H1N1 Vaccine May be Discarded if Unused
October 28, 2009
Reuters
by Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
The U.S. government may end up throwing away unused doses of swine flu vaccine if people cannot get it soon enough, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday.
Members of Congress questioned whether federal officials were too rosy in their estimates of how much vaccine would be available and when, and companies said they were still struggling to produce immunizations against H1N1.
CDC director Dr. Thomas Frieden said 22.4 million doses were now available to states, which can get them a day after they order them.
“It’s quite likely that too little vaccine is one of the things that’s making people more interested in getting vaccinated, frankly,” Frieden told reporters.
“We think it will get easier to find vaccine in the weeks that come.”
President Barack Obama’s daughters found it. “Malia and Sasha were both vaccinated for H1N1 last week, after the vaccine became available to Washington, D.C. schoolchildren,” a White House blog reads.
“President and Mrs. Obama have not yet been vaccinated for H1N1, and they will wait until the needs of the priority groups identified by the CDC — including young people under the age of 24, pregnant women, and people with underlying conditions — have been met.”
Many states and cities say they have received about one-tenth as much vaccine as they originally had expected by this time. Frieden said the delays may discourage people who are lining up for vaccine.
“It is likely also as we produce more vaccine and as both people are given the opportunity to get vaccinated, and as disease maybe wanes in the future, we will have significant amounts of vaccine that can’t be used,” Frieden said.
“One of the messages for states, localities and health providers is not to reserve vaccine that they have available, to give it out as soon as it comes in, because more is on the way.”
In September, U.S. officials said 40 million vaccine doses would be available by the end of October and they estimated 20 million doses a week would be delivered, with a goal of 250 million doses by the end of flu season in March or April.
UNRELIABLE ESTIMATES
Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins asked why the estimates were so far off.
“It now appears that much of the vaccine could arrive only after many people have already been infected with H1N1,” she said in a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, released late on Monday.
“It seems that HHS gave its assurance of sufficient supply in August without adequate information to make such a commitment.”
Connecticut independent Senator Joseph Lieberman weighed in
on Tuesday.
“Unfortunately, these missteps in estimating available doses of H1N1 vaccine have effects beyond just growing public frustration; they have the potential to critically undermine our vaccine distribution efforts, which depend on accurate estimates of vaccine availability,” he said.
But HHS spokeswoman Jenny Backus said the agency was simply passing on information as it became available.
“We have been very clear and open and told the American people what we know when we know it,” she said in a telephone interview.
“We have passed on the manufacturing estimates, and as they have changed, we have conveyed the information to the American people, too.”
Toxic Chemicals Found in Face Pain
October 27, 2009
Campaign for Safe Cosmetics
PRNewswire-USNewswire
Ghosts and goblins aren't the only spooky things lurking around this Halloween.
A new report by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics reveals that popular children's
face paints contain lead, a potent neurotoxin, as well as nickel, cobalt and chromium,
which can cause lifelong skin sensitization and contact dermatitis.
Creepier yet, these metals were not listed on any of the product labels, so
parents have no way of knowing what children are really putting on their
faces.
The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, a national coalition of nonprofit health
groups, sent 10 children's face paints to an independent lab to test for heavy
metals, and also reviewed ingredient labels of Halloween products sold at a
seasonal holiday store. The findings, compiled in the report Pretty Scary,
include:
-- Ten out of 10 children's face paints contained lead ranging from 0.05 to
0.65 parts per million (ppm). The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention recommends that parents avoid using cosmetics on their
children that could be contaminated with lead.
-- Six out of 10 children's face paints contained nickel, cobalt and/or
chromium, which are top allergens in children. The metals were found at
levels ranging from 1.6 to 120 ppm - many of them far exceeding industry
safety recommendations of 1 ppm.
-- Snazaroo Face Paint, labeled as "non-toxic" and "hypoallergenic,"
contained some of the highest levels of lead, nickel and cobalt found in
the study.
"Parents should not have to worry that face paint contains lead and other
hazardous substances, and they have a right to know what's in these products.
Clearly, companies are not making the safest products possible for children,
even though kids are particularly vulnerable to toxic exposures," said Lisa
Archer, national coordinator of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics at the Breast
Cancer Fund.
"Lead and other hazardous chemicals have no place in face paints kids use for
dress-up and play on Halloween or any other day of the year," said Rep. Jan
Schakowsky (D-Ill.). "Strengthening our cosmetics laws and providing ample
resources are essential to ensure the FDA has the authority and tools it needs
to protect the health of our children from chemicals in cosmetics."
