In an effort to increase rates of flu vaccination among elementary school age children, researchers from the UC Davis Health System, the Monroe County, NY Department of Public Health, the University of Rochester Medical Center and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that the key may be offering the flu vaccination at [...]

Brooklyn recently welcomed the New Jersey Nets — now the Brooklyn Nets — and has been booming with an influx of artsy types of all stripes.  But as of late, Brooklyn has become home to a much more serious outbreak. Cases of measles have been increasing in several Orthodox Jewish communities since early May. At [...]

In their 2011 book, Vaccine Safety and Your Child: Separating Fact from Fiction, Dr. Paul A. Offit and Charlotte Moser explained how vaccines are made, how they are tested, and how they work—all while taking into consideration the fact that some parents may be hesitant to have their children vaccinated – although these hesitations are [...]

The New York Times yesterday published an editorial on the current measles outbreak in Britain, pointing to the fact that this outbreak is mainly due to children not receiving the MMR (mumps, measles rubella) vaccine. Many parents have chosen not to vaccinate their children based on the “ill-founded fears among parents that a widely used [...]

According to reports by the CDC, 2012 saw the worst whooping cough outbreak since 1959, with 18,000 cases of the disease by July. And a new study shows that the newer acellular vaccines may be to blame, at least to some extent. Researchers found that the older, “whole-cell” whooping cough vaccine was more protective than [...]

Local NYC news outlets are abuzz with the news that there has been an outbreak of measles among ultra-orthodox Jewish communities in Brooklyn this year. It’s thought that a family visiting from London that had not been vaccinated against the disease initiated the current outbreak.  The infants and toddlers who acquired the disease in Brooklyn [...]

Before rotavirus vaccines were on the market, the disease caused more than 200,000 annual emergency room visits, 55,000 to 70,000 hospitalizations and 20 to 60 child deaths in the United States alone, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Rotavirus causes severe diarrhea and is responsible for an estimated half a million deaths of [...]

ACSH has been in the forefront of countering specious fears about vaccines — that MMR shots cause autism, polio vaccines sterilize Muslim or Hindu girls, or that the HPV vaccine will lead to promiscuity, for example. Now some researchers have developed a surveillance system, reported in The Lancet, to track vaccine mentions, and used it [...]

Girls in developing countries will have a chance to get vaccinated against cervical cancer, thanks to two pharmaceutical giants and top health groups. Merck & Co. and GlaxoSmithKline PLC have agreed to chop the price of their HPV vaccines, Gardasil and Cervarix, to as little as U.S. $4.50 per dose.  The vaccines cost about $130 [...]

Fans of irony will be hard-pressed to suppress a smile here.  Researchers at The University of Guelph in Ontario are developing a novel vaccine which may help control the gastrointestinal symptoms that are commonly seen in children with autism. The vaccine will have no direct effect on the behavioral aspects of the disease, nor will it in any [...]

If you need another reminder about the importance of vaccinations, just look to the events of this past weekend. A Wisconsin college student and a Los Angeles man died of meningitis, and the New York City Department of Health issued an alert stating that five measles cases occurred in Borough Park, Brooklyn this past month [...]

Negative messages about children’s vaccines are more likely to be spread on Twitter than positive messages, according to research  led by Marcel … »

In a new study published in The Journal of Pediatrics, researchers found no association between “receiving too many vaccines too soon,’ and … »

Two Canadian researchers are arguing against mandatory flu shots for health care workers, saying the vaccine isn’t effective enough to merit such … »

There’s bad news, at least for the future, on the cervical cancer front. More parents are putting their kids at risk by … »

Vaccinations for the 2009 H1N1 “swine” flu outbreak saved an estimated 500 lives — and may have caused 77 people to develop … »

Should we be giving even more shots against pertussis (whooping cough)?  A new study is showing that the pertussis vaccine isn’t as … »

A little over a month ago, we reported a swine flu vaccine scare suggesting a link with  narcolepsy in children. The scare … »

Researchers have reported the first U.S. cases of whooping cough caused by a bacterium that appears to be resistant to the vaccine. … »

Although screening for and effective treatment of cervical cancer makes it one of the most preventable types of cancers, it still causes … »