Risk the Shot or Risk the Flu

  • A study by the Harvard School of Public Health finds that only 51% of parents nationwide plan to get their kids vaccinated against the new swine flu. (Photo courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

Public health officials want people
to get vaccinated for swine flu.
But only half of parents nationwide
say they plan to get their kids vaccinated.
Many say they’re worried about vaccine
side-effects. Julie Grant reports some
government policies may have inadvertently
made people concerned about vaccine safety:

Transcript

Public health officials want people
to get vaccinated for swine flu.
But only half of parents nationwide
say they plan to get their kids vaccinated.
Many say they’re worried about vaccine
side-effects. Julie Grant reports some
government policies may have inadvertently
made people concerned about vaccine safety:

Some of the schools near where I live in Ohio have absentee
rates of 20%. Kids are reporting flu-like symptoms. Some
schools are even closing down to keep more people from
getting sick.

At the same time, a study by the Harvard School of Public
Health finds that only 51% of parents nationwide plan to get
their kids vaccinated against the new swine flu.

The vaccine has a serious public relations problem.

One reason people are worried: thimerosal.

Thimerosal is a preservative used in vaccines. It prevents
bacteria and fungus from contaminating vaccine bottles.
Thimerosal is almost half mercury, by weight. And that
makes a lot of people nervous.

As a precaution, it was taken out of most American vaccines
about twenty years ago. But it’s still used a lot in flu shots.

Lynn Gregor has two little children. She’s been leaning
toward getting them vaccinated for swine flu.
But she just heard about thimerosal, and she’s concerned.

“Because even if it’s a teeny, tiny bit of mercury, which is
what that product is connected with. Because a teeny tiny
bit of mercury can have a big impact.”

The Centers for Disease Control says the type of mercury in
thimerosal is different than the kind that’s in thermometers.
Lots of people think thimerosal is linked with increased
autism rates. But public health officials say science does not
bear that out.

“There has been no credible evidence of a harm that’s linked
to thimerosal.”

That’s Donn Moyer. He’s spokesman for the Washington
state Department of Health. It’s one of six states that have
passed laws making it illegal to give young children and
pregnant women flu shots that contain thimerosal.

Moyer says the health department didn’t ask for the law. It
says thimerosal is safe. But, politicians wanted to appease
people concerned about thimerosal.

The state of Washington’s concern is not about the actual
safety of thimerosal, it’s about the public’s perception of
thimerosal.

“The goal was to maintain public confidence in vaccine
programs and to encourage parents to have their kids
vaccinated.”

But now that the new swine flu is here, Washington is
suspending its law. The swine flu seems to be hitting young
children especially hard, and Moyer says infants and
pregnant women should get immunized – even if the only
shots available contain thimerosal.

“We don’t see any credible risk of health effect from the
thimerosal and it could protect against a very, very serious
influenza infection.”

That seems like a mixed message to parents. And it’s part
of the confusion between the science and politics of this
issue.

(Fox news music intro)

Anchor: “We are tracking H1N1 and health officials here in
the US…”

On this Fox news report Dr. Kent Holtorf is labeled an
“infectious disease expert”, and he warns people against the
vaccine.

Holtorf: “And it’s been shown to cause autism in children
with mitochondrial dysfunction. It’s controversial, though
highly implicated.”

Anchor: “Would you give it to your kids?”

Holtorf: “I definitely would not.”

Some Right-leaning commentators are sharing their
suspicions about the vaccine from the government. And, on
the Left, one natural health newsletter put out a special
edition warning against vaccination.

This all leaves federal health officials with a big job to do:
use the preponderance of science to convince people that
swine flu is potentially more dangerous than the vaccine and
thimerosal.

The mother we talked to – Lynn Gregor – wants to protect
her kids from swine flu, and she’s thinking about getting
them vaccinated.

“If they don’t get it, I’m going to be really worried all winter.
I’m going to be really concerned.”

But when Gregor hears so many people are opting out of the
vaccine – and that some states actually ban thimerosal most
of the time – she’s not sure what to do.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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Salmonella Vaccine Coming Soon?

