A Pox on the Taxpayer
Filed under: CDC Watch, Opinion, Vaccine Science, Vaccine/Disease Analysis
A handful of countries recommend the chickenpox (varicella) vaccine for all children and an even smaller group have a chickenpox booster on the schedule. The US leads the pack of countries with a 2 shot schedule, and following along are Ecuador, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Greece, and part of Australia.
Some countries give the shot to adolescents, others offer it to members of “risk groups”… and a few have a one-shot schedule for toddlers: Canada, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Cyprus, Latvia, and Korea. A grand total of 26 countries offer the shot in one way or another. [1]
The US was the first country to recommend the shot for all toddlers, in 1996 :
…. empiric data on medical utilization and costs of work-loss resulting from varicella were used. The results of this study, which were determined using an estimated cost of $35 per dose of vaccine and $5 for vaccine administration, indicated a savings of $5.40 for each dollar spent on routine vaccination of preschool-age children when direct and indirect costs were considered. When only direct medical costs were considered, the benefit-cost ratio was 0.90:1. [2] (emphases added)
But it turned out that a single shot of varicella vaccine didn’t work to suppress chickenpox.
…varicella outbreaks have regularly been observed in populations with high vaccination coverage and are the cause of sizable disease and economic impact for public health departments and the US health system overall. To further reduce varicella disease burden, a routine 2-dose varicella vaccination recommendation was approved by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) in June 2006 (first dose for children 12–15 months of age, second dose for children 4–6 years of age) . [3]
The single-shot regimen showed a narrow margin of benefit only when placed alongside income lost by parents staying home to care for sick children.
But when the one-shot program failed, the ACIP came up with another cost/benefit justification for the second shot where the evidence….
….included ongoing disease burden and varicella-zoster virus transmission, including transmission from breakthrough cases to high-risk persons that may lead to severe disease and even death (CDC, unpublished data); partial or complete susceptibility in 1-dose vaccine recipients as they become adults; the burden on public health agencies due to varicella outbreaks in highly vaccinated school settings, which have proven disruptive to society and costly to control; and the increased immunity and disease protection from a second dose. Overall, the 2-dose strategy still provides very high cost savings (>$0.9 billion from societal perspective). [3] (emphases added)
So the ACIP justifications for adding a second dose, used the consequences of their decision to recommend the first dose of varicella vaccine. These ingenious calculations created a bigger cost savings than their first round! Read more
Vaccine Myths Round Four
Filed under: Parents' Pages, Vaccine Myths, Vaccine/Disease Analysis
Vaccines saved us: just visit an old graveyard and look at all the markers for dead babies and children.
Graph provided by Health Sentinel
Click on the graph to enlarge it. For more graphs go here.
When the vaccine arguments are hot and furious, a frequent insult is: “You don’t understand the science!” The confusion in this case doesn’t arise from ignorance of science, but from ignorance of history. The people who think that vaccines saved millions of children from death see the story like this:
Childhood illnesses run uncontrolled through the population leaving dead bodies in every house. Parents are in despair. Brave doctor cooks up a vaccine, the disease stops dead, and all children come through to a healthy adulthood. Read more
Mumps Vaccine: Perceptions and Emerging Realities
Mumps outbreaks are occurring in highly vaccinated populations and this has led to differences in opinion amongst scientists around the efficacy of the vaccine, with various mechanisms of failure being put forward. It has been suggested that the number of vaccinated young adults (18-24 yrs) who contracted mumps in the US in 2006 form a small percentage of the overall vaccinated population. The fact that 84% were vaccinated with two doses is reduced to a minor detail when numbers are crunched in the “right” way. However, this is not the view of all scientists. There is concern as to why highly vaccinated populations are having mumps outbreaks. By choosing to avoid the issue, essentially ignoring the reason why young adults who have been vaccinated twice with the MMR are coming down with mumps, the evidence on the real efficacy of mass vaccination against a benign childhood disease is not discussed. Read more
Where Do They Find These Scary Statistics III – Let’s Make a Few Assumptions – Hepatitis B
Filed under: CDC Watch, Vaccine Science, Vaccine/Disease Analysis
Parents have questions about the risk-benefit equation of the Hepatitis B vaccine. It is possible for a parent to be quite certain that their infant is not at risk of prenatal or birth exposure to this disease. The risk factors for exposure during infancy, early childhood, and the elementary school years can be reasonably well assessed on an individual basis. Read more
Health Marketing, Risk Communication, and the Media
Remember the Great Influenza Vaccine Shortage a few years back?
Panic swept the nation after the FDA rejected many European flu shots because of possible contamination during manufacturing. What was left was rationed according to age and risk factors, and the public could be seen every night on the news waiting in long lines to get the remaining doses.