Click here for full report
Americans Aren’t Eating Enough Fruits and Vegetables
September 30, 2009
Health Day News
Most Americans don’t eat the recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables, says a U.S. government study released Tuesday. And no state has achieved national objectives for consumption of fruits and vegetables, it found.
The goal for the Healthy People 2010 program is to get at least 75 percent of Americans to eat the recommended two or more daily servings of fruit and for at least 50 percent of Americans to consume three or more daily servings of vegetables.
But surveys from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that only 33 percent of adults meet the fruit consumption target and only 27 percent eat the recommended amount of vegetables. The statistics are worse for high school students — only 32 percent eat the recommended amount of fruit and 13 percent meet the goal for vegetables.
“A diet high in fruits and vegetables is important for optimal child growth, maintaining a healthy weight, and prevention of chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and some cancers, all of which currently contribute to health care costs in the United States,” Dr. William H. Dietz, director of the CDC’s Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity, said in a CDC news release.
“This report will help states determine what is taking place in their communities and schools and come up with ways to encourage people to eat more fruits and vegetables,” Dietz said.
The report — the State Indicator Report on Fruits and Vegetables, 2009 — is the first to detail state-by-state data about fruit and vegetable consumption and policies that may help boost fruit and vegetable consumption.
It spotlights three important policy and environmental areas associated with fruit and vegetable consumption: healthier food retail, availability of healthier foods in schools, and food system support.
Food stores that stock a variety of high-quality fruits and vegetables can play a key role in residents’ health, the report notes. But only eight states have a policy for healthier food retail improvements that can increase the number of full-service grocery stores in areas where they’re lacking, increase the availability of healthier foods in small food stores, and promote healthier foods by providing information to consumers in food stores.
Schools can influence better eating by students, staff, parents and other members of the community. But the report found that only 21 percent of U.S. middle schools and high schools offer fruits and non-fried vegetables in vending machines, school stores or snack bars. Fewer than half the states (21) have policies to support farm-to-school programs that can increase access to fruits and vegetables and teach students about nutrition and agriculture.
The report also mentioned food policy councils, which are organizations that look at access to fresh produce at the community and state levels. Food policy councils make recommendations about policies and programs such as community gardens, farmers’ markets, availability of fresh produce in supermarkets and farm-to-school programs. Currently, 59 local food policy councils operate across the United States, and 20 states have a state-level food policy council.
“We have seen the tremendous benefit of state and local officials, health professionals, employers, food store owners, farmers, school staff, and community members working together on food and nutrition issues,” CDC epidemiologist Heidi Michels Blanck said in the news release. “Their efforts can help to increase the availability of affordable healthier food choices such as fruits and vegetables.”
Click here for the full report from HealthDay News
Get Ready…Mandatory Vaccinations Begin Next Week!
September 30, 2009
ABC News
By Courtney Hutchison
After all the waiting and worrying, the first of the swine flu vaccines will begin arriving in the United States next week.
They are coming just in time, as doctors across the country, particularly in the hard-hit Southern states, report sharp increases in the number of swine flu patients.
Dr. Richard Besser, ABC News’ senior health and medical editor and the former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said the nasal spray will be distributed first, at the beginning of next week, with shots arriving by week’s end.
“It’s going to be rocky early on, as more people want the vaccine than is available,” Besser said.
He also expressed concern about the rise in deaths, especially among normally healthy children and teens. Besser said his sons will be in line for their vaccine when it’s available to them.
“We need to have a healthy respect for this infection,” Besser said.
For more information about the H1N1 flu in your state click here.
Health officials across the country were concerned not with the availability of the vaccine, but the organization of vaccine distribution and public awareness of the need for high-risk patients to be vaccinated.
Ed Barham, at the Arkansas Department of Health, said “people are frightened of swine flu, but they’re also frightened of the vaccine. We’re worried parents won’t allow their kids to get the vaccine, since it’s optional.”
Texas has seen the worst of the swine flu outbreaks, with the Northwestern states seeing rising numbers.
Dr. Ari Brown, an Austin-based pediatrician, told ABCNews.com that her office alone, which consists of seven doctors, is seeing “about 300 to 350 patients a day, many of which have swine flu.”
Brown said her office has been inundated with swine flu cases for the past two weeks but, fortunately, “no one is very sick [and] we have had just one hospitalization.”
Given the rise in swine flu cases, the Texas Department of State Health Services has created a 211 number that people can dial for medical guidance if they or a family member should come down with swine flu.
