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

December 2003 - S. pneumoniae Resistance Is High, but Not Rising - Analysis of 2002-2003 respiratory season (requires registration) - ePediatric News

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

December 5, 2003 - New Data Suggest That A Live Attenuated Influenza Vaccine May Induce Immunity Against Currently Circulating Drifted A/Fujian-Like Influenza Strain - MedImmune, Inc. via PRNewswire

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

December 9, 2003 - CDC to monitor children's flu complications - AP via CNN - "A new concern is the rise of a common drug-resistant staph infection that is complicating efforts to treat children with the flu, an official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday...Dr. Tim Uyeki, epidemiologist with the influenza branch of CDC, said that some children have died from the staph infections -- a phenomenon the CDC has not seen before."

Comment:  Why would children with flu suddenly be dying from staph infections?  Has something happened to impair their immune systems and make them more vulnerable to these infections than normally would occur when they have the flu?  Or is there something about this particular flu that makes them weaker in a way that, for the first time, makes them extremely vulnerable to staph?

December 8, 2003 - Post-Polio Syndrome - Ivanhoe Newswire - "Polio is a disease that many people don’t think about anymore, but for many polio survivors, the disease is something they can’t forget. Approximately 300,000 polio survivors will experience their polio symptoms again, decades after they had the disease."

December 9, 2003 - Dog helps boy cope with autism - The Globe and Mail - "Jamil Shah threw long tantrums, and like thousands of other autistic children, could barely communicate with his parents...These days, the 12-year-old is doing better. He cuddles beside his canine companion, Sherlock, whenever he's upset, he's grown aware of his surroundings, but mostly he's more affectionate."

December 8, 2003 - An Aetna InteliHealth/Harvard Medical School Look At The News -- Flu Crisis On The Horizon? - With the nation's supply of flu shots dropping rapidly and at least 13 states facing unusually severe flu outbreak, doctors are urging healthy people to opt for a nasal-spray version of the vaccine and save the traditional one for children and elderly. - AP via www.intelihealth.com

December 9, 2003 - Students with autism are moving to Kalamazoo - www.woodtv.com/ - "The number of autistic children in one West Michigan county is on the rise. Kalamazoo County has seen an increase of more than 300 percent over the last decade. One reason for that could be a special classroom at Croyden Avenue School."

Comment:  Or perhaps it is an actual rise in the number of children with autism in Kalamazoo County.

December 8, 2003 - Health Danger Depends On Access - Doctors say the uninsured are a risk to public health - St. Petersburg Times via www.theledger.com - "The worry: Because the uninsured are less likely to seek prompt care, they would be more likely to spread disease in an epidemic. While the chances of such an epidemic or bioterrorist attack might be remote, doctors say that ultimately, the barriers to getting uninsured people cared for could help infection spread further and faster than it otherwise would."

December 8, 2003 - Holyrood accused of toeing Westminster line on hepatitis C infection - The Scotsman - "Although the Executive has suggested payouts to those infected, patients say the amounts are derisory and far below those recommended by an expert committee chaired by Lord Ross...They have accused the health committee of letting them down by deciding to stop considering their cause, which includes demands for an independent inquiry. They are also angry the decision was taken in private."

December 4, 2003 - Researchers Use Crippled Poliovirus To Attack Brain Cancer - Duke University Medical News - "In the study, the modified poliovirus rapidly killed cancer cells derived from primary brain tumors as well as cells derived from breast and colon cancer metastases -- all within a matter of four to six hours. In fact, polio is known to be one of the quickest killers of infected host cells, producing approximately a thousand additional infectious viral units per infected cell, he said."

Comment:  Does exposure to wild poliovirus have the same effect?  Given that most (95%) of those exposed to polio experience no apparent symptoms at all, and another 4-8% only mild symptoms, perhaps there is some advantage to allowing circulation of the virus while at the same time determining who those few are that get serious illness and why they are vulnerable to serious polio disease.  Perhaps there could then be a more targeted strategy.

Comment:  It is well established and widely accepted that tonsillectomy and injections (including antibiotic injection) predispose a person to either bulbar or paralytic polio.  It is unknown to what, if any, extent the decline in tonsillectomies and antibiotic injections caused or contributed to the decline in polio. Just as it is unknown to what, if any, extent the polio vaccine caused or contributed to the decline in polio.

December 11, 2003 - Retrospective: The Discovery of HIV as the Cause of AIDS (full text requires subscription the first 6 months after publication) - journal article (NEJM)

December 11, 2003 - The Meningococcal Vaccine -- Public Policy and Individual Choices (full text requires subscription the first 6 months after publication) - journal article (NEJM) - "On December 11, 2002, a 12-year-old girl from suburban Philadelphia died as a result of serogroup C meningococcal infection. Death occurred within hours after the initial manifestation of the illness. Her parents learned subsequently that a vaccine was available that might have prevented their daughter's death. They asked, 'Why didn't we know about this vaccine?'"

December 11, 2003 - Never mind the facts - Channel Five's new drama about the link between MMR and autism makes great TV. But it gets the story, and the science, disastrously wrong. How did we get to such a level of confusion and hysteria about this vaccine? Ben Goldacre unravels the real MMR story - The Guardian, UK

Comment: As for "never minding the facts", it all gets down to "who do you trust"?  Do you trust the "facts" provided by the vaccine manufacturers and anyone else who benefits financially from the use of vaccines?  Do you trust parents, who may not have proof, but do have evidence implicating vaccines?  Do you trust researchers and others who are willing to chance sacrificing their careers and/or their reputations to champion an unpopular idea?  For an overview of the vaccine issue and how conflict of interest has influenced the process, click here.

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 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 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."

Comment: Boys are also at a higher risk for autism.

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 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 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 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?