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Houston Chronicle (www.chron.com)
(12/22/02) P. A1; Hegstrom, Edward
The Mexican city of Monterrey divides its poor
neighborhoods into sections and assigns a nurse in each area to make sure that
all the children are vaccinated on time--no matter what the parents think. This
approach has achieved a 98 percent coverage rate for children ages one to four
years in Monterrey, compared to about 71 percent of two-year-olds in Houston.
Overall, 96 percent of children between the ages of one and four years in Mexico
are fully vaccinated, while the rate for two-year-olds in the United States is
79 percent. This success, in Mexico and other area nations, has stopped the
epidemics that used to swing back and forth between the two nations. Both
Monterrey and Houston, Tex., saw a resurgence in measles over 10 years ago and
tried to hit a 100 percent vaccination rate in response; but Houston still has
no coordinated vaccine registry, and Monterrey has nearly met its goal. The
Mexican government created its National Immunization Program, a central
authority that oversees the thrice-annual immunization campaigns, while public
health nurses in Monterrey track babies before they are even born, and the
newborns get National Vaccination Records that are required for passports,
identification papers, school entry, and other things. Houston is struggling
with competing registries and some parents who consider registries an invasion
of privacy.
ALL INFORMATION, DATA, AND
MATERIAL CONTAINED, PRESENTED, OR PROVIDED HERE IS FOR GENERAL INFORMATION
PURPOSES ONLY AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS REFLECTING THE KNOWLEDGE OR OPINIONS
OF THE PUBLISHER, AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED OR INTENDED AS PROVIDING MEDICAL OR
LEGAL ADVICE. THE DECISION WHETHER OR NOT TO VACCINATE IS AN IMPORTANT AND
COMPLEX ISSUE AND SHOULD BE MADE BY YOU, AND YOU ALONE, IN CONSULTATION WITH
YOUR HEALTH CARE PROVIDER.
"A foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of truth."
-- Albert Einstein, letter to a friend, 1901
"I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves, and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education."
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to William C. Jarvis, September 28, 1820
"What's the point of vaccination if it doesn't protect you from the unvaccinated?"
-- Sandy Gottstein
"Who gets to decide what the greater good is and how many will be sacrificed to it?"