Now, setting aside for the moment the ongoing questions regarding the usefulness of flu shots in any age group, especially the elderly, one might come to wonder what has changed in recent years to bring about this new terror regarding influenza.
The answer, as outlandish and implausible as it might sound, is that this fear has been manufactured and marketed by the people in public health. Read more
Where Do They Find These Scary Statistics?
Filed under: CDC Watch, News, Vaccine Science, Vaccine/Disease Analysis
Dr. Gerberding of the CDC
[Series Links: Part II, Part III]
Remember Hannah Poling? The head of the CDC, dressed in a very nice pink suit, appeared on TV and discussed Hannah’s case. In one of her appearances she said something like this: “Vaccines prevent 33,000 deaths a year in the United States.” Just to make sure I had the statement right, I searched for the phrase and found it again, from CNN, this time in print.
Today, through immunizations given in the first two years of life, we can protect children from 16 diseases, preventing 33,000 deaths and 14 million illnesses per year.
A few searches made it clear that this is a very popular statistic. A variety of news stories included the information that vaccines prevent 33,000 deaths a year in the United States. This is an interesting number to anyone who knows a bit about the history of infectious diseases. I decided to dig deeper.
My next find was this chart, which is on a the web-site of an organization called Every Child by Two. The chart provides morbidity (incidence) and mortality (deaths) for each disease. How in the world would someone be able to calculate (for example) the exact number of cases of diphtheria which would occur and the exact number of deaths which would follow? Amazing! There must be some truly extraordinary scientific research underlying these numbers, don’t you think? Read more
For the Good of the Herd
Filed under: CDC Watch, Parents' Pages, Vaccine/Disease Analysis
In an era where CDC experts are saying, “Just line up for Gardasil, and you’ll have a 70% reduced chance of getting cancer”, are parents asking any critical questions about the crystal ball gazing abilities of these experts now and in the past? Why is there talk of adding a third MMR vaccine into the childhood schedule, and also putting it into adult vaccination programs as regular boosters?
Will most people just roll up their sleeve, assuming the new ideas will have the good outcome the CDC will predict?
Most of those people won’t know, that in 1967, the CDC said: *
For centuries the measles virus has maintained a remarkably stable ecological relationship with man. The clinical disease is a characteristic syndrome of notable constancy and only moderate severity. Complications are infrequent, and, with adequate medical care, fatality is rare.
Effective use of these vaccines during the coming winter and spring should insure the eradication of measles from the United States in 1967. Read more
Where to start?
Parenthood is tough! Decisions, decisions, decisions. And here in “The Information Age”, many parents feel that there is no room for poorly informed choices for The Big Decisions. For many parents, the issue of vaccines was at one time a “no brainer”. Children were “completely” vaccinated. Everyone believed that vaccines were necessary to save your baby’s life. For the majority, vaccines were completely beyond debate. Today, many parents are questioning the safety and necessity of the large numbers of vaccines on the schedule, particularly for obscure or milder diseases. Vaccine necessity, which used to be taken for granted, has suddenly become an uncertain, debatable matter that has to be researched in depth.
What are the issues which require consideration as one steps outside the “Just do whatever your doctor tells you to do!” mindset?
- 1) the ethics of vaccine decisions in light of herd immunity
- 2) the immediate risk to the baby or child from both the diseases and the vaccines
- 3) the social stigma of possibly going against the flow and not following the recommended schedule
- 4) and the confusing, often conflicting ocean of scientific literature on the topic.
So where should a parent start? Read more
MRSA and Child Flu Deaths
Recent news stories about a link between MRSA and flu deaths in children raise some interesting questions in light of our Sisyphus series (Part I, Part II and Part III).
“Being a carrier of MRSA has increased a lot, especially among school-aged kids,” said Lyn Finelli, chief of influenza surveillance at the CDC. “And being colonized may put them at risk for a severe staph aureus infection when they get the flu.”
This particular news story blames the problem on antibiotic overuse, and, of course, recommends the flu vaccine to save children from this dangerous situation. Read more
Vaccine Information Statements For Dummies
Before any doctor gives your baby vaccines, you should be given Vaccination Information Sheets (VISs) to read.
Developed by the CDC, they inform vaccine recipients, their parents or legal representative, about the benefits and risks of vaccines. (1) Federal Law requires their use. This is a result of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, 42 U.S.C. 300aa-26. (1) Before 1986, parents didn’t have any right to printed information about vaccines.
VISs sound like a good system. Parents get concise and easy to understand information on a vaccine’s risks and benefits so they can make an informed decision.
Is that really how it works? Let’s examine the nuts and bolts of VISs.
Read more