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The World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended that health authorities in all nations routinely vaccinate young children against rotavirus, which causes 2 million hospitalizations and 500,000 deaths from severe diarrhoeal dehydration every year. Rotavirus vaccines are already recommended for use in the Americas and Europe. But more than 85% of deaths caused by rotavirus occur in developing countries in Asia and Africa, says the WHO. The recommendation was made by the WHO's Strategic Advisory Group of Experts, which reviewed a clinical trial of GlaxoSmithKline's Rotarix vaccine in South Africa and Malawi that cut the occurrence of severe diarrhoeal episodes. RotaTeq,...

# Story Highlights # The CDC received a candidate vaccine virus for swine flu Friday # CDC: Suitable viruses will hopefully be sent to manufacturers by end of next week # In one vaccine method, viruses swap genes in egg # Another technique uses reverse genetics instead of growing viruses in eggs

The immune system uses antibodies (that is, proteins that attach specifically to the virus) and T cells (which encourage the production of antibodies and also destroy cells infected with the virus) to clear the virus from the body, but often not before it has been passed on to other people. Introduction When a normal healthy person becomes infected for the first time with a particular flu virus, their immune system takes several days to 'recognize' and attack it, by which point it will have multiplied millions of times. The immune system uses antibodies (that is, proteins that attach specifically...

As reports of a unique form of swine flu erupt around the world, the inevitable question arises: Is this the big one? Is this the next big global flu epidemic that public health experts have long anticipated and worried about? Is this the novel virus that will kill millions around the world, as pandemics did in 1918, 1957 and 1968? The short answer is it's too soon to tell. "What makes this so difficult is we may be somewhere between an important but yet still uneventful public health occurrence here — with something that could literally die out over the...

A special vaccine court dismissed claims that the vaccine can cause the cognitive disorder. The pitched debate regarding the purported link between autism and the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine -- a battle viewed on both sides as critical to shielding the defenseless from harm -- took the encouraging turn for which many physicians were hoping and landed in favor of protecting public health. At issue was the consideration by a special vaccine court of test cases to determine if certain hypotheses of how vaccines could cause autism were legitimate and, therefore, warranted compensation to the affected parties through the...

Pet owners hit by the weak economy had a chance to have their furry friends get basic vaccines at the Best Friend Animal Hospital. Dr. Muhammed Bajwa the owner of the clinic says this was his chance to give back to the community, especially since many pet owners are on edge due to the recent break out of the deadly Distemper virus.

Generation Rescue, Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey’s Los Angeles-based non-profit autism organization, today announced that the United States Government has once again conceded that vaccines cause autism. The announcement comes on the heels of the recently unsealed court case of Bailey Banks vs. HHS. The ruling states, “The Court found that Bailey would not have suffered this delay but for the administration of the MMR vaccine…a proximate sequence of cause and effect leading inexorably from vaccination to PDD [Autism].” In a curious and hypocritical method of operation, the mysterious Vaccine Court not only protects vaccine makers from liability but supports...

The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses. And an official of the World Health Organization’s European operation said the body is closely monitoring the investigation into the events that took place at Baxter International’s research facility in Orth-Donau, Austria. “At this juncture we are confident in saying that public health and occupational risk is minimal at present,” medical officer Roberta Andraghetti said from Copenhagen, Denmark. “But what remains unanswered are the circumstances surrounding the incident in the Baxter facility in Orth-Donau.” The...

An increasing number of Ohio parents are using religious exemptions to delay or refuse for immunizations for children amid fears that vaccines contribute to autism. Ohio Department of Health data shows the number of religious or philosophical exemptions nearly quadrupled in Ohio between 1998 and 2008, though that figure still represents fewer than 1 in 100 children. All states require children to be immunized for school. Most allow religious exemptions, and Ohio and 19 others also permit exemptions for personal reasons. Doctors say they’re concerned that more exemptions could lead to outbreaks of preventable illnesses among children who haven’t had...

A mother and father in New York were subjected by their school district's attorney to a faith "sincerity test," which ultimately ruled their beliefs were too questionable to qualify for a religious exemption to mandatory student immunization. Ron and Rita Palma filed the exemption with their son's school district in 2006 after coming to the conclusion the year before that the required vaccinations violated their conscience and sense of God's leading for their family. Rather than accept the standard exemption form, however, the Bayport-Blue Point Union Free School District demanded the couple meet with school attorney David Cohen. The Palmas...

THE doctor who sparked the scare over the safety of the MMR vaccine for children changed and misreported results in his research, creating the appearance of a possible link with autism, a Sunday Times investigation has found. Confidential medical documents and interviews with witnesses have established that Andrew Wakefield manipulated patients’ data, which triggered fears that the MMR triple vaccine to protect against measles, mumps and rubella was linked to the condition. The research was published in February 1998 in an article in The Lancet medical journal. It claimed that the families of eight out of 12 children attending a...

