by Barbara Loe Fisher
Without scientific evidence that it is both safe and effective to repeatedly administer influenza vaccine to children, the members of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices(ACIP) voted yesterday(Feb. 28) to vaccinate all infants and children up to age 18 with influenza vaccine every year. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/health/28flu.ht ml? em&ex=1204261200&en=a727f3655a7f32cc&ei=5087 %0A The vote came in the middle of a flu season that has seen widespread outbreaks of type A and type B strains of influenza that were not included in this year's influenza vaccine. http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0 850501820080208? feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews&sp=true A report out of Canada last fall indicated that influenza vaccine strains contained in last year's vaccines appeared to be mutating. http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNe ws/20071024/flu_shot_071024/20071024hub=TopSto ries
The questionable safey and efficacy of influenza vaccine has been a subject of controversy for decades, despite the insistence by the drug industry and doctors selling the vaccine and government health officials promoting its use that most Americans should get a flu shot every year. Often public health officials at the World Health Organization (WHO) and in the U.S. fail to choose the right influenza strains for the vaccine. http://www.nvic.org/History/News letters/%203770Reaction.pdf
In the past few years, comprehensive reviews of influenza vaccine studies published in the medical literature revealed a stunning lack of scientific support for the safety and effectiveness of giving influenza vaccine to not only children but also to the elderly http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/333/7574/912. The truth is that (1) only 20 percent of all respiratory flu-like illness in a normal flu season is, in fact influenza, and misdiagnosis often occurs; (2) the CDC has never provided published documentation that 36,000 Americans die from actual influenza every year versus respiratory illness that looks like influenza but is not; (3) there is little scientific evidence that influenza vaccine works or is safe for anyone; (4) government policies targeting all infants and children for annual flu vaccination may well endanger the long term health of this and future generations of children by atypically manipulating the immune system with repeated vaccination in an attempt to prevent all natural experience with type A or type B influzenza; and (5) these misguided flu vaccine policies could not only weaken the ability of future generations to experience and successfully heal from a bout with the flu without severe complications or death but also could put pressure on influenza viruses to mutate into more virulent, vaccine resistent forms that will cause future virulent epidemics in populations.
The majority of the American public, including doctors and nurses, refuse to get a flu shot every year despite the millions of dollars spent by the pharmaceutical industry and taxpayer money spent by the CDC to vigorously promote its use. http://www.cidrap.u mn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/general/news/jul0207 acip.html Recently, there have been calls by doctors advocating a cradle to the grave approach to vaccination that would require all 300 million Americans to get an annual flu shot. http://www.abcnews.go.com/Health/Flu/s tory?id=3781181
The drug companies selling flu vaccine have one goal: making profit on the millions of doses of vaccine produced every year rather than throwing it away because of poor uptake. CDC officials, eager to help the drug companies out, keep issuing ever widening recommendations to qualify more Americans for getting a flu shot. What began as an effort decades ago to protect those over 65 from complications of influenza that can be deadly for the elderly, has become a boondoggle for drug companies selling and doctors making profit on administering influenza vaccine to everyone, including babies, children and adults.
For the past four decades, every time the CDC has recommended a vaccine for "universal use" by children, those "recommendations" are translated into vaccine laws at the state level. Last year, New Jersey became the first state to mandate influenza vaccine for children as a requirement for attending school. Most states now require nearly three dozen doses vaccines that the CDC has "recommended."
The majority of Americans may not want to get a flu shot every year but the time is soon approaching when they will have no choice. Strident calls by vaccine makers, administrators and policymakers for more vaccine mandates and societal punishments for refusing to comply (" No shots - no education, no health insurance, no job) are paving the way for the day when rolling up your sleeve for a flu shot will become as mandatory and punishable as drinking and driving.
Increasingly, the CDC is guilty of endangering the public health, not protecting it. There is no excuse for issuing vaccine policies not supported by scientific data. The only recourse the public has is to change vaccine laws in the states to allow exemptions for conscientious and religious beliefs, as well as widen the medical exemption to allow enlightened doctors to exempt those with health conditions that are not acknowledged by the CDC as a reason for deferring vaccination. If vaccine laws cannot be made more flexible by allowing wider exemptions, then the day will come when the public will have no choice but to work for the repeal of all vaccine laws.
