Almost Half of U.S. Kids Delayed in Receiving Vaccines

Thursday, January 24th, 2013

Nearly half of U.S. children receive recommended vaccines on a delayed schedule, a new report conducted by Kaiser Permanente has found.  Further, researchers say that the rising number of children who skip the vaccines altogether could reintroduce some long-eliminated diseases back into the mainstream.  More from Reuters:

“What we’re worried about is if (undervaccination) becomes more and more common, is it possible this places children at an increased risk of vaccine-preventable diseases?” said study leader Jason Glanz, with Kaiser Permanente Colorado in Denver.

“It’s possible that some of these diseases that we worked so hard to eliminate (could) come back.”

Glanz and his colleagues analyzed data from eight managed care organizations, including immunization records for about 323,000 children.

During the study period, the number of children who were late on at least one vaccine – including their measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) and diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTaP) shots – rose from 42 percent to more than 54 percent.

Babies born towards the end of the study were late on their vaccines for more days, on average, than those born earlier.

“When that happens, it can create this critical mass of susceptible individuals,” said Saad Omer, from the Emory Vaccine Center in Atlanta, who wasn’t involved in the new study.

Just over one in eight children went undervaccinated due to parents’ choices. For the rest, it wasn’t clear why they were late getting their shots. Some could have bounced in and out of insurance coverage, Glanz suggested, or were sick during their well-child visits, so doctors postponed vaccines.

The report comes on the heels of new data from the Institute of Medicine saying that the recommended infant vaccine schedule is safe for children.

Image: Baby vaccine, via Shutterstock

Controversial Autism Study Author Alleges Defamation in Lawsuit

Monday, January 9th, 2012

Dr. Andrew Wakefield, the author of a controversial 1998 medical journal article that alleged that the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine can cause autism, is suing the British Medical Journal for a series of articles that he says “defamed” him by suggesting that he misrepresented or altered the medical histories of all 12 of the patients involved in the 1998 study, CNN.com reports.

The study touched off a years-long debate that still rages in some circles, between those who believe vaccines including the MMR are responsible for the rising number of autism diagnoses in the U.S., and those who believe that there is no scientific basis for such a claim.

The Lancet, the journal that had published the original 1998 study, retracted it in 2010, explaining that parts of it were “incorrect.”  Wakefield subsequently lost his medical license.  In his lawsuit against the British Medical Journal, Wakefield defends his methods and denies falsifying or altering any data in his study.

For more on autism, explore Parents.com’s Autism Resource Guide.

Image: Medical journal, via Shutterstock.