Shot of Prevention

By Lynn Bozof

Lynn Bozof is one of five founding members of the National Meningitis Association.

It’s great news that there is now a second vaccine licensed for meningococcal meningitis.  Unfortunately, I know from personal experience that meningococcal meningitis is a killer disease.  I lost my 20 year old son, Evan, to meningitis, not knowing that his life could have been saved by a vaccine.  Evan had all the vaccines that were recommended before he started college, but no one told us about meningitis.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now recommends routine vaccination for all 11-18 year olds and for college freshmen living in dorms, at the earliest possible opportunity.  I never thought that tragedy would strike my family, but it did.  I will never get over the loss of my son, and I don’t want others to suffer the same tragedy, as there is a safe, effective vaccine available.  Please visit the National Meningitis Association Web site, www.nmaus.org for more information.

By Amy Pisani

It seems like we’ve been hearing less about H1N1 recently, but it’s important to be mindful of the uncertainty of this virus, and to continue to protect ourselves through vaccination. Experts are not willing to close the book on H1N1 just yet. According to today’s Washington Post, “Influenza transmission waxes and wanes, and outbreaks of novel pandemic strains occur in particularly unpredictable waves that depend on such variables as human behavior, atmospheric conditions and even competition from other microbes. That places them among the bigger mysteries of epidemiology, the science of disease outbreaks.”

 The Posts David Brown explains that, “ The ‘Spanish flu’ of 1918 had four waves of greatly differing deadliness, spread over two years. The “Asian flu” of 1957, like the current H1N1 strain, had a late-spring and a fall wave — followed by a third in late winter of 1958. It then took a year off before peaking again in 1960. The ‘Hong Kong flu’ of 1968 had more than a year hiatus between its two waves, with the second infecting nearly as many people as the first.”

Read the full article, here.

The Vaccine/Autism Debate: Is It Finally Over?

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Check out this video “Momversation” of parents reacting to the recent Lancet retraction. Mommy blogger Daphne Brogdon of Cool Mom gathers some of her fellow parenting bloggers and asks to answer the following questions: Do parents like Jenny MCarthy still insist that the MMR vaccine caused their children’s disorder? Is this the final word on the vaccine-autism link? Or will people cling to the idea that vaccines can cause autism?

Check out the following items from our friends at Families Fighting Flu. They have some excellent resources to offer!

Participate in the Families Fighting Flu Survey!

FFF created an online survey to help gauge parents’ behaviors and attitudes about flu vaccination this flu season in comparison to previous non-pandemic seasons. By completing the survey, parents of children aged 6 months to 18 years will have the opportunity to win a $250 American Express gift card. One winner will be randomly selected and notified via e-mail by March 31, 2010. We encourage you to participate and spread the news to all eligible parents! The survey is available here from February 18 through March 12. We look forward to sharing the results.

Families Fighting Flu: A Guide For Parents

For important information about influenza, check out the blog Families Fighting Flu: A Guide for Parents by Jon Abramson, M.D. and his daughter Rebecca. Dr. Abramson, a medical advisor and ex-officio board member of FFF has been working in the area of influenza since 1981. Dr. Abramson and his daughter created this blog to educate parents and address some of the misinformation about the flu and flu vaccination.

 Did you know that three human influenza pandemics occurred in the 20th century, each resulting in illness in approximately 20 to 30 percent of the world population? You can read more about pandemics in the latest chapter, Pandemic Influenza Due to the 2009 Novel H1N1 Virus.  

Check out this video from Morning Joe which aired this morning.  Co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski had Chris Mooney, author of Unscientific America, and NBC’s Dr. Nancy Snyderman on the  show this morning to discuss vaccines and the Lancet retraction. Both Dr. Snyderman and Mr. Mooney talked about scientific illiteracy in America, and the need to move past the vaccine and autism debate, especially since the Wakefield study has been expunged from the scientific record.  When asked about whether there were any studies that suggested a link between vaccines and autism Dr. Snyderman unequivocally stated “no.”

Click here for the video.

By Amy Pisani

Journalist Michael Fumento’s opinion piece in today’s LA Times touches on the ramifications of the 1998 Wakefield study, which was retracted this week by the original publisher, The Lancet.  Fumento writes, “Never mind that by 2008, more than 20 articles published in peer-reviewed medical journals found no connection between MMR vaccine and autism…There’s also a mountain of reassuring evidence regarding thimerosal-preserved vaccines.”   Wakefield’s study, for which he has been reprimanded by the General Medical Council, “set us back a decade, and we’re just recovering from that” according to Mark Sawyer, San Diego-based pediatrician and infectious disease specialist interviewed for the article.

Fumento highlights the fact that some anti-vaccine groups, such as the National Vaccine Information Center, who oppose mandatory vaccines disregard the importance of ensuring herd immunity to protect the unvaccinated.  Fumento interviewed ECBT Spokesperson Danielle Romaguera, whose baby died of whooping cough.  Romaguera asks the public to be aware that their decisions affect other people’s children and diseases do still exist, and can kill.

Read the full story here: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-fumento5-2010feb05,0,3589719.story