead leave patients powerless to stop disclosures of sensitive information."

December 2003 - FDA Issues Advisory on Suicide, Antidepressants - Expert panel meeting next year (requires registration) - ePediatric News

December 2003 - FDA Panel Backs Silicone Breast Implants - 9-6 vote for recommending approval (requires registration) - ePediatric News

December 12, 2003 - Mentor Asks FDA to Approve Silicone Breast Implants - Reuters

December 12, 2003 - Paediatric Clinical Trials: Redressing the Imbalance  (requires registration) - journal article (Nature Reviews Drug Discovery) via www.nature.com

December 12, 2003 - 'New' FDA delivers in 2003 (requires registration) - journal article (Nature Reviews Drug Discovery) via www.nature.com

December 12, 2003 - Merck Strategy in Place to Deliver Long-Term Shareholder Value - http://nachrichten.boerse.de

December 12, 2003 - Draft Federal Advisory Warns Some Groups to Limit Tuna (requires subscription or registration) - The New York Times

December 12, 2003 - Antidepressant use in children questioned - Recent warnings of suicide risk associated with antidepressant use in children have highlighted the lack of understanding of paediatric depression (requires registration) - drug discovery @ www.nature.com

December 2003 - Educate Moms on Breast-Feeding Preterm Infants - Promotional strategies (requires registration) - ePediatric News

December 12, 2003 - Second-hand smoke may harm pets - Many refuse to accept findings/Pet fur traps smoke particles - The New York Times via The Toronto Star

December 12, 2003 - Peanut allergies more common: Studies - Reuters via The Toronto Star

December 12, 2003 - Period peace - A new pill going on sale in the US gives women just four periods a year. But is it safe to staunch the flow, asks Jennifer Fried - The Guardian, UK

December 6, 2003 - One of the N crowd - So, you've won a Nobel Prize and all that's left is to revel in fame and funding? Not quite. Some scientists thrive, but many find the going gets tougher. - An edited extract from the book The Road to Stockholm - The Sydney Morning Herald
 

December 5, 2003 - Eat Less, Live Longer? - Some Hope Cutting Calories Will Add Years to Their Lives - www.abcnews.go.com

December 12, 2003 - Welcome Back, Docs - Wall Street Journal (requires subscription) - "If you're thinking of having a baby in Texas, you now have a better chance of finding an obstetrician. That's because tort reform is beginning to lower costs for doctors who want to practice medicine in the Lone Star State."

December 13, 2003 - BMJ Table of Contents

Redflagsdaily.com - www.redflagsweekly.com

More News - all the news most recently posted on this website

All the News - a running tab of everything posted on this website since October 29, 2003

Top Stories Archives - daily breaking and other important news stories

Daily News Archives - all the news posted on this website each day (from April 2001)