Health care workers’ fear of flu shots has risen as an issue again.
Refusing flu vaccination has risen among health professionals again and again. And again. And again and again.
Vaccination rates for health care workers stands at 35%, which is “a dismal rate,” according to Margaret C. Fisher, MD, a pediatric disease subspecialist and the medical director of The Children’s Hospital at Monmouth Medical Center. She spoke about vaccinating adults and health care workers at Internal Medicine 2011.
The issue is as annual as the flu itself, and this time, a physician at London’s Imperial College NHS Trust has jumped into the debate, tackling misinformation given within his country’s own health service. He said: “A very interesting question for me is Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
Yellow fever is an affliction caused by a potentially lethal viral (flavivirus) hemorrhagic (causes bleeding) virus common in parts of Africa and South America. A highly effective vaccine made from live virus (known as the “17D vaccine”) is currently used to inject persons to prevent yellow fever; this vaccine is known to rarely cause serious adverse effects, namely, onset of allergic reactions, or a life-threatening or fatal infection that resembles yellow fever.
So, there is need for a safer (“nonreplicating”—in other words, not based on live virus) vaccine. In a recent article, “An Inactivated Cell-Culture Vaccine against Yellow Fever,” Thomas Monath, MD and his coauthors described their experience with a potentially safer vaccine (NEJM, 2011;364:1326-33). In their study, Read more »
Some parents remain unpersuaded that all childhood vaccines are safe or even necessary, a new survey published in Health Affairs shows.
While most parents vaccinate their children, they lack confidence in them, researchers pointed out. Parental education should include thorough explanations why infants should be fully immunized before age two.
Vaccination levels for most recommended vaccines were above 90% of national immunization goals in 2009, reported the CDC’s National Immunization Survey. But, researchers wrote, high immunization rates aren’t the same as high confidence in the vaccines.
Using data from the 2010 HealthStyles survey of 6,253 households (response rate 67%), researchers identified Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
A friend suggested she was tired of hearing about vaccines. Her comment and our subsequent conversation seemed to reflect an important shift in parent sentiment: The conversation about vaccines is beginning to get somewhere.
What struck me is the deep history behind the anti-vaccine movement. From Jenner’s smallpox fix to modern-day MMR struggles, Offit draws fascinating corollaries surrounding immunization that seem to defy the generations. Vaccine resistance was not born of Andrew Wakefield, but broader concerns rooted in religion, individual liberty, fear and propaganda. “Deadly Choices” puts the anti-vaccine movement in a historic sequence that reads like good suspense. I couldn’t put it down. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at 33 Charts*
The BMJ’s statement this week that the 1998 article by Andrew Wakefield and 12 others “linking MMR vaccine and autism was fraudulent” demonstrates what a difference one journalist can make. Journalist Brian Deer played a key role in uncovering and dismantling the Wakefield story.
CNN’s Anderson Cooper had a segment worth watching, including a new interview Cooper conducted with Wakefield via Skype:
Unfortunately, journalism played a key role in promoting Wakefield’s claims. The “Respectful Insolence” blog referred to one journalist as “CBS’ resident anti-vaccine propagandist.” Around the world there were many other examples of journalists’ unquestioning acceptance of the vaccine scares.
The BMJ reminds us that “the damage to public health continues, fuelled by unbalanced media reporting and an ineffective response from government, researchers, journals, and the medical profession.”
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Health care workers’ fear of flu shots has risen as an issue again.
Yellow fever is an affliction caused by a potentially lethal viral (flavivirus) hemorrhagic (causes bleeding) virus common in parts of Africa and South America. A highly effective vaccine made from live virus (known as the “17D vaccine”) is currently used to inject persons to prevent yellow fever; this vaccine is known to rarely cause serious adverse effects, namely, onset of allergic reactions, or a life-threatening or fatal infection that resembles yellow fever.
