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May 07, 2003

U.S. IMMUNIZATION NEWS

"Many Forget Skin Conditions That Up Vaccine Risk"

Reuters Health Information Services (www.reutershealth.com) (05/05/03)

A research team, led by Allison L. Naleway from the Marshfield Clinical Research Foundation in Wisconsin, determined that about 40 percent of patients incorrectly answered questions during a telephone interview related to their atopic dermatitis risks.  Atopic dermatitis, a form of the skin condition eczema, puts people at higher risk of developing a potentially fatal complication of the smallpox vaccination.  Reliance on an individual's own recollections when calculating the risk factor for the smallpox vaccine will be difficult; however, none of the 30,000 healthcare providers or 250,000 military personnel who received the smallpox vaccine showed signs of the complication.  Naleway and her team assert in the Annals of Internal Medicine that relying on an individual to report their skin conditions or family history of skin conditions prior to receiving a smallpox vaccine is risky and likely to miss a large amount of cases in which people should not receive the vaccine.

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