vaccine-preventable diseases
kkrisberg | July 28, 2017Another day, another study that underscores the societal benefits of vaccines and the consequences we’d face without them.
In a study published earlier this week in JAMA Pediatrics, researchers took on the issue of vaccine hesitancy by estimating the disease burden and economic costs associated with declines in the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccination rate. They noted that while overall childhood vaccine rates remain high in the U.S., there are areas where nonmedical exemption policies are materializing into declining immunization coverage.
For example, this 2016 article in PLOS Medicine…
kkrisberg | January 10, 2017Because taking health insurance away from millions of Americans isn’t bad enough, President-elect Trump has reportedly asked an outspoken critic of vaccines — a man who supported the thoroughly debunked notion that vaccines are linked to autism — to lead a commission on vaccine safety.
That man is Robert Kennedy Jr., who in 2005 wrote a “expose” published in Salon and Rolling Stone arguing that thimerosal, a preservative in vaccines, is tied to autism. Salon retracted the article after critics “further eroded any faith we had in the story’s value.” Rolling Stone dumped the story too. More…
lborkowski | June 18, 2014by Phyllis Freeman and Anthony Robbins, MD, MPA
One of our public health heroes, Ciro de Quadros, a public health physician from Brazil died on May 28, 2014. We need his attitude, skills, and persistence more than ever today. Ciro was a master of innovation, particularly in his efforts to prevent infectious diseases with vaccines. It seems especially timely today to review highlights of his career.
And why now? For one, because just now efforts to eliminate polio are foundering in the wake of the US CIA’s disastrous and hugely counterproductive scheme to identify Osama bin Laden’s children…