The ‘no jab, no play’ rule seeks to reduce the risk of a vaccine-preventable disease outbreak but it may actually increase the risk.
Image from shutterstock.com
A recent News Limited campaign to enable childcare centres in NSW to refuse entry to unvaccinated children is gaining momentum, with the legislation expected to be introduced to NSW parliament this week…
Influenza symptoms include high fevers and chills, as well as pains and aches in muscles and joints.
Davide Taviani
When people say they have “the flu”, what they’re experiencing most of the time is the common cold, which is not caused by the influenza virus at all.
But the term “flu season”, which Australia is in…
Vaccines are one of the most effective public health measures ever introduced.
Image from shutterstock.com
Recently released government figures show levels of childhood vaccination have fallen to dangerously low levels in some areas of Australia, resulting in some corners of the media claiming re-ignition of…
Parents who choose not to vaccinate their children put the whole community at risk.
Dave Haygarth
New diseases grab headlines. The latest influenza scare – H7N9 – has prompted much speculation about the direction the virus might take. And rightly so, as vaccines to fight new viruses can take some time…
Vaccination has a lot more uses than you may know.
Stephen Mitchell
Approximately 140 vaccines are registered for use in livestock and companion animals in Australia. Many more animals are vaccinated each year than humans.
Vaccines are used in farm animals:
to protect…
The Nigerian commissioner for health of Bauchi state, Dr Sani Malam (L), administers a polio vaccine to a Nigerian child during the launch of the national immunization drive in Nigeria on February 5, 2013.
EPA/DEJI YAKE
The murder of nine female health workers involved in child immunisation on February 8 in Kano (the largest city in northern Nigeria) is a chilling reminder that saving children’s lives is not a goal shared…
Obesity, over-diagnosis, the NDIS, vaccinations and open access for genetic information were just some of the issues covered in 2012.
Kylie May; shutterstock.com; Morberg; Pranjal Mahn
It promised to be a full year of reforms: pokies legislation, front-of-pack food labels and a dental system that doesn’t cost those in need an arm and a leg. But while we did see cigarette companies forced…
Parents need the facts about childhood vaccination.
Nonanet.
The heated battle between Australia’s anti-vaccine lobby, the Australian Vaccination Network (AVN), and those fighting against its misinformation took a positive turn late last week, with the New South…
An Afghan health worker gives polio vaccine drops to a child in Nangarhar, Afghanistan, 19 November 2012.
EPA/Abdul Mueed
The Guardian recently reported the death of a female volunteer in a polio vaccination program in Kapisa province, Afghanistan, who was shot six times and later died in hospital. The shooting has rightly…
The dose makes the poison so fear is stoked by a lack of basic understanding of chemistry and toxicology.
Ellen Fitzsimons
Vaccination is one of the most important preventative measures against serious illness, but its very success may be working against it.
With parents no longer having the experience of the devastating…
Late 19th century lithograph by French artist Gaston Mélingue showing Edward Jenner vaccinating a boy on May 14, 1796.
Wikimedia Commons
The principle of prevention being better than the cure is at the heart of public health and social marketing efforts such as immunisation. But not everyone agrees and the challenge is how to address disagreement…
Too much urging can backfire and entrench some parents' opposition to vaccination.
Flickr/skippytpe
Dr Seuss’ book Green Eggs and Ham is built around the urgings of a weird creature, Sam I Am, who insists the narrator eat the food of its title. When the narrator refuses, Sam issues an ever-widening range…
There is no truth to claims that immunisations cause autism, brain damage or sudden infant death syndrome.
theloushe
When I was an infant I had whooping cough and was ill for three months. I don’t remember it, of course, but I know it was very distressing for my parents. I do remember later trips with my researcher father…
Scientists worked with Hendra virus at the highest level of biosafety within CSIRO’s Australian Animal Health Laboratory.
CSIRO
Today we are launching Equivac® HeV, the world’s first commercially available Hendra vaccine for horses. This breakthrough is the culmination of a scientific journey that dates back to the emergence of…
Many people with chronic hepatitis B in Australia were born in nearby countries where vaccination is still not provided to many children.
Andrew W. McGalliard
Of the more than 175,000 people living with chronic hepatitis B infection in this country, the majority were born overseas in high prevalence countries. Most have come from Asia and the Pacific, a region…
Vaccines are the public health measure that, after safe food and water, have saved most lives.
Flickr/VCU CNS
A couple of years ago, I contributed to a documentary with the intriguing title Catching Cancer. We don’t normally regard cancer as an infection, so it often comes as a surprise to learn that more than…
Protesters carry portraits of Osama bin Laden on his first death anniversary, during an anti-US rally in Quetta, Pakistan, 02 May 2012.
Musa Farman/AAP
We’ve been reminded this month of the United States' success in finally finding Osama bin Laden. But one thing missing in the media coverage was the allegation that the CIA established a fake hepatitis…
You might feel crook after a flu vax but the injection itself can’t give you influenza.
