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thousands of nurses and other front-line healthcare workers are fighting mandatory flu immunization policies being put in place by some U.S. hospitals. The H1N1 pandemic, which has killed about 3,900 Americans so far, has stoked tensions over the best way to safeguard medical caregivers and their patients from flu. Nurses unions have won some early battles against compulsory vaccination. data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that only about 40 percent of U.S. healthcare workers ever get shots for seasonal influenza. mandating that healthcare workers get vaccines is misguided, ineffective and ultimately counterproductive. "There is no...

Brooklyn Mumps Outbreak Cases also reported in New Jersey Updated: Friday, 23 Oct 2009, 11:30 AM EDTPublished : Thursday, 22 Oct 2009, 4:55 PM EDT By Luke Funk MYFOXNY.COM - New York City's Health and Mental Hygiene Department is warning doctors about a mumps outbreak in Brooklyn.The cases started turning up in late August.The outbreak began among children from Borough Park who attended summer camp in Upstate New York.  Now, a similar outbreak is being reported in New JerseySo far, 57 confirmed or probable cases have been identified in New York. Cases of mumps have continued to occur in Borough...

Rumors swirl, but a Swedish prosecutor will only confirm a "preliminary investigation" into allegations that pharma giant AstraZeneca fixed the Nobels for financial gainThey say it's Sweden's silly season, a time when journalists are desperately seeking a new spin on a century-old story: the Nobel Prizes.Last week, as luminaries gathered for Nobel Week in Stockholm, Radio Sweden reported a potential scandal surrounding the Physiology or Medicine prize. Allegations were swirling, the state-owned station said, that London-based drug manufacturer AstraZeneca, PLC, had, in essence, paid off members of the Nobel voting committee to help secure a win for Harald zur Hausen...

Passionate intensity, but little rationality, in the anti-immunization movement Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure, by Paul A. Offit (Columbia University Press, 328 pp., $24.95) For some reason, the immunization of children has always aroused opposition of almost religious fervor. For example, a mass movement led resistance to smallpox vaccination in Britain for 70 years and was supported by intellectuals of the stature of George Bernard Shaw, who never believed in the germ theory of disease and thought that Pasteur and Lister were charlatans. Politicians have won or lost elections on their attitude...

ABC Show Will Go on, Over Protest by Doctors By EDWARD WYATT Published: January 29, 2008 ABC said on Monday it would include a disclaimer about the plot line of the debut episode of the drama “Eli Stone,” which links childhood vaccines to autism, and direct viewers to a government Web site that discredits such a link. ABC’s decision follows a call by the American Academy of Pediatrics for ABC to cancel the opening episode of “Eli Stone,” which is scheduled to be broadcast at 10 p.m. Thursday. In a letter to ABC executives on Friday, Dr. Renee R....

Hundreds of grumbling parents facing a threat of jail lined up at a courthouse Saturday to either prove that their school-age kids already had their required vaccinations or see that the youngsters submitted to the needle. The get-tough policy in the Washington suburbs of Prince George's County was one of the strongest efforts made by any U.S. school system to ensure its youngsters receive their required immunizations.

In a puzzling and potentially troubling development, an AIDS vaccine tested in a closely watched trial might have increased the risk among vaccine recipients of becoming infected with H.I.V., researchers reported yesterday at a scientific meeting in Seattle. But the researchers said not enough data existed to determine the meaning of the findings about the vaccine, which is made by Merck. The increased risk was principally among a group of people who had pre-existing levels of immunity to a common cold virus known as adenovirus type 5, which was modified to become a critical part of the vaccine. Researchers emphasized...

The world’s most promising malaria vaccine has been shown to work in infants less than a year old, the most vulnerable group, according to a study being published today. The study, being published in The Lancet, a British medical journal, was small, comprising only 214 babies in Mozambique, and intended to show only that the vaccine was safe at such young ages. But it also indicated that the risk of catching malaria was reduced by 65 percent after the full course of three shots. “We’re now a step closer to the realization of a vaccine that can protect African infants,”...

Yet another study has found that a controversial vaccine preservative appears to be harmless. But the study is unlikely to end the increasingly charged debate about vaccine safety. The study examined whether thimerosal — a mercury-containing vaccine preservative that was almost entirely eliminated from childhood vaccines by 2002 — is associated with neurological or certain psychological problems in children ages 7 to 10. Some parents’ groups and prominent legislators contend that thimerosal has caused an epidemic of childhood autism. Several studies have examined this question and found no evidence that thimerosal is associated with autism. The most recent study did...

A much-heralded H.I.V. vaccine has failed to work in a large clinical trial, dealing another serious setback to efforts to stop the AIDS epidemic. The vaccine’s developer, Merck, said yesterday that it had halted test vaccinations after the vaccine failed to prevent infection or reduce the severity of infection among volunteers who became infected during the trial. The trial was closely watched because experts considered the vaccine one of most promising to be tested on people so far. This was also the first of a new class of H.I.V. vaccine to get this far in clinical trials. The failure of...

