Here Come The Vaccines

[janie]

Here come the vaccines
By Anita Manning, USA TODAY

A new vaccine, approved in January to prevent bacterial meningitis, is
heading to doctors' offices this month, and it's just the first of an
expected parade of vaccines aimed at adolescents.

Next week, an advisory panel of the Food and Drug Administration will decide
whether to recommend teenage booster shots for pertussis, or whooping cough.
And next year, a vaccine for human papillomavirus, a major cause of cervical
cancer, could be available.

A visit to the doctor around age 12 is routine. That's when kids get a
tetanus booster and get caught up on missed shots that are required for
school. And "it's a time to talk about smoking and sex, to give guidance and
let them know the door is open and they can come in and talk," says
Wilmington, Del., family doctor Rebecca Jaffe.

But it's not always easy to get adolescents into the office.

"The grim reality is that we tend to see kids less and less as they enter
adolescence, except for urgent care, sports physicals and camp physicals,"
says Madison, Wis., family doctor Jonathan Temte.

Though doctors welcome the meningitis vaccine, there are concerns about
limited supplies. Still, Temte sees the vaccine "as a potential ally in
getting children to come in, and actually inspiring their parents to bring
them in at this age. As time goes on, we're going to find this age is ideal
for other immunizations of importance."

Here's what's coming:

Meningitis vaccine

Last month, federal health officials recommended that the vaccine, Menactra,
be given routinely to students ages 11 and 12 and to those entering high
school. It's also recommended for college freshmen living in dorms, and at
least 32 states require that incoming college students be informed about the
vaccine.

Menactra is made using a newer technology that is expected to provide
long-term immunity, unlike the older vaccine, which wanes in three to five
years. By targeting pre-adolescents, mid-teens and young adults, doctors
hope to protect children during the years they're most susceptible.

Meningococcal disease is rare, affecting 1,500 to 3,400 a year. It is caused
by bacteria that attack the tissue surrounding the brain and can enter the
bloodstream, destroying organs and tissue with horrific speed.

It is most common in infants, for whom there is no vaccine, but about half
of cases are in people over 15. Studies show that among 15- to 24-year-olds,
the death rate was more than 22%, and up to 1 in 5 who survive are left with
serious disabilities, such as brain damage, hearing loss or amputation.

"Meningococcal meningitis is the last of the bad three," says
infectious-disease specialist William Schaffner of Vanderbilt University.
The others are pneumococcal disease and haemophilis influenza B, or Hib.
With wide use of new vaccines against these diseases, he says, "Hib has been
eliminated and pneumococcal disease has had a huge dent in the numbers." He
expects the same from the new meningitis vaccine.

Dose after dose after dose
By age 18, children should have been immunized against more than a dozen
diseases:
Disease Vaccine doses Age at vaccination
Hepatitis A Two(+1) 2 and older
Hepatitis B Three Birth to 18 months
Diphtheria/tetanus/pertussis Five 2 months to 6 years; (tetanus/diphtheria
booster at 11-12 years)
Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib) Three or four(+2) 2 to 15 months
Polio Four 2 months to 6 years
Measles/mumps/rubella Two 12 months to 6 years
Varicella (chickenpox) One 12 to 15 months
Pneumococcal Four 2 to 15 months
Influenza One dose annually (+3) 6 to 23 months (also recommended for
children up to 18 with certain risk factors)
Meningococcal One 11 to12 or 15, or college freshmen in dorms
1 - Recommended in 11 states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Idaho, Nevada,
New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah and Washington.

2 - Depending on which vaccine is used.
3 - Children under 8 need two doses the first time.
Source: CDC, USA TODAY research

Vaccine maker Sanofi Pasteur has warned that in the first year of
production, it can make only 5 million doses, far less than the 12 million
needed for all 11-, 12- and 15-year-olds, but doctors estimate that only 40%
of children in the target age groups see a doctor each year.

"We won't reach all of them," Schaffner says. But "if a single dose remains
on the shelf, it will be a sin."

The vaccine costs $82 a dose and will be covered by the Vaccines for
Children program, which provides vaccines free to children who have no
insurance or are underinsured.

Whooping cough booster

Next week, an FDA advisory committee will consider whether to recommend
approval of two new tetanus-diphtheria-acellular pertussis vaccines. Babies
now get four doses of DtaP - the P is for pertussis, which causes whooping
cough. The vaccine is licensed for up to 7 years of age, but immunity wanes
after 10 years.

Since the 1980s, a growing number of outbreaks of whooping cough have
occurred in the USA, says Trudy Murphy of the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention's National Immunization Program. Last year, more than 18,000
cases were reported, up from 9,771 in 2002, with the greatest increase among
adolescents, she says.

Whooping cough can be deadly in infants, and in teens it can cause violent
coughs that can go on for weeks to months. In one study, "the impact of
adolescent pertussis is significant," says Margaret Cortese of the CDC.
"Kids are very sick with it. Sometimes they get pneumonia, or they'll be
coughing until they vomit. There have been broken ribs."

The vaccines being considered for approval by the FDA are GlaxoSmithKline's
Boostrix, which will be for ages 10-18, and Sanofi Pasteur's Adacel, for
ages 11-64. If the advisory committee recommends approval, at least one of
the vaccines could be licensed by May.

Human papillomavirus vaccine

Two are in development and could be licensed next year. GlaxoSmithKline's
vaccine is targeted at girls and women age 10 and older, and the goal is
preventing cervical cancer.

The vaccine is designed to prevent infection with two viruses, HPV-16 and
HPV-18, which account for about 70% of cervical cancers.

A second vaccine being made by Merck is designed to prevent the two cervical
cancer strains along with two others, HPV-6 and HPV-11, which are
responsible for 90% of genital warts. It's aimed at boys and girls 9 and
older and sexually active adults ages 18-45.

BL Fisher Note: Pharma, Docs and CDC Officials operating The Vaccine Machine have a new
vaccination target: adolescents. Whether they are into profit or into
control, they continue to force their "cradle to grave" approach to mass
vaccination on people of all ages without conducting the kind of rigorous
scientific inquiry into the long term health consequences of continual,
atypical manipulation of the human immune system by vaccines. This is
particularly dangerous because of their total disregard for genetic
variability and biodiversity, which demonstrates a disrespect for individual
human life. The price that is being paid for trying to prevent all
infectious disease through the repeated use of multiple vaccines throughout
childhood and adolescence may well be a catastrophic one: chronic disease
and disability affecting a significant portion of the population.