  • While a salmonella vaccine is in the works, researchers don't think it's suited for countries like the United States (Photo courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control)

Researchers are working on a new vaccine to prevent salmonella poisoning. But, Julie Grant reports, the researchers say it probably won’t help us when we’re faced with salmonella tainted tomatoes or alfalfa sprouts:

Transcript

Researchers are working on a new vaccine to prevent salmonella poisoning. But, Julie Grant reports, the researchers say it probably won’t help us when we’re faced with salmonella tainted tomatoes or alfalfa sprouts:

Salmonella poisoning affects about 20-million people worldwide each year and causes 200,000 deaths. A vaccine might sound like a good idea.

Arthur Thompson has been working on one at the Institute of Food Research in England. His group has found that salmonella relies on glucose for its survival. So they’re designing a vaccine to use that against the bacteria.

But Thompson thinks a salmonella vaccine should not be used to solve a problem that industrialized nations can already prevent.

“I don’t think it would be appropriate really, for something like this. I mean, I think in this case, it’s more a case of preventing the contamination in the first place, really.”

Thompson says the vaccine is better suited for people in developing nations where salmonella causes still causes typhoid fever.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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The Great Vaccination Debate

  • There are parts of the country where up to 20% of families are saying ‘no’ to vaccines. (Photo by Bill Branson, courtesy of the National Cancer Institute)

Babies and young children get a lot more vaccines today than they did ten years ago. To most parents, it’s a chance to protect their children from more diseases. But there are pockets of places where lots of people are opting out of vaccines. Julie Grant reports that it has the Centers for Disease Control concerned:

Transcript

Babies and young children get a lot more vaccines today than they did ten years ago. To most parents, it’s a chance to protect their children from more diseases. But there are pockets of places where lots of people are opting out of vaccines. Julie Grant reports that it has the Centers for Disease Control concerned:

Heather Waltz has a five month old daughter. Most Americans her age have already started a series of vaccinations – to prevent everything from Hepatitis B, to Diphtheria, to Polio.

But Waltz’s little girl isn’t going to get those shots. Her mom worries they could cause things like autism, juvenile diabetes and even cancer.

“I think the jury’s still out, as far as what the research says. But there is enough anecdotal sort of stuff to make me aware and decide that, really, right at this point, vaccinating wasn’t what I wanted to do.”

Waltz is among a small, but growing number of parents who are becoming skeptical of vaccines.

Lance Rodewald is director of immunization services at the Centers for Disease Control.

He says more than 90% of American children are vaccinated. But there are parts of the country where up to 20% of families are saying ‘no’ to vaccines.

“And that’s getting to a rate of lack of protection of children that really can be a fertile ground for the spreading of diseases like measles. And we actually saw that last year.”

In one case last year, Rodewald says a child who wasn’t vaccinated caught the measles in Switzerland and brought it back to Arizona.

“The parents didn’t realize that the child had measles – brought him to the pediatricians office where there were babies that were too young to be vaccinated that got measles. And then that particular outbreak went through four generations of spread, from child to child to child to child before it was able to be contained.”

Measles can cause more than just a nasty rash. In rare cases, it can lead to death. Measles still causes 200,000 deaths around the world. But it’s been almost eradicated in the U.S. because of vaccines.

Rodewald says many parents are concerned about vaccines today because of a ten-year old scientific article that linked the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella to autism. Rodewald says the science in that article proved to be wrong.

“The authors withdrew their names from the article. But this particular study set off a whole series of concerns about vaccines and autism that, to this day, is still talked about.”

Rodewald says many studies have been done and found no association, no cause and effect, between vaccines and autism.

It’s tough for parents to wade through all the information that’s out there these days. And there are so many vaccines to try to understand. Back in the mid-1990s, children were given 6 vaccines. Today, they’re supposed to get more than twice that many.

Mother Heather Waltz tries to keep up with it all and says she still plans to avoid vaccines.

Waltz: “For every bit of research and every article I find sort of helping me support my point, there’s a million other bits of research and articles saying that I’m a bad parent, or saying that I’m somehow damaging the health of the entire United States by not vaccinating my child. Just this idea that she could be a measles monster and just running around and infecting her classmates with measles or something like that, and that would be a terrible thing.”

Grant: “What do you think when you see that?”

Waltz: “It doesn’t make logical sense to me. Because to me, if you have 30 kids in a classroom, and my one isn’t vaccinated, wouldn’t my child be the one at risk? Not the public’s.”

But even if Waltz’s daughter doesn’t get vaccinated, she’ll probably be safe from these diseases. With so many other kids getting inoculations, most of the U.S. is not fertile ground for them to regain traction.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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