11 Cases of Polio-like Paralysis Confirmed Before Onset of AFM “Season”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced on July 9, 2019 that it had confirmed 11 cases of acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) in eight states this year, including four cases in California and cases in Maryland, Nebraska, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah and West Virginia. The CDC is investigating another 46 possible cases […]
What’s So Effective About a Flu Vaccine That’s Less Than 10 Percent “Effective”?
Sometimes topics for opinion pieces just fall out of the sky. Last week, officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that the new estimate for the effectiveness of the influenza vaccine during the second half of the 2018-2019 “flu season” was only nine percent. That’s pretty bad even by influenza vaccine […]
Polio-like Guillain-Barré Syndrome on the Rise in Peru
The government of Peru declared a 90-day health emergency earlier this month following an outbreak of Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) that has killed at least four people in the country. According to the Institute of Neurological Sciences (INCN) in Lima, Peru, the emergency was declared because the cases “have unusual and atypical characteristics that require rapid […]
HPV Vaccine Mandated for All 10-Year-Old Girls in Costa Rica
In October 2017, the government of Costa Rica added the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine to the country’s national vaccination program. The decision to do so was based on the recommendation of the Costa Rican Ministry of Health’s National Commission on Vaccination and Epidemiology (CNVE), which is the Costa Rican government’s equivalent of the U.S. Centers […]