Vaccine

British Columbia's provincial health officer says members of the Canucks jumped the queue when they received their H1N1 vaccinations earlier this week. "If they got the vaccine and they weren't in any of the risk groups as individuals then they were queue-jumping," Dr. Perry Kendall told the Canadian Press. "I don't know why they queue-jumped because they only had to wait a few days." Two members of the Alberta Health Services were fired last month after members of the Flames and their families were given the vaccine ahead of the general public.

Maryland's children would be required to get more vaccines before attending school under a proposal being considered by state health officials. But doctors and state health officials said most children are already getting the shots and that they are looking to regulate the process. Under the proposed guidelines, pupils would be required to get a chicken pox booster before starting kindergarten. The chicken pox vaccine is now required to be given to babies. Seventh-graders would be required to get the Tdap vaccine, which protects against tetanus, diphtheria and whooping cough.

Susan Reimer wrote a column ("Costly vaccine for painful illness in short supply," Aug. 11), about the medical ailment called shingles. In the column, she notes: 1) "The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has also approved the vaccine for 50-year-olds... " 2) "The Centers for Disease Control has delayed its approval in order to protect the limited supply of the drug for the most vulnerable age group. " Thus, she writes, "without CDC approval it will not be covered by insurance.

It's very easy to be critical of government, to break out the cliches like "doing badly that which need not be done at all," and "I'm from the government; I'm here to help," but there are a number of necessary things that government does, does well and probably wouldn't get done if left to someone else. Vaccinations are a case in point. At the end of April and beginning of May, the Harford County Health Department ran a series of rabies vaccination clinics, and protected several hundred animals, and by extension, as many as several thousand people, from the threat of a deadly disease with a brutal fear factor.

This week, Baltimore is privileged to host an international conference sponsored by the preeminent global immunization advocacy organization, the GAVI Alliance. Launched in 2000 at the star-studded gathering of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the GAVI Alliance (formerly the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation) was founded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Health Organization, UNICEF and the vaccine industry, among others. Pneumococcal disease and rotavirus, a virulent form of diarrhea, are the top two killers of children in the 70 or so most impoverished countries in the world — those where the average income is less than $3 per day. It has traditionally taken 10 to 15 years for vaccines we in America take for granted to reach people in these most impoverished places, with a particularly huge death toll in children under 5 — more than 2 million each year.

The Anne Arundel County Department of Health and the county school system are partnering to administer H1N1 vaccine in nine area schools. Vaccinations will be administered to the following target groups as identified by the National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: pregnant women; those between 6 months and 24 years old; people who live with or care for children younger than 6 months; health care and emergency medical services personnel; and...

Profectus BioSciences Inc., a Baltimore-based biotechnology company, said Wednesday that it won a $5.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to support the development of a vaccine for a pair of contagious and deadly viruses that the U.S. government has classified as biological and agricultural threats. The viruses are found in other parts of the world. The viruses — Nipah and Hendra — are closely related and cause respiratory and encephalitic disease in humans and animals.

Only the hardest of hearts could deny sympathy to parents whose children suddenly develop autism or some other debilitating ailment for which there is no proven cause. As a society, we know enough about how the world works politically and so little about how chemicals in our environment affect us medically that skepticism of official assurances can be, well, healthy. Yet politicians, in particular, must be careful not to let a natural concern about the safety of vaccines mushroom into a public health emergency, in which fear and ignorance cause far more sickness and death than the vaccines might have.

So far, there still is no vaccine that can protect against AIDS. One reason, scientists say, is because of the unusual way HIV attacks a cell, binding to its target site at an odd place that allows it to escape the wrath of the antibodies that typically scrub the blood of dangerous invaders. Another reason is HIV's protein "coat," which seems capable of changing its chemical composition and disguising HIV's true nature from immune responses. But as tricky as it is, the human immunodeficiency virus is bound to be susceptible to some kind of attack by the immune system.

WASHINGTON -- A British drug manufacturer announced yesterday that it has developed what appears to be the most effective bird flu vaccine so far and that it can be made in sufficient quantities for widespread distribution in case of an outbreak. The experimental vaccine, manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline PLC, seems to work at low enough doses that it overcomes a key obstacle in earlier vaccines, which required high doses and would have been too cumbersome to produce rapidly in large quantities.