Nettsu
We hear it all the time: “I don’t want a flu vaccine. It gives you the flu.“ The old, the young, and even health professionals make this claim. And it’s usually followed by a personal example like, “the…
Today’s findings say nothing about the factual nature of the AVN’s information.
Gates Foundation
The Australian Vaccination Network (AVN) today won its Supreme Court appeal against the Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC), which had ordered the anti-vaccination network to warn that its website…
All vaccines rely on generating an immune response that persists but our understanding of immune memory has some way to go.
James Gathany/CDC
Influenza is never off the news agenda for long. If it’s not the flu season (and it always is in one hemisphere) and the attendant calls for vaccinations, it’s news about vaccines causing problems or new…
Current vaccines are quite good but they offer no protection against novel pandemic strains of the flu.
Jason Rogers
Influenza is never off the news agenda for long. If it’s not the flu season (and it always is in one hemisphere) and the attendant calls for vaccinations, it’s news about vaccines causing problems or new…
Case closed: the MMR vaccine has no relationship with autism.
Few medical myths have spread as feverishly and contributed to so much preventable illness than the theory that the triple measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine might be linked to autism.
The tale…
Michelle Bachmann is not an authority on HPV vaccination but may negatively influence the vaccine’s uptake in the United States.
Gage Skidmore
Michele Bachmann’s unfounded statement about HPV vaccination and mental retardation couldn’t be further from the truth. But the damage her statements may cause is even more disturbing than what she says…
Chiropractors may be good at what they do but immunisation is not their field.
Planetc1/Flickr
The publication by Australian Doctor of a controversial public lecture given earlier this year by Sydney chiropractor, Nimrod Weiner, has created a flurry of criticism about the lecture, particularly regarding…
We’re still a while away from a vaccine for the type of flu virus that causes pandemics such as swine flu.
TreintagenariO -Serie B/Flickr
By Ian Barr, WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza
Have you ever wondered why you need to get an influenza vaccination each year to protect yourself? Or even why it seems like another pandemic threat is announced before every flu season?
Well, it’s all…
People with chronic medical conditions and others in high-risk groups should get a flu shot.
mcfarlandmo/Wikimedia Commons
The number of people suffering from influenza in Australia this year has soared compared to recorded numbers from previous years, with nearly 8,000 cases so far compared to about 2,000 last year.
We don…
Preventing infection with the Hendra virus remains the most effective measure against the virus.
AAP
Queensland authorities came under attack yesterday for being unprepared for a Hendra virus outbreak after it was found that they’d only stocked 15 doses of virus antibodies.
But the case for stocking…
Vaccines are history’s best public health tools but developing countries give low priority to health in their budgets.
AAP
The Lancet, one of most prestigious medical journals in the world recently published a series of five papers on “the new decade of vaccines”.
These were followed by a sixth paper – A call to action for…
With a bacterial base, liquid vaccines could be produced quickly and at low cost.
Flickr/hdptcar
Twenty years after his discovery that peptic ulcers were caused by a bacteria called Helicobacter pylori, Nobel Prize winner Barry Marshall is using the same bacteria as the base of an edible vaccine that…
A person harmed while helping the community attain herd immunity should be compensated.
AAP
By Heath Kelly, Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory
When someone is adversely affected by a vaccine in Australia, their only way to receive compensation is through the courts. But this is not the case worldwide.
Vaccines undergo rigorous testing to ensure…
The vaccine – which will be given to horses – is currently 18 months away.
AAP
As Queensland authorities confirm the third outbreak of Hendra virus within a week, researchers are moving to fast track a horse vaccination for the deadly virus, which can spread from horses to humans…
If most people in a community are vaccinated, others are also protected.
Sanofil Pasteur
Let’s be clear: immunisations matter. They matter a lot.
We all have a complex and ever-changing ecology of microorganisms and parasites inside our bodies and in our community.
A recent fatal case of…
Measles is one of the few infectious diseases for which elimination is possible.
USACE Europe District/flickr
Despite high vaccination rates, Australia and other developed countries periodically have small outbreaks of measles, as seen in the recent scares in Victoria and New South Wales.
Until about 40 years…
Active surveillance would provide reassurance about the safety of the flu vaccine.
AAP
Today the Gillard Government released an independent assessment of Australia’s management of vaccine adverse events.
Commissioned by the Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Ageing, Catherine King…
The Nanopatch has potential to change the way vaccines are delivered.
AIBN
A couple of facts:
1) At least 10% of the world’s population are “needle phobic”, which means they’re missing out on being vaccinated and/or have a horror of receiving jabs of any kind. Several studies…
Vaccinating all boys would offer greater protection to girls and gay men.
AAP
Data just released by the Australian Government show that many girls are not completing the full course of the cervical cancer vaccine. It’s another very good reason towards an already compelling case…