The National Vaccine Information Center remains committed to working to insert vaccine safety and informed consent protections in vaccine laws in America.
NO FORCED VACCINATION. NOT IN AMERICA.
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"All children ages 6 months to 18 years in this country should receive an influenza shot every year, a federal advisory panel said on Wednesday [Feb. 27, 2008] . The recommendation expands by about 30 million the number of children who should get annual flu shots. Current pediatric recommendations call for influenza vaccinations for children ages 6 months to about 5 years....The committee voted unanimously that the expanded immunization should start as soon as possible, but no later than the 2009-10 flu season. The centers expect that the vaccine industry, which made 132 million doses available this year, will be able to produce a sufficient supply in future years. Every state but one has reported widespread influenza this winter....... The C.D.C. has long urged older adults and those with chronic ailments to get influenza shots each season. In 2004, following the advisory committee's recommendation, the centers urged that all infants ages 6 months to 23 months receive flu shots....In 2006, the centers expanded the recommendation to include children ages 24 months to 59 months....- Lawrence Altman, New York Times, (February 28, 2008) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/health/28flu.ht ml? em&ex=1204261200&en=a727f3655a7f32cc&ei=5087 %0A
The advisory committee to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggested that the new guidelines go into effect as soon as possible and no later than the 2009-10 influenza season. That would encourage private insurers and taxpayer- funded vaccination programs to pay for flu shots or nasal sprays for an additional 30 million children across the country. "This new recommendation will help parents understand that all children can benefit from vaccination," said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. The announcement comes during a flu season that has many parents doubting the vaccine's effectiveness. Some children and adults who received flu shots in recent months still came down with the illness because one of this year's common strains was not included in the vaccine. "(Vaccinating all children) is a waste of money and resources because the vaccine isn't that effective," said Dawn Richardson, president of the Austin-based Parents Requesting Open Vaccine Education, a group that opposes universal vaccinations. She said she also worries about side effects of the flu shot.......One driving force behind the expanded recommendation is increased availability of the vaccine, said Carol J. Baker, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Texas Children's Hospital who serves on the advisory panel. She also serves as president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases. - Alexis Grant, Houston Chronicle, (February 27, 2008) http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/55 77063.html
| Panel Advises Flu Shots for Children Up to Age 18 The New York Times
February 28, 2008
by Lawrence Altman
Click here for the URL: All children ages 6 months to 18 years in this country should receive an influenza shot every year, a federal advisory panel said on Wednesday.
The recommendation expands by about 30 million the number of children who should get annual flu shots. Current pediatric recommendations call for influenza vaccinations for children ages 6 months to about 5 years.
In expanding the new upper age limit to 18 years, the aim is to reduce both the time children and parents lose from visits to pediatricians and missing school and the need for antibiotics for complications, said Dr. Anne Schuchat, who directs the disease agency's program on immunization and respiratory diseases.
An added expected benefit would be indirect - to reduce the number of influenza cases among parents and other household members, and possibly spread to the general community. The recommendation, which is voluntary, was made by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice, which advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. The C.D.C. and its parent, the Department of Health and Human Services, generally follow the advice of the committee, which is composed of vaccine experts from academia and the private sector.
The committee voted unanimously that the expanded immunization should start as soon as possible, but no later than the 2009-10 flu season. The centers expect that the vaccine industry, which made 132 million doses available this year, will be able to produce a sufficient supply in future years.
Every state but one has reported widespread influenza this winter. In Florida, activity is regional. Last week, the centers reported that 22 children had died in this influenza season.
The C.D.C. has long urged older adults and those with chronic ailments to get influenza shots each season. In 2004, following the advisory committee's recommendation, the centers urged that all infants ages 6 months to 23 months receive flu shots to protect them from serious complications of the viral illness. Hospitalization rates among the infant group rivals those among elderly Americans.
In 2006, the centers expanded the recommendation to include children ages 24 months to 59 months to provide them direct protection against influenza infection.
For initial protection, children ages 6 months to 9 years require two doses of flu vaccine, at least one month apart, the committee said. Then they should receive annual shots.
