FEAT DAILY NEWSLETTER
Sacramento, California http://www.feat.org
January 8, 2002
News Morgue Search www.feat.org/search/news.asp
·
U.S. Study Says Multiple Infant Vaccines Safe
·
Docs: Babies Need Hepatitis B Vaccine
·
Opposition to Vaccine Ups Children’s Tetanus Risk
·
1,000 Families Seek Compensation For Alleged Vaccine
Harm
·
Reader’s Posts
[By Michael Conlon in Reuters.]
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20020107/sc/health_vaccines_dc_1.html
Today’s children, who receive as many as 11 vaccinations
routinely, are not in danger of having their immune system overwhelmed,
according to a study published on Monday.
“Current studies do not support the hypothesis that
multiple vaccines overwhelm, weaken, or ‘use up’ the immune system,” said the
report from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and several other institutions.
“On the contrary, young infants have an enormous capacity
to respond to multiple vaccines, as well as to the many other challenges
present in the environment,” it added.
“By providing protection against a number of bacterial and
viral pathogens, vaccines prevent the ‘weakening’ of the immune system and consequent
secondary bacterial infections occasionally caused by natural infection,” it
added.
The report was published in this month’s issue of “Pediatrics,”
the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. The authors said they investigated
the subject because recent surveys in the United States indicated that about a
quarter of all parents were concerned about the possible negative impacts of
multiple vaccinations.
A century ago, the study said, children received only one
vaccination, for smallpox. Forty years ago four others came into common use—for
polio, diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus. Today children in developed countries
receive 11 vaccines routinely and will have had as many as 20 completion shots
by age two, the report added.
By a conservative estimate infants have the theoretical
capacity to respond to as many as 10,000 vaccines, it said.
“Parents who are worried about the increasing number of
recommended vaccines may take comfort in knowing that children are exposed to
fewer antigens (proteins and polysaccharides) in vaccines today than in the
past,” the report said.
“Although we now give children more vaccines, the actual
number of antigens they receive has declined. Whereas previously one vaccine, smallpox,
contained about 200 proteins, now the 11 routinely recommended vaccines contain
fewer than 130 proteins in total,” it added.
“Two factors account for this decline: First, the
worldwide eradication of smallpox obviated the need for that vaccine, and
second, advances in protein chemistry have resulted in vaccines containing
fewer antigens ...”
In a related development, the academy in the same issue
published its annual recommendation for immunizations, saying there were no
major changes to suggested timetables except one involving pneumococcal
vaccine. Because there is a shortage of that vaccine, it said, healthy children
should receive only the first three doses and doctors should defer the fourth
or booster shot until the shortage eases.
The vaccine wards off pneumonia, meningitis and
bloodstream infections. The U.S. manufacturer of the vaccine has reported it
has been unable to keep up with demand.
* * *
[By Lindsey Tanner via The Associated Press. Hepatitis
B is contracted
through intravenous drug use and sexual contact. Newborns
can get it from
so-acting mothers. Thanks to S. Mendez.]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6615-2002Jan7.html
All U.S. newborns should be vaccinated against hepatitis B
before leaving the hospital to protect against possible disease from infected mothers,
doctors recommend.
Previously, giving the shots in the hospital was
recommended only for newborns whose mothers were known to be infected or whose
disease status was unknown.
The new recommendation is listed in the childhood
immunization schedule for 2002, prepared by the American Academy of Pediatrics,
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization
Practices, and the American Academy of Family Physicians.
It is a minor change from the group’s list last year. For
one of the first times in recent years, no new shots are recommended; both
lists recommend a series of seven vaccine shots starting in infancy for all
U.S. children.
The list is published in January’s Pediatrics.
The recommendation for hepatitis B shots was made out
of concern that
some infants of mothers mistakenly thought to be
disease-free might be falling through the cracks, said Dr. Julia McMillan, a
member of the AAP committee that helped create this year’s list.
Doctors also worried that some infants were not being
vaccinated early because of concerns that some shots had a mercury-containing
preservative called Thimerosal, which has since been removed from most
vaccines, said Dr. Louis Cooper, AAP
president.
While there’s been no known increase in infants infected
with hepatitis B, vaccinating them before they leave the hospital “just makes good
sense,” Cooper said.
Newborns can contract the virus from infected mothers’
blood during childbirth, but vaccinating them soon afterward can prevent the
disease from taking hold, said McMillan, a pediatrics professor at Johns
Hopkins University.
The seven recommended vaccines are: hepatitis B;
diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis combined; haemophilus influenza type b;
inactivated polio; measles, mumps, rubella combined; chickenpox; and
pneumococcal vaccine. Hepatitis A and
flu vaccines are recommended for certain at-risk children.
McMillan noted that because of a current shortage of
pneumococcal vaccine – which protects against childhood pneumonia, meningitis
and ear infections – doctors are urged to reserve the full four-shot series for
at-risk children with weakened immune systems until supplies rebound.