Profectus BioSciences Inc., a Baltimore-based biotechnology company, said Wednesday that it won a $5.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to support the development of a vaccine for a pair of contagious and deadly viruses that the U.S. government has classified as biological and agricultural threats. The viruses are found in other parts of the world. The viruses — Nipah and Hendra — are closely related and cause respiratory and encephalitic disease in humans and animals.

The Harford County Health Department has announced the schedule for its annual sponsorship of rabies vaccination clinics for dogs, cats and ferrets that are 3 months old or older. Dates for this year's clinics are Sunday, April 29, and Sunday, May 6, 2-4 p.m., at the following locations: April 29: Abingdon Fire Company, 3308 Abingdon Road in Abingdon; Harford County Equestrian Center, parking located at 702 N. Tollgate Road, in Bel Air; Susquehanna Hose Company House 4, Revolution Street and Bloomsbury Avenue in Havre de Grace; and Whiteford Volunteer Fire Company, 1407 Pylesville Road (Route 165)

Rathi Asaithambi's April 11 op-ed advocating a federally mandatory vaccination policy with no exemptions ("Time to get tough on vaccine refusal") is based on straw man arguments and ignorance of documented adverse effects of vaccines. There is no "anti vaccination movement" involved in a "lethal war" against children's health in the United States. The largest quantifiable set of objectors to current CDC vaccine policy is pediatricians. In 2008, the late Dr. Bernadine Healy, former NIH director, said on CBS Evening News that a "one size fits all vaccine policy is medically indefensible.

Throughout the United States, a potentially lethal war is erupting. It is a war that puts millions of innocent lives in danger and undermines the centuries-long sacred bond between physicians and patients. This is a war between pediatricians and patients and has developed largely because of the anti-vaccination movement. As a public health student at the Johns Hopkins University and a future pediatrician, I am alarmed by the catastrophic consequences this conflict could have on the health of American children.

Maryland has taken great pride in the state's leadership in health care. Thus, it seems out of character that Maryland still has not joined the vast majority of states in allowing consumers to receive a wide range of Center for Disease Control (CDC) recommended vaccines from their local qualified pharmacist. Maryland law limits the authority for pharmacists to administer only three vaccines. Maryland lags behind all our neighboring states, except West Virginia, in that respect.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that flu cases have begun to creep up in February, making it one of the latest starts to the influenza season in almost three decades. There are a few flu strains circulating, including H1N1, but they match those chosen for inclusion in this year's vaccine. Officials at the CDC and at the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene still strongly recommend that people get vaccinated if they haven't already.

About 98,400 doses of the batch of swine flu vaccine recalled this week by its Gaithersburg-based maker had been distributed in Maryland, but nearly all were likely used while still at full potency, state officials said. The recall of 4.7 million doses of FluMist nationwide was announced Tuesday by maker MedImmune after tests showed that the doses, if not used, could be losing strength. Maryland's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said Wednesday that the state's allotment went to 142 providers here, including doctors, hospitals, clinics and all local health departments.

This Beltsville-based company widened its losses during the quarter that ended June 30 but said comparisons with the second quarter of last year are misleading.North American Vaccine made a $2 million gain in the second quarter of last year by selling 200,000 shares of an affiliate, BioChem Pharma Inc.Without that gain, the company would have lost $1.9 million, or 10 cents a share, during the second quarter of 1991.Three months ended 6/30/92........Revenue...... Net...... ..... Share'92..

Emergent BioSolutions Inc. of Rockville said Monday it won a five-year contract worth up to $1.25 billion to provide millions of doses of an anthrax vaccine for government stockpiles. The company said it would supply 44.75 million doses of BioThrax, the only vaccine licensed by the Food and Drug Administration to prevent anthrax infection. The company makes the vaccine at a facility in Michigan. Emergent is renovating a facility in Baltimore, where it plans to produce a tuberculosis vaccine, the company said.

The kerfuffle between Republican presidential candidates Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry over the HPV vaccination, administered to young girls in order to prevent cervical cancer later in life, is the perfect example of why you might not want a politician to be your pediatrician. During a debate last week in Tampa, Bachmann described the vaccination, which Perry attempted to make mandatory in Texas where he is governor, as a "government injection" and "a violation of a liberty interest.