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Thursday, February 06, 2003Rick Rollins, who lives near Sacramento, believes his son, Russell, developed autism as a result of a combination vaccine -- the measles-mumps-rubella shot, or MMR. What worries Rollins is the possible interaction of viruses within a vaccine and how that could affect certain genetically susceptible children. The new five-in-one vaccine was ''rushed through the approval process,'' Rollins says, leaving questions of long-term effects unanswered. It was licensed by the Food and Drug Administration in mid-December, after a decade in development and more than three years under federal review. But, ''with children receiving so many doses and so many at the same time, it's very concerning,'' Rollins says. ...The new vaccine may mean fewer shots per visit for babies, but Rollins predicts that won't last long. ''We know there are over 300 vaccines in development now, many of which will be pushed as part of the childhood vaccine program. It's an unbelievable base of business for them.'' Next up, he says, will be annual flu vaccine for kids. ...To Rollins, the introduction of new vaccines should move cautiously. ''We're just starting to do the research that should have been done years ago,'' he says. ''We ought to go slowly and not take chance of provoking an autoimmune response or adverse reaction from a product that, in its best description, has been developed to help save lives, not to destroy them.'' But studies so far haven’t found any association between autism or any other chronic illness and vaccinations: But, says pediatrician Joel Ward, director of the University of California-Los Angeles Center for Vaccine Research, who led clinical trials of the Pediarix vaccine, vaccines are safe and don't cause long-term problems in children's health or development. For instance, he says, ''there is no evidence in scientific literature which supports the contention that vaccination causes autism, and that means any vaccine of any type in any sequence in any age group.'' Nor does giving several vaccines on the same day or in the same syringe pose a special risk, experts say. In a report in January 2002 in the journal Pediatrics, Paul Offit, chief of infectious diseases at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and colleagues concluded that multiple vaccines neither weaken nor overwhelm babies' immune systems. ''On the contrary,'' they write, ''young infants have an enormous capacity to respond to multiple vaccines, as well as to the many other challenges present in the environment.'' ...''We know the vaccine is effective. We know the vaccine is safe,'' he says. But ''you have to create an infrastructure for immunizing children with a seasonal vaccine.'' With a formal recommendation, all babies in the target age group would have to see a doctor during flu-shot season, October through December. Though that might take time to organize, Offit says, once accomplished it could ease the traffic in pediatricians' offices during the winter months. ..Says Offit: ''Everybody has biases. Mine is that I work in a hospital.'' He rarely sees children admitted because of vaccine reactions, he says, but he sees plenty of them with diseases such as flu or chicken pox or whooping cough that could have been prevented by vaccines. ''If you can prevent it, and prevent it safely,'' he says, ''I don't see a downside.'' Here’s a downside - cost. Is it worth all that money to immunize against diseases that aren’t fatal, or that aren’t easily communicated to others? But back to the new vaccine. I’ve had a lot of parents call to see if we’re offering this new “5-in-1 shot.” Many of them aren’t even my patients. They’re just calling around to find an office in the area that’s offering it. The fact that they refer to it as the “5-in-1 shot” tells me they’ve learned about it from the company’s advertisements. They bill it as a “5-in-1 shot” because, technically that’s what it is. It combines immunizations against five diseases: diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, and hepatitis B. Most parents see the add and think it means that the new immunization combines five shots in one. But it doesn’t, it combines three shots in one: DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis), polio and hepatitis B. The shots are given at 2,4, and 6 months. Usually, hepatitis B is already combined with the H. influenza,(Hib) immunization, so children normally get four vaccines at those visits. (Pneumonia, Hib/HepB, polio, DTaP.) With the new vaccine, that goes down to three. Eliminating the number of jabs by one may be something that parents would like to do, but I get the impression from the phone calls that they think all of those shots are going to be compressed into one by the new combination. I haven’t had to explain that yet because we don’t give the new one. We aren’t likely to until 1) we know insurance companies are going to cover the cost and 2) it’s been in use for a while and proven to have no major side effects. I learned my lesson from Rotavirus too well. (Hat tip to posted by Sydney on 2/06/2003 08:22:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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