Vaccine Injury Claims Expected to Increase in 2016
It came as no surprise to me that during the meeting of the Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines (ACCV) on December 4, 2015 the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and Division of Injury Compensation Programs (DICP) reported that the number of vaccine injury claims for this fiscal year will exceed previous years. I have monitored this committee for the past six years and have seen the number of claims rise every year. Sadly, they are…
Recently Vaccinated Kids Are Spreading Pertussis Everywhere
There was fuss in the media last month about a little study of 26 vaccinated Florida pre-schoolers, who got sick with B. pertussis whooping cough or had pertussis-like symptoms during a five-month period in 2013. All of the children, aged one to five years attending the Tallahassee preschool, had received three to four doses of pertussis vaccine (DtaP) according to the CDC…
American College of Pediatricians Warns About Gardasil Risk
The American College of Pediatricians (ACP) released a statement last month expressing concerns about Merck and Co.’s human papillomavirus vaccine, Gardasil, and its correlation to premature ovarian failure, also known as premature menopause. The ACP’s concerns are based on two case report series published since 2013 in which girls vaccinated with Gardasil developed premature menopause. Further, there have been 213 reports of
The Immunocompromised Still Get Vaccinated
One of the more often repeated reasons you hear as to why everyone should get vaccinated is “to protect the immunocompromised”—those persons whose immune system is so weakened or suppressed that they cannot tolerate the effects a vaccine might have on them. These may include patients who are undergoing treatment for a medical condition. For example, chemotherapy for cancer. It may include people with AIDS, or organ transplant patients who are on immunosuppressive drugs. It may include individuals who have inherited diseases, such as congenital agammaglobulinemia or congenital IgA deficiency, that affect their immune system.
Flu Shots Urged for Pregnant Women Despite Unknown Effects
The flu vaccine is widely recommended for pregnant women, despite a lack of adequate safety testing. It was around this time in 2014 that a study came out in the New England Journal of Medicine stating the flu vaccine provided partial protection against confirmed influenza in pregnant women and their infants. The media began touting headlines like “flu vaccine safe…
Bad Batches: The Effect of Temperature Fluctuations in Vaccines
Parents can easily research the ingredients in vaccines and know their family’s medical history to determine the benefit-to-risk profile of those vaccines. But what if a vaccine is altered by temperature variations? Most people, including medical staff, are unaware that the quality and effectiveness of vaccines is critically dependent on proper transport, handling and storage by both the manufacturers and providers. And it seems that bad batches of vaccines, due to temperature variations, may be occurring more often than people realize, creating a largely overlooked and growing global problem of waste and revaccination.