Vaccine maker Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories has said it
expects the shortage, blamed on unforeseen demand, to ease by the end of March.
On the Net: Academy of Pediatrics:
http://www.pediatrics.org/cgi/content/full/109/1/162/F1
CDC: http://www.cdc.gov
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Opposition to Vaccine Ups Children’s Tetanus Risk
http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2002/01/07/eline/links/20020107elin003. html <- - address ends here.
Reuters Health - Children whose parents decide not to
vaccinate them against tetanus are at risk of contracting the potentially
serious disease, according to researchers.
Tetanus is an infection that occurs when a toxin found in
soil and animal and human intestines enters the body through a wound. The
disease, which is not contagious, leads to muscle spasms and may be fatal.
The study of 15 cases of tetanus in children younger than
15 years found that 80% had not been vaccinated due to their parents’ religious
or philosophic objections. Vaccinated children had milder illness compare with unvaccinated
children. Although none of the children died, all were hospitalized and about
two-thirds were put on a respirator.
Two cases of tetanus occurred in infants younger than 10
days old and 13 were diagnosed in children aged 3 to 14 years, the report
indicates.
Typically, US children are inoculated against tetanus at
2, 4 and 6 months, and 15 to 18 months of age. The vaccine, known as DTP, is
given along with an inoculation against diphtheria, a potentially fatal
infection that damages the heart and central nervous system, and pertussis
(whooping cough), a highly contagious respiratory infection.
In recent years, an increasing number of parents have
decided not to vaccinate their children against a handful of diseases, some
potentially fatal, due to concerns about the safety of vaccines, the belief
that these diseases are rare, and the belief that parents can protect their
children.
But according to the report in the January online edition
of the journal Pediatrics, these decisions can put children at risk of
contracting tetanus.
“Parents who choose not to vaccinate their children should
be advised of the seriousness of the disease and be informed that tetanus is
not preventable by means other than vaccination,” conclude Elizabeth Fair from Stanford
University School of Medicine in Stanford, California, and colleagues.
According to their report, all US states require children
entering school to be vaccinated against tetanus. However, the majority of
states also recognize religious and medical exemptions, while 15 states
recognize philosophic objections.
“Tetanus in individuals who are not protected can result
from mild injury and can cause life-threatening disease even with the
availability of intensive medical care,” Fair’s team concludes.
Source: Pediatrics online 2002;109:e2.
Copyright © 2002 Reuters Limited.
* * *
1,000 Families Seek Compensation For Alleged Vaccine Harm
[By Richard Woodman via Reuters Health, UK.] http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2002/01/07/eline/links/20020107elin021. html <-- address ends here.
More than 1,000 British families have joined a legal
battle for millions of pounds compensation for harm they claim was caused to
their children by measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccines, their solicitors
said on Monday.
The case—which is scheduled to come to trial in February 2003--follows
controversial research findings suggesting that use of the vaccines could be
linked to inflammatory bowel disease and autism.
Two firms of solicitors, Alexander Harris and
Freethcartwright, have been appointed as the joint leading firms in the generic
litigation against Aventis Pasteur MSD, GlaxoSmithKline and Merck.
A spokeswoman at Alexander Harris said that the firm
represented about 1,000 families while the total number involved was probably
around 1,500. She said likely levels of
compensation varied but could be worth several million pounds for children with
serious brain damage.
The firm’s Web site says that the case is being brought
under the Consumer Protection Act—part of the European Union’s Product
Liability Directive that imposes liability on manufacturers of products for any
injury caused by an unsafe product. The families had been granted public funds
to pay for the legal action.
The firm said that the UK Department of Health stopped
using SmithKline Beecham’s Pluserix and Aventis Pasteur MSD’s Immaravax in
1992, two years after a similar vaccine containing the Urabe strain of mumps vaccine
virus was withdrawn in Canada after reports of meningitis.
“After we had been contacted by several hundred families a
clear pattern began to emerge,” the solicitors said. “Children who were
developing well, both physically and intellectually, before the vaccine,
regressed after vaccination, often accompanied by other symptoms and a gradual
decline into autism.”
They added: “It is important to stress that we appear to
be dealing with cases where the children, who were fit and well before being
vaccinated and were developing normally in every way, are now chronically ill
and as a result many are seriously mentally or physically disabled.”
A spokesman for GlaxoSmithKline said that all the
manufacturers were still trying to clarify exactly what was being alleged by
the families. He added that numerous studies had failed to show a link between
MMR vaccination and autism, and that the legal action would be defended.
The Department of Health and the Medical Research
Council have also
dismissed reports by researchers at London’s Royal Free
Hospital suggesting
that the triple vaccine may trigger autism. Copyright © 2002
Reuters Limited
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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.