Dr. Daniel McCarter, who directs clinical affairs at the University of Virginia, said there are 20 staff members with flu, and the student health center at the university has 242 affected patients.
Virginia State Health Commissioner Dr. Karen Remley said, “We are seeing a lot of disease in schools and colleges, more in southern rather than northern parts of the state.”
In Alabama, Dr. David Freedman, director of the UAB’s Traveler’s Health Clinic, said he expects cases in the state to peak this week or the next. And, in North Carolina, Dr. David Weber of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill said H1N1 cases have been increasing in the past two weeks.
Tennessee state epidemiologist Dr. Tim Jones told ABCNews.com that “almost 100 percent of flu cases we’re testing are swine flu — if they have flu, they have swine flu.”
California, Northeast Faring Better With Swine Flu
He said there have been 13 confirmed deaths and the “western side of the state is hardest hit, particularly Memphis, where we’re seeing 450 kids a day and had to set up triage tents.”
Further south, at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Dr. Curtis Stine said there has been “quite a bit [of swine flu] in the community and quite a bit among students at the colleges,” although he has seen few hospitalizations.
Northwestern states are also seeing steady increases in swine flu cases. Dr. Scott Fields of Oregon Health and Sciences University said he’s just seeing a high rate of viral illness.
Dr. Frank James of the University of Washington said he has seen 14 swine flu deaths so far and that daily school absenteeism last week reached 10 percent in one school in each district, “so the number of cases & is definitely rising.
In contrast, California and the northeast seem to be faring better.
Dr. Amy Kaji of UCLA said H1N1 cases have dropped off since April-May, and Dr. Andrew Racine of the Montefiore Medical Center in New York said “we’ve seen very, very little flu activity so far — which is in keeping with the information we’re receiving both from the New York City Department of Health and from the CDC, which is showing only sporadic flu activity in New York.”
Racine said all indications are that the first shipments of H1N1 vaccine will only be about 18,000 doses for New York City.
But given the low incidence rates thus far, he said, “ultimately the city will have more flu vaccine than it probably needs.”
Click here for the full report from ABC News
CDC to Impose Martial Law for H1N1
September 29, 2009 by Andrew
Filed under Government
September 28, 2009
Info Wars
By Kurt Nimmo
The following draft of an “isolation order” was discovered on the CDC’s website. It is a template for state and local officials to impose quarantines and what would effectively be martial law.
“Your illness [as determined by state and local officials] requires that you be isolated and requires further public health investigation and monitoring.”
Failure to obey will result in imprisonment without bail prior to trial and the possiblity of a two year prison term.
In other words, according to this document, officials can impose quarantine without evidence that somebody is actually infected with a virus that is now negligible at best. It may also be used to quarantine potentially millions of people suffering from any number of illnesses — or not suffering from any disease at the discretion of the state — that have nothing to do with H1N1. It is basically a carte blanche for martial law under the cover of protecting the public from a communicable disease that is demonstrably a manufactured and weaponized threat.
Click here to continue reading the full article from InfoWars
UN Seeks $1.5 Billion for Swine Flu
September 24, 2009 by Andrew
Filed under Government
September 24, 2009
Associated Press
By Maria Cheng
United Nations health officials claim in a new report they need nearly $1.5 billion to prevent the swine flu epidemic from spiraling into a global catastrophe.
But for a virus from which most people recover without ever being treated, not all experts are convinced swine flu merits such attention — and some critics even suspect the U.N. is using the pandemic as a convenient way to raise money.
On the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, World Health Organization chief Margaret Chan was meeting Thursday with other top officials to discuss the swine flu funding appeal, which was authored by WHO and two other U.N. agencies.
Experts said the global community should closely track how the swine flu money gets spent.
“When $1.5 billion is pledged, it’s a reasonable question to ask about the details behind it,” said Orin Levine, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “We should be very careful to watch where the money goes.”
WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl denied WHO was using the H1N1 swine flu virus as a pretext for fundraising and said the appeal was a necessary response to the global health emergency.
“If we don’t try to fund H1N1, we would be remiss in our public health responsibility to the world,” he said.
In the U.N. funding appeal, the agency says nearly 80 percent of the requested money would be used to buy antivirals and vaccines. The rest would go mostly to “strengthening country readiness.”
Influenza viruses like swine flu are unpredictable. Since the H1N1 virus first emerged in spring, experts have worried it might mutate into a more lethal form.
So far, those fears haven’t panned out. Experiments at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed swine flu lacks certain traits to help it easily morph into a more dangerous version.
