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Most parents skeptical, but still follow the vaccine schedule
A report in the journal Health Affairs this week tells us two things: one, most parents of children under age six have concerns about vaccines, and two, most parents have their kids vaccinated nonetheless.
The fact that vaccine concerns are so widespread (in the sample population of 376 parents of one or more young children, 83% said they were worried about vaccinations) is of concern to public health officials. But even with the fear of shots, most families go ahead with their doctors’ recommendations.
Here are the top concerns that parents have about children’s vaccines. And here’s how many opted out of vaccinations completely: Continue reading »
Not just unvaccinated traveling kids at risk
We’ve heard that measles cases are popping up in the U.S. in unvaccinated children, but the CDC is reporting that the trend is escalating, with double the cases so far this year (January to April) than would be expected from an entire year.
The World Health Organization, which had at one point thought the world would soon be virtually rid of measles, has moved the date of that goal to 2015 (which, from the reports now sounds like an unattainable goal).
Kids in the U.S. who are not vaccinated and travel abroad are the most likely to be infected and spread the virus. The LA Times noted a case in 2008 in which an unvaccinated seven-year-old boy from San Diego travelled with his parents to Switzerland, caught the measles, brought it back and infected his siblings, kids at his school and at his doctor’s office. According to the Times, “The outbreak forced about 70 children to be quarantined at home.” The parents had chosen not to vaccinate him or his siblings.
In California this year, every month more cases of measles are reported than in the previous month.
Public health officials say that kids who travel are at risk, but isn’t that a two way street? Continue reading »
Affluent parents are forgoing vaccines more often.
Middle-class and upper-class parents typically have better access to health care than low-income mommies and daddies. Yet more affluent parents are skipping vaccines for their little ones.
A new report shows a sharp drop in the vaccination rate among privately insured kids, while those on Medicaid continue to get their shots at a gradually improving rate.
What’s causing the drop? It’s not lack of access or education, the usual barricades to good medical care.
Instead, doctors worry that parents are being taken in by anti-vaccine activists like Jenny McCarthy. They fear more and more people are deliberately going vaccines because of needless safety fears.
Social trends have a bigger impact on vaccination rates and the spread of illness than we thought, say Harvard scientists. Small changes in how people view a vaccine’s “costs”—meaning side effects, as well as money and convenience – can turn a contained outbreak of an illness into a major epidemic four times the size.
California is in the midst of its worst epidemic of the potentially deadly whooping cough in 50 years – are attitudes and social trends contributing to the spread of the disease? Continue reading »
Whooping cough has officially been declared an epidemic in California and could soon break a 50-year record for infections in one year. Since June 15, 910 cases of the preventable disease have been reported in the state.
Five babies under 3 months of age have died from the infection this year. In 1952, 15 people succumbed to the lung disease.
Cases of whooping cough, the common name for “pertussis,” has increased fourfold since last year. Deaths from the disease have been reported from around the state. Continue reading »
A panel in Great Britain has ruled that the doctor who published a 1998 study that challenged the safety of vaccines acted unethically in his attempts to test whether the shots put children at risk for autism.
The General Medical Council didn’t look into the purported link shots/autism link — that study has long since been discredited. Rather, it looked into Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s research methodology and found that he acted with “callous disregard for the distress and pain the children might suffer.” Continue reading »
Mark this one down in the “if, then” column. A new study says if you don’t get your kids the chicken pox vaccine, they are at an extremely high risk of catching the disease.
Hence the point of vaccines. Continue reading »
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