Smallpox Vaccine (08.19.03) - Over 90 percent of the people who were vaccinated against smallpox as children are still protected. Big Bug on Campus (08.08.03) - Some college freshmen might be missing a requirement when they arrive on campus this fall– a vaccination. CDC Childhood Vaccination Schedule Meningitis Foundation of America A new study linking a once widely used vaccine preservative to behavioral problems in mice could renew parents' fears that vaccinations increase the risk of autism. As this ScienCentral News video reports, those fears can lead parents to take a much bigger risk with their children's health. Shot Safety Suzanne Walther heard stories about the risks of vaccines, and decided not to have her daughter Mary Catherine vaccinated. Then, when Mary Catherine was a year old, she got very sick. "We were afraid she would not ever walk again and through the ten days that we were in the hospital were not sure she would not be severely impaired by this disease," says Walther. Mary Catherine had bacterial meningitis , a serious infection of the central nervous system that can cause brain damage, hearing loss, blindness, paralysis, coma and even death. It is prevented by the Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib) vaccine. "And even when she was in the intensive care unit and all the doctors had the chance to come in and say, 'Wow, you didn't have her vaccinated?', I didn't feel like, 'I'm a bad parent,' says Walther. "The gut-level feeling was anger. I was mad because that disease was out there and my child got it." While Mary Catherine, now four years old, did recover, some children don't. "When you see a child die of a disease which is easily and safely prevented by a vaccine, it tears at your heart," says Paul Offit , Chief of Infectious Diseases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and pediatrics professor at University of Pennsylvania . Offit says the media tend not to cover stories like Walther's. But the idea that vaccines can be dangerous, and maybe even cause autism , is out there in the media marketplace. Last month, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences completed a four-year investigation of vaccines and autism and found no connection. "They've evaluated tens of thousands of people and tried to answer it this way: is the incidence of autism greater in those who receive vaccines than in those who don't receive vaccines? And the answer has been clear and the same— no," says Offit. "So if someone chooses not to get vaccines, it won't decrease the risk of getting autism. All you do is increase the risk of getting disease that can be prevented by vaccines." But the form of mercury in thimerosal is ethyl mercury, and since not much was known about its effects, this was agreed to be a theoretical risk, and the American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical organizations recommended that thimerosal be reduced or eliminated from routine vaccinations. Now , these vaccinations are either thimerosal-free or contain greatly reduced amounts. Last week, the journal Molecular Psychiatry published a study by researchers at Columbia University on the effects of thimerosal which found that thimerosal could cause behavioral abnormalities in newborn mice that have a specific genetic susceptibility. But Martin G. Myers , executive director of the National Network for Immunization Information (NNii), said the following in a statement released last week: "Abnormalities were noted only in mice that were specially bred to have problems with their immune systems. How and whether this relates to human infants can only be determined by additional research. In the meantime, parents should keep two important facts in mind: First, a recent study by the Institute of Medicine found no evidence that children have been harmed by the thimerosal in vaccines. Second, in the United States thimerosal is no longer used as a preservative in most childhood vaccines." Both Offit and Walther hope parents will consider those words. "Being a parent is such a wonderful blessing and it's also a huge responsibility

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