Hartl said even if the virus doesn’t turn deadlier, the agency expects to see a spike in cases that might crush health systems in poor countries. “There are a lot of signs that we need to take this seriously,” he said.
Globally, WHO estimates more than 3,500 people have died of swine flu — far fewer than those killed by diarrhea, pneumonia, or road accidents. That leads some experts to contend that WHO’s prediction the virus could lead to “civil disruption” in poor countries may be overblown.
A sum of $1.5 billion is a lot to ask for considering swine flu is unlikely to be one of the world’s top killers, said Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.
“Given that the world spends about $22 billion on all global health problems, is it really wise to spend $1.5 billion only on swine flu?”
Some experts said WHO’s funding appeal went beyond the boundaries of its mandate.
“I am concerned WHO’s communications is corrupted by the fact they push the buttons in the public’s brains that will raise the most funds,” said William Aldis, a retired senior WHO official who worked on the bird flu crisis.
“That is incompatible with what the organization should be doing: serving the public with technically correct factual information, pure and simple.”
Others accused WHO of sacrificing science for dollars.
“WHO is peddling an alarmist, unscientific agenda to raise funds,” said Philip Stevens, a director at International Policy Network, a London-based think tank. “The U.N. is operating on pure conjecture that we will face anarchy and chaos in the developing world should the virus mutate,” he said.
In countries where health systems are too weak to effectively mass distribute antivirals and vaccines, some experts questioned WHO’s spending plan, particularly since most of the money will benefit the drug industry.
“If we want to reduce the mortality that will be caused by the H1N1 pandemic, we cannot rely only on the vaccine,” said Dr. Christophe Fournier of Medecins Sans Frontieres.
Aldis warned that in countries with few resources, giving people a swine flu shot might come at the expense of a vaccine for measles or diptheria.
Some experts said the U.N.’s billion-dollar swine flu appeal could overshadow other pressing health problems.
“I would prioritize other areas like maternal and child health, where the need is urgent and huge,” Murray said.
Click here for the full report from the Associated Press
Flu Experts Gear Up for Pandemic of Vaccine Worry
September 16, 2009
Reuters
By Maggie Fox
One million heart attacks, 700,000 strokes and 900,000 miscarriages — U.S. public health officials want Americans to know these will happen every single year with or without a swine flu vaccine campaign.
Yet this year, they know a significant number will be blamed on the H1N1 vaccine, which will roll out within weeks, and they are struggling to be ready.
They expect an avalanche of so-called adverse event reports, which are reports of death, illness or other health trauma that occur within two weeks after receiving treatment — in this case, the swine flu vaccine.
“We are going to be overwhelmed with potential events,” said Mike Osterholm, a public health expert at the University of Minnesota.
“Anything that happens to anybody in the period of seven to 14 days after vaccination will be reported.”
And not just to U.S. officials. The World Health Organization is trying to reassure a global audience that vaccines being made by 25 different companies, with various formulations, are all safe.
“If we have a safety signal in one country it could stop vaccination efforts in others,” WHO’s top flu expert Dr Keiji Fukuda told a meeting of infectious disease specialists organized by the U.S. Institute of Medicine this week.
Flu experts themselves have little doubt the vaccine being made against H1N1 is safe. It is made using precisely the same technology as the annual seasonal flu vaccine, which is given to hundreds of millions of people every year.
But because H1N1 is new, vaccine makers have been testing it to learn what the right dose is.
SPIRIT OF ‘76
Memories linger of the 1976 swine flu debacle, when 43 million Americans were vaccinated against a virus that never spread, and newspapers filled with reports of a rare and crippling neurological disease called Guillain-Barre syndrome.
Guillain-Barre was never definitively linked with the vaccine, but many Americans have viewed immunizations with suspicion ever since.
“We have anticipated that there will be a need for enhanced surveillance for Guillain-Barre as well as other adverse events,” Dr Nancy Cox of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told the meeting.
And there will be more to contend with than critical newspaper and television reports. The Internet did not exist in 1976. Nor did blogs, Facebook, Twitter or dozens of other ways for people to communicate globally and instantly.
“Information is the most globalized product of all,” Fukuda said. “The ability of blog sites to influence countries’ decision-makers and so on — coming to grips with how we deal with this is going to be a priority.”
To address this, CDC and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are gearing up for one of the biggest surveillance efforts ever. “We know how absolutely essential clear, transparent communications are to the public in order to have a successful vaccination campaign,” Cox said.