In a new study reported at Wednesday's meeting, Dr. David K. Shay, who led a team from the C.D.C. and eight state health departments, found that full immunization against flu provided about a 75 percent effectiveness rate in preventing hospitalizations from influenza complications in the 2005-6 and 2006-7 influenza seasons. (The 75 percent rate could range, according to a standard statistical measure known as confidence intervals, from 41 percent to 91 percent.)
The study, which involved children ages 6 months to 23 months who had laboratory confirmed cases of influenza, will continue through this flu season. Because this season seems to be more severe than the last two, the researchers expect to have more cases to analyze and improve the statistical odds.
Vaccines are typically designed to protect against the three strains of influenza. Experts determine the strains based on data from current seasonal transmission and their judgment about future activity. Usually one or two strains are changed in each year's vaccine.
But committees from the World Health Organization and the United States Food and Drug Administration voted earlier this month to change all three strains in next season's vaccine. It is the first time that all three strains were changed at once, Dr. Nancy Cox, an influenza expert at the C.D.C., said in a news conference on Feb. 22.
The centers recommendations for annual flu shots for adults include all Americans ages 50 and older; people with chronic lung, heart and other ailments; health care workers; and women who will be pregnant during the influenza season.
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Despite being vaccinated, Shannon Scott's 11-year- old daughter, Courtney Williams, caught the flu this year, a strain not covered by the vaccine. It took her a month and a half to recover.
STEVE CAMPBELL: CHRONICLE
CDC pushes flu shots for toddlers to teens Houston Chronicle
February 27, 2008
by Alexis Grant
Click here for the URL: All children older than 6 months should receive a flu shot every year, a federal panel recommended Wednesday, pushing for expansion of the current recommendation that covers children only up to age 5.
The advisory committee to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggested that the new guidelines go into effect as soon as possible and no later than the 2009-10 influenza season. That would encourage private insurers and taxpayer- funded vaccination programs to pay for flu shots or nasal sprays for an additional 30 million children across the country.
"This new recommendation will help parents understand that all children can benefit from vaccination," said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.
The announcement comes during a flu season that has many parents doubting the vaccine's effectiveness. Some children and adults who received flu shots in recent months still came down with the illness because one of this year's common strains was not included in the vaccine.
"(Vaccinating all children) is a waste of money and resources because the vaccine isn't that effective," said Dawn Richardson, president of the Austin-based Parents Requesting Open Vaccine Education, a group that opposes universal vaccinations. She said she also worries about side effects of the flu shot.
Children, the elderly and people with other health conditions such as asthma are most at risk for contracting flu. Vaccinating all children not only helps prevent them from catching it. It also keeps them from spreading it to other high-risk groups, pediatricians say.
Peak time for illness
Flu activity in Texas is now widespread, according to the CDC. That's not unusual for this time of year, because influenza peaks in Texas during January and February, said Emily Palmer, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of State Health Services. The season typically runs through March, but can run as late as May.
Seven children in Texas have died from flu since November, Palmer reported. Three of those were in Harris County.
Four of the children who have died were older than 5. The state does not track flu-related adult deaths.
The new vaccination recommendation must be approved by the CDC, which is expected to adopt the change.
That would be good news for Shannon Scott, whose 11-year-old daughter, Courtney Williams, caught the flu this year.
Courtney and her family get flu shots every year because her immune deficiency disorder puts her at high risk. The fifth-grader caught a strain that wasn't covered by the vaccine, however, and it took her a month and a half to recover.
"I think it would be best that everybody got (vaccinated), just to keep it from spreading," said Scott, who lives in Splendora, in Montgomery County.
Increased availability
One driving force behind the expanded recommendation is increased availability of the vaccine, said Carol J. Baker, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Texas Children's Hospital who serves on the advisory panel. She also serves as president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.
MedImmune, manufacturer of the nasal spray vaccine FluMist, on Wednesday announced plans to meet increased demand. The company will prepare about 12 million doses for the next flu season, a record number for MedImmune.
MedImmune and other manufacturers created about 130 million doses this year. CDC officials and pediatricians say there is plenty of vaccine for those who still need protection.
Local flu expert Dr. Paul Glezen said the recommendation could help increase immunization rates, which have leveled off over the past decade.
"What you have to recognize is that the current strategy is not effective," said Glezen, lead epidemiologist at Baylor College of Medicine's Influenza Research Center. "We have not been controlling influenza." |
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