Theodore Dalrymple: Thanks for the Immunity - Maurice Hilleman was one of the twentieth century’s unsung heroes. 20 July 2007 Vaccinated: One Man’s Quest to Defeat the World’s Deadliest Diseases, by Paul A. Offit (Collins, 272 pp., $26.95) Considering the practical effect they have upon our lives, great scientists are seldom as famous as people of equivalent stature in other fields. Apart from a few iconic figures, such as Newton, Darwin, and Einstein, most are completely unrecognizable to us; you could walk a long way before finding anyone who could tell you who invented the transistor or discovered the insect...

The first vaccine against avian flu won government approval yesterday, even as federal officials conceded its usefulness in a flu pandemic might be limited. The vaccine, made by Sanofi Pasteur, is directed against the H5N1 strain of influenza virus, which some public health experts say could possibly spark a deadly epidemic of flu in humans. The federal government has already stockpiled enough of the vaccine to treat 6.5 million people. But yesterday’s approval by the Food and Drug Administration means the vaccine is no longer considered experimental and therefore could be dispensed during a pandemic without requiring each recipient to...

BALTIMORE, Oct. 12 (UPI) -- U.S. states that have easily obtained personal belief exemptions for school immunization requirements have higher rates of new cases of pertussis. All states and the District of Columbia require children entering school to provide documentation that they have met the state vaccine requirements, but as of March 2006, all states permitted medical exemptions to school and daycare immunization requirements. Saad B. Omer, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and colleagues analyzed state-level rates of non-medical exemptions at school entry from 1991 through 2004 and data for incidence of pertussis, or whooping cough...

Nuns and Jews, cow warts and rabbit horns. The common link: they were all crucial elements in the search for the world’s newest vaccine. There are fascinating stories behind every advance in medicine, be it hand washing or brain surgery. But the 70-year history behind the creation of a vaccine against human papillomavirus, which causes cervical cancer, is more fraught than most with blind alleys, delicate moments, humor and triumph. Although cervical cancer is being beaten in rich countries thanks to Pap smears, it is still a great killer of the world’s poor. Fulminating tumors that can hemorrhage the womb...

DECEMBER 5, 2005. UPDATE (12/6): During my appearance on the Noory show last night, I also pointed out that, because of the enormous PR and propaganda blitz concerning "the imminent--could be--may be" bird flu pandemic, Senate Bill 1873 has a chance of passing into law. THIS is one of the payoffs from all that propaganda. Establish, on the basis of no fact, the illusion of a pandemic---and then bring this heinous, unconstitutional, and repellent bill into the Congress. snip This is a bad one, folks. It will give the federal government---if Senate Bill 1873 passes---the right to shove drugs and...

NEWARK, N.J. -- An infant died Thursday after being stricken at a downtown office of the state child welfare agency, police said. The month-old boy, who has been in foster care since birth, had just arrived about noon at an office of the state Division of Youth and Family Services from a doctor's visit. He had received immunizations for hepatitis B and polio at the doctor's, said DYFS spokesman Andy Williams. (snip) "It appears the baby had a reaction to an immunization," Williams said. An autopsy is to be done to determine the cause of death, police said. (snip)

I love L.A., but every so often I come across something that makes me think maybe people here really are crazier than average. Take this horrifying Sept. 24 Los Angeles Times story about Christine Maggiore, an influential HIV-positive activist who believes that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS, isn’t infectious, shouldn’t be treated with “toxic” anti-retroviral drugs like AZT and certainly needn’t prevent HIV-positive mothers like herself from breastfeeding. In May, Maggiore’s three-year-old daughter Eliza died of AIDS-related pneumonia. Her regular doctors were two pediatricians popular with the Hollywood crowd: Paul Fleiss, the anti-circumcision crusader and tax-evading father of Hollywood madam Heidi...

ATLANTA, June 30 - To reduce the rising number of whooping cough cases in this country, a panel advising the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended Thursday that a new booster vaccine be routinely given to all 11- and 12-year-olds. During a two-day meeting here, the 15-member panel, known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, also strengthened recommendations on vaccines against hepatitis B and chickenpox. The booster vaccine for whooping cough, or pertussis, is needed because immunity to it wanes 5 to 10 years after the initial vaccination. But an additional shot will not be needed because the...

When Jeanna Giese, 15, arrived at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin last October with rapidly worsening neurological symptoms, the fact that she had handled a bat a month earlier raised the possibility that she had rabies. Dr. Rodney E. Willoughby Jr., who examined Jeanna, did not think it was likely. But as a pediatric infectious disease specialist, he called the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to seek the agency's help in performing rabies tests. Dr. Willoughby told the C.D.C. rabies expert that over a five-day period Jeanna had developed fatigue, tingling and numbness in her left hand, double vision, an...

Whooping Cough Outbreak Communities throughout the U.S. are experiencing whooping cough (pertussis) outbreaks - the worst in 40 years. If the school nurse or the health department informs you that there is a pertussis outbreak in your school or community, you may need to call your pediatrician. The school or health department will tell you if your child was directly exposed and requires antibiotics. Health departments across the country are acting quickly to prevent the spread of pertussis, so your cooperation in contacting your pediatrician is crucial. Please follow the instruction of the health department. The care of children in...