CDC’s weapons of choice — Facebook, Twitter, Internet RSS feeds, humorous “viral” videos posted on YouTube, iPhone apps such as the CDC News Reader. Children’s Hospital Boston has an app (short for application) called Outbreaks Near Me that allows people to track the pandemic locally.
Click here for the full report from Reuters
Swine Flu Might Be Even More Contagious
September 16, 2009
ABC News
By Michael Smith
People infected with the swine flu (or H1N1 pandemic flu) strain continue to shed virus after the point where current recommendations say they can go back to work or school, two studies suggested Tuesday.
The question, experts said, is whether those people are still contagious and whether a longer stay-at-home period would prevent enough additional infections outweigh the cost.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control currently says people should wait at least a day after their fever subsides — usually three or four days after the onset of symptoms — before resuming normal activities.
But patients can continue to shed virus for several days after that, according to data presented at the annual Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy in San Francisco.
Even so, detection of virus doesn’t necessarily mean contagion, said Dr. Gaston De Serres, of Laval University in Quebec City.
“We detected live virus,” he told reporters. “We cannot say (patients are) contagious but they have the potential to be.”
De Serres and colleagues studied 43 people with confirmed H1N1 pandemic flu, as well as members of their households, using polymerase chain reaction technology to detect the virus and culture methods to find live influenza.
Eight days after their symptoms started, De Serres said eight of the 43 (or 19 percent) were still shedding live virus, detected by culture methods.
Meanwhile, in a similar study, Dr. David Chien Lye, of Tan Tock Seng Hospital in Singapore reported that even after treatment with oseltamivir (Tamiflu), patients may still shed virus for several days.
Lye and colleagues studied 70 patients treated in the hospital after they showed signs of the pandemic flu. They found that 80 percent were still shedding virus after five days of illness, compared with 40 percent after seven days and 10 percent after 10 days.
The longest period during which a patient shed virus was 12 days from the start of symptoms, he said. Lye used a different method to detect the virus and wasn’t able to tell whether the virus given off by the patients was a “live virus,” he said. But he said a small sub-study in which both tests were used provided similar results in each instance.
De Serres said he and his colleagues are still trying to determine if any of their participants transmitted the virus after the first seven days.
For his part, Lye said his patients did not actually transmit the virus, since they were hospitalized and staff took full precautions against the flu.
Both researchers said more study is needed, but the findings suggest that people with the H1N1 flu shouldn’t rush to resume normal activities.
“If you only stay home a couple of days,” De Serres said, “it’s very likely you will still be contagious.”
The mere act of shedding virus may not mean much, according to Dr. Donald Low, of Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital, because modern tests are so sensitive they can find viruses long after they’re dead.
Shedding a Virus Doesn’t Always Mean Spreading Disease
For instance, he said, researchers tested a carpet several months after one of the first victims of Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) had vomited on it.
“It was just chock-full of virus,” he said, “but it was all dead.”
He added that health policy-makers must balance the economic impact of telling people to stay home longer with the medical impact of some potential extra infections.
The current recommendation is intended to decrease the chance of transmitting the virus, rather than to stop it completely, said Dr. Daniel Jernigan, the deputy director of the CDC’s influenza division.
“Some people will continue to shed live virus after their fever stops, we know that,” he said, but it’s not clear that they remain contagious.
In the absence of clear evidence that shedding virus equals infectivity, he said, “we needed to make a policy that was easy to implement proportional to the severity of the virus.”
“If we had a virus with a very high attack rate or death rate,” he said, “we might have a very different policy.
Click here for the full report from ABC News
Maine Governor Proclaims Civil Emergency Due to H1N1
September 4, 2009 by Andrew
Filed under Government
September 2, 2009
Bangor Daily News
By Meg Haskell
Gov. John Baldacci on Tuesday declared a statewide civil emergency because of the H1N1 influenza virus, paving the way for mass immunization of Maine schoolchildren and other residents.
The emergency designation protects schools and health care providers against liability claims related to their participation in school-based vaccine clinics this fall for both the seasonal flu and the H1N1 flu. “Maine has been proactive in its response to this new flu,” Baldacci said in announcing the proclamation. “But as the school year begins, we must continue our vigilance, which will require a responsible and aggressive vaccination and public education campaign. It’s our goal that every person in the state has access to vaccines for the seasonal and H1N1 flu.”
In accordance with recommendations from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, officials in Maine are encouraging public schools to offer on-site immunization clinics for all children, including infants over 6 months and preschoolers as well as children who are home-schooled. Participating schools will offer the seasonal influenza vaccