Archive for April, 2009

Measles Outbreaks Continue

Six measles cases have cropped up in the D.C. area just this year, according to the Washington Post. A man from the District brought the virus back with him on a recent trip from India. By the time he realized he was infected and sought medical attention, he had already visited seven places throughout the Washington region and infected an 8-month old child in a hospital waiting room.

Denise Sockwell, epidemiologist for the Virginia Dept. of Health, said, “Six cases in a region in a short period is rare.” She also noted that before one reported case last year, the state had not had a case in six years.

Actor Jim Carrey Blogs about Vaccines on Huffington Post

This Wednesday, actor Jim Carrey (Jenny McCarthy’s partner) blogged on the Huffington Post saying that CNN’s Campbell Brown was wrong to declare that the vaccine-autism “debate” was over. Carrey goes on to say that “In this growing crisis, we cannot afford to blindly trumpet the agenda of the CDC, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) or vaccine makers.”

Carrey implies that none of the research that currently exists on vaccine safety can be trusted due to conflicts of interest, both financial and otherwise. He likens vaccines to cigarettes, saying “Not everyone gets cancer from smoking, but cigarettes do cause cancer. After 100 years and many rulings in favor of the tobacco companies, we finally figured that out.”

Bloggers Respond to Jim Carrey’s Vaccine Stance

Quick to point out various inaccuracies, bloggers responded to Jim Carrey’s piece in the Huffington Post. Discover Magazine blogger Phil Plait points out that while Carrey implies the vaccine court decision is insignificant because they only ruled on three cases, “The three cases that were presented to the special courts were chosen by the people presenting the cases themselves as the strongest of all their claims. And the courts did far more than simply find no link between between vaccines and autism; they called the antivax claims ’speculative and unpersuasive.’” To read his full piece, click here.

Daily Kos responded to Carrey’s diatribe here while chastising the Huffington Post for printing biased and inaccurate stories which may discourage people from vaccinating their children. He poses two questions for the Huffington Post: “Why did you post an editorial which, if you had taken the slightest bit of time to research, you would have found to be completely false? Are you more interested in posting editorials from celebrities who deny the best available science, instead of posting the results of the best available science?”

Gawker.com also took the Huffington Post to task for their irresponsible journalism, saying, “Good work, Arianna, letting this famous person promote his little pet cause on your website, thus is the vast potential of the citizen-driven new media landscape realized.” To read the post, click here.

Vaccine Partners to Sponsor Congressional Briefing

Congressmen Henry Waxman (CA) and Joseph Barton (TX) will sponsor a briefing entitled Vaccines: Communicating Disease Risks and Consequences to the Public on Tuesday, April 28. The briefing will be held in the Rayburn House Office Building - Room 2322 from 12:30 to 1:30.

Speakers will include Amy A. Pisani, Executive Director, Every Child By Two; Melinda Wharton, MD - Acting Director, CDC’s Immunization Safety Office; Mark Sawyer, MD - Professor of Clinical Pediatrics and Pediatric Infectious Disease Specialist, UCSD School of Medicine; Brendalee Flint - Parent of Hib Survivor, Julieanna Metcalf. The speakers will speak to immunization safety, the importance of community immunity, as well as timely immunization, and they will address the recent outbreaks of measles and Hib across the country.

Co-sponsors of the briefing include: Albert B. Sabin Vaccine Institute • American Academy of Pediatrics • American Medical Association • Association of State and Territorial Health Officials • Association of Immunization Managers • Every Child By Two • Immunization Action Coalition • National Medical Association • Parents of Kids with Infectious Diseases • Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society • Partnership for Prevention

Please RSVP to info@ecbt.org.

IOM Panel Convenes to Review Adverse Effects of Vaccines

The IOM Committee to review adverse effects of vaccines met for the first time Monday in Washington, D.C. to give an overview of the vaccines being reviewed, and to take public comment into consideration. Under contract from HRSA, the IOM will review the evidence regarding adverse events associated with four specific vaccines: varicella, influenza, hepatitis B, and HPV. Other vaccines could be added if additional funding is secured. The IOM will submit a report of its findings so that the Table of Injury can be updated by the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. The committee will review the working list of adverse events with the ACCV in person during their meeting on June 4 and 5, 2009.

The presentation from the meeting can be downloaded here.

IOM National Stakeholder Meeting on Vaccines Convenes in DC

The IOM convened to review Goal 2 of the National Vaccine Plan on April 14 in DC. Four panels broadly addressed vaccine safety concerns and research. Common themes included: how to assess safety in clinical trials; how to better identify gaps in the detection of safety signals; and how to better use VAERS and VSD. For more information and to view the webcast, please click here.

Dr. Bernadine Healy Calls for “Détente” in the “Vaccines-Autism War”

This Tuesday, Dr. Healy blogged on her US News & World Report: Heart to Heart Blog about the ongoing “war” over vaccines and autism. She claims that “American children are the most vaccinated on the planet” and asks if we are “overvaccinating our children”. Healy goes on to question if the vaccine schedule is too “rigid”, asserting that mothers who breast feed should be allowed a “less aggressive schedule”, and citing the Hep B vaccine as something that could be delayed.

Healy goes on to discuss the possibility of genetically vulnerable groups of children and the need for more research in this group. Finally, Healy asserts that, “pediatricians might do families a great service if they could work with them to loosen up the schedules to accommodate reasonable concerns and allow more choice.”

Bloggers Address Dr. Bernadine Healy’s Comments on Vaccines

Orac from Science Blogs and Kevin Leitch from Left Brain Right Brain both dissected Dr. Healy’s vaccine comments this week in their respective blogs.

Orac’s post, entitled “Bernadine Healy: Flirting with the anti-vaccine movement,” contends that Healy is aligning herself closer and closer with the anti-vaccine faction. In response to Dr. Healy’s assertions that US children are among the most highly vaccinated, Orac points out that “Dr. Healy actually quoted the execrably incompetent and intellectually dishonest recent ’study’ by Generation Rescue purporting to show that nations with smaller numbers of mandated vaccines have lower autism prevalences.”

Kevin Leitch from Left Brain Right Brain scrutinizes Healy’s piece in his post, pointing out her inaccuracies. His main contention is Healy’s claim, “‘This controversy might be resolved if we can focus on a few big questions, with an open mind.’” Leitch responds with the following: “Mistake number three. There is no controversy… What there is is a very good and well executed media campaign to manufacture one.”

Measles Outbreaks Continue

Maryland is experiencing its first measles outbreak since 2001 according to a piece in Monday’s Washington Post. In Montgomery County, a man contracted the disease while traveling abroad and infected an employee at his company. The employee went to Shady Grove Adventist Hospital on March 12 and while in the emergency room infected an 8-month-old child. As of last week, there have been 20 confirmed cases reported nationally so far this year.

According to an AP report today, a child in Iowa has also been infected with measles and the Iowa Department of Public Health is working to determine how the child was exposed and who the child may have exposed to the illness.

Top Mommy Blog Takes on Vaccine Debate

Heather Armstrong, author of the most popular mommy blog on the web, Dooce.com, tackled the topic of vaccines on a “Momversation.” The video features two other top mommy bloggers stating that they have vaccinated their children. All three women stress the importance of vaccination, urging others to protect their own children, and by doing so, protect others.

Armstrong also wrote a companion post, where she again stated her support for immunizations while empathizing with parents who have concerns about the schedule. She says, “What I’m really feeling is an unease, one that is directly proportional to the unease that causes certain parents to refuse vaccinations, an unease at what might logically happen if more and more parents refuse vaccinations, even if that refusal is well researched.”

In just three days, there have been over one thousand comments posted to the blog. Overall, the comments are positive in tone toward vaccines. Many mothers are discussing how they vaccinated their children according to the schedule and are expressing their frustrations knowing that unimmunized children at daycare could put their own children at risk.

Jenny McCarthy’s Appearances Continue

Jenny McCarthy’s media tour for her new book, Healing and Preventing Autism, continued on Larry King Live last Friday. The show consisted of two panels: the first featured Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey, Dr. Jerry Kartzinel and J.B. Handley while the other featured Drs. Margaret Fisher, Max Wiznitzer and Bernadine Healy. The last minutes were spent allowing the two panels to debate.

Halfway through the first panel, Larry King asked, “Isn’t the problem here, Jenny, that people sometimes listen with one ear are going to panic. And not vaccine at all?” Jenny did not back down from her position, stating, “Probably. But guess what? It’s not my fault. The reason why they’re not vaccinating is because the vaccines are not safe. Make a better product and then parents will vaccinate.”

Dr. Wiznitzer, a neurologist at Rainbow Babies in Cleveland, was quick to defend vaccines in the second panel stating, “You need to ask questions more closely. What was the child like before hand? Were there any other features that might have been there? Is that temporal association, that time association actually real? Could it have been longer or could it have been shorter? Most of the time I find out that the associations that the parents were concerned about really couldn’t be supported.”

Jenny’s media tour will end next week with appearances on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, The Bonnie Hunt Show, Good Day LA, Chelsea Lately and The Doctors. In past appearances on Ellen, Jenny has not broached the topic of vaccines.

$300 Million in Gov’t Funding for Vaccines

Vice President Joe Biden announced on Thursday that the Obama Administration will make $2.3 billion available for health services programs that will provide care for children and prevent disease. The administration also plans to make $300 million in vaccines and grants available to ensure more underserved Americans receive the vaccines they need.