Monday January 5, 2009 Doctors Urge Puberty Blockers for Children Considering Sex Change By Kathleen GilbertCHEVY CHASE, Maryland, January 5, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - An international medical organization has recommended that children as young as 12 who question their sexual identity should be given drugs to block the physical changes of puberty.The New Scientist reports that the injunction comes as part of a set of guidelines, the first of its kind, published last month by the Endocrine Society.  The “Guidelines For Health Organisations Commissioning Treatment Services For Trans People” call for healthcare administrators around the globe to provide full coverage...

LITTLE FALLS — Claudine Liss's Kingwood Drive home was full of refreshments and holiday decorations Wednesday, but most of her guests were writing letters and making calls to lawmakers about child vaccinations.   Left, Dr. Sheeba Ben giving 7-month-old Evan Didato a wellness checkup at Riverside Pediatric Group in Secaucus Wednesday. Above, Laureen Marston-Hindi and her daughter, Sophie Hindi, 2, and Gayle Casas at the pro-parental choice letter-writing campaign Wednesday in Little Falls. It was one of three "vaccination choice" open houses scheduled around New Jersey this week, where concerned parents gathered to demand that legislators give them the...

Merck is asking federal regulators to expand the use of its human papillomavirus vaccine to boys and young men.The company has asked the FDA to approve the Gardasil vaccine’s use in males ages 9 to 26 years to prevent genital warts and other lesions, CNBC’s Mike Huckman reported. In 2006, the FDA approved giving the vaccine to girls and women of those ages. We talked with a Merck spokeswoman who pointed to studies showing Gardasil’s effectiveness in young males.But the request will likely renew questions about Gardasil’s cost-effectiveness, especially with a price tag of $360 for a three-dose regimen. In...

Note: Merck's separate dose for rubella, Meruvax, uses aborted fetal cell lines and taints the entire MMR II vaccine. The separate doses of Attenuvax (measles) and Mumpsvax (mumps) use chick embryo. Without these separate doses for measles and mumps, there will be no moral alternative for parents! See contact information for Merck below. snip Merck Focusing on Combination Vaccine Manufacturer Stops Sales of Monovalents for Measles, Mumps, Rubella By David Mitchell 12/24/2008 Merck & Co. Inc. has stopped production and sales of its monovalent vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella. The manufacturer instead plans to focus on its combination vaccine,...

Washington, DC -- A leading pro-life group that educates about the vaccines that are based on the cells from babies killed in abortions is worried about a new decision from the pharmaceutical giant Merck. The company has decided to stop producing some vaccines that are not made based on fetal cells from abortions.

Rumors swirl, but a Swedish prosecutor will only confirm a "preliminary investigation" into allegations that pharma giant AstraZeneca fixed the Nobels for financial gainThey say it's Sweden's silly season, a time when journalists are desperately seeking a new spin on a century-old story: the Nobel Prizes.Last week, as luminaries gathered for Nobel Week in Stockholm, Radio Sweden reported a potential scandal surrounding the Physiology or Medicine prize. Allegations were swirling, the state-owned station said, that London-based drug manufacturer AstraZeneca, PLC, had, in essence, paid off members of the Nobel voting committee to help secure a win for Harald zur Hausen...

The White House wanted to know: How much safer are Americans today than they were on October 4, 2001? That was the day when a photo editor in Florida became the first reported case of inhalation anthrax in America in decades. In what became biology’s 9/11, five letters containing less than a quarter-ounce of anthrax total—the equivalent of two pats of butter—killed five people, infected 17, put more than 20,000 on antibiotics, and traumatized thousands more. Decontamination alone, including at the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, took over three years and cost some $200 million. With these disturbing facts...

Passionate intensity, but little rationality, in the anti-immunization movement Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure, by Paul A. Offit (Columbia University Press, 328 pp., $24.95) For some reason, the immunization of children has always aroused opposition of almost religious fervor. For example, a mass movement led resistance to smallpox vaccination in Britain for 70 years and was supported by intellectuals of the stature of George Bernard Shaw, who never believed in the germ theory of disease and thought that Pasteur and Lister were charlatans. Politicians have won or lost elections on their attitude...

A vaccine against rotavirus, the leading cause of diarrhea in infants, has led to a dramatic drop in hospitalization and emergency room visits since it came on the market two years ago, doctors reported Saturday. A bonus: the vaccine seems to be preventing illness even in unvaccinated children by cutting the number of infections in the community that kids can pick up and spread. "We're a little surprised by the degree of impact given the coverage we've achieved," said Jane Seward of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Only about half of young children had received the vaccine...