Tag Archive for 'Vaccines'

New figures reveal swine flu is especially dangerous for children

Published on October 10, 2009 in Health and Wellness. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

On October 9, health officials reported that 76  children have died from the swine flu. This includes 16 new reports in the past week. This presents an ever increasing amount of evidence suggesting that this new virus, the H1N1, is unusually dangerous for children.

According to the CDC and Prevention Data, the seasonal flu kills between 46 and 88 children each year. At a press conference held Friday, October 9, Dr. Anne Schuchat said that since swine flu cases are rising, more deaths are very likely. She warned that 37 states are currently reporting widespread swine flu cases, which is up from 27 a week ago. Just one week ago, there were reports that indicated these cases might be leveling off and maybe even decreasing in some places of the U.S. Unfortunately, that turned out to be a short-lived trend.

Schuchat, who heads the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, says that they are unfortunately seeing more illnesses, hospitalizations, and more deaths.

All this said, the CDC officials report that states have ordered 3.7 million doses of swine flu vaccine for a campaign that started this week. So far, demand is outweighing supply. People who want the vaccine can begin by contacting their state or local health department to find out where to get it.

Also, health officials say more data is coming in from different clinical trials of the new vaccine, and there have been no serious side effects reported so far.

Early information from one study reveal that both seasonal and swine flu vaccines are effective when given at the same time. However, the government does not suggest that people get the nasal spray versions of each vaccine at the same time.

An exact report of all swine flu deaths and hospitalizations is not available from the CDC at this time, but current reports indicate that the infection has caused over 600 deaths and around 9000 or more hospitalizations since it first appeared in April.

Studies find that immune therapy is effective against cancers

Published on June 8, 2009 in Health and Wellness. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

In the past, doctors have used methods such as surgery, chemotherapy and radiation to fight that dreaded disease called cancer. Now, after 30 years, doctors have come up with a fourth way to battle cancer by using something completely natural, the immune system. 

This new approach is called a cancer vaccine, even though it treats the disease instead of preventing it. Researchers have recently claimed that this vaccine prevented a common form of lymphoma from getting worse for more than a year. Progress is usually very slow and success with new treatments can be measured in many long days or even weeks, so this is big news in this field of research. 

Experimental vaccines developed to fight against prostate, melanoma and neuroblastoma, which is a childhood tumor that is frequently fatal, produced positive results in late-stage testing. These results came in recent weeks, after many years of struggling in the lab.

Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, of the American Cancer Society, said he isn’t sure what they did to make the breakthrough. Dr. John Niederhuber, director of the National Cancer Institute, said that it was not one single moment, but many discoveries concerning the immune system that are finally beginning to show benefits.

This said, no one knows just exactly how long these benefits will last, whether boosters will be needed or if vaccines will one day provide a cure. Numerous vaccines must be custom-made for each patient, so the questions are just how practical and costly will these vaccines be? There are no sure answers yet, although there were several studies on vaccines that were reported during the weekend of June 1 at the oncology group’s annual meeting in Florida. 

Dr. Patrick Hwu, melanoma chief at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, said that one of the main problems has been getting the immune system to “see” cancer as a threat. Some viruses such as the flu or polio are easy for the immune system to recognize because they look so different from regular human cells.

To help tell the difference between normal cells and cancer cells, numerous cancer vaccines pull a substance from the surface of a cancer cell and adhere it to something that the immune system sees as foreign, such as a shellfish protein in the lymphoma vaccine.

To ensure that the assault is as powerful as possible, doctors attach a substance to cause the immune system to be on an elevated alert.

New study indicates no connection between vaccines and autism

Published on January 28, 2009 in Health and Wellness. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

A mercury-based preservative that was previously used in lots of vaccines doesn’t harm children, according to a recent study that was done in Italy. This just adds to the already substantial amount of evidence that there appears to be no link between the two.

Thousands of healthy Italian babies in a whopping cough study received two varying amounts of the preservative thimerosal while getting their routine shots. Ten years later, a series of brain function tests were performed on 1,403 of these children. Minor disparities were found in only two of 24 measurements by researchers and those might be just due to chance. There was only one case of autism discovered, and that was from the group that received the lesser amount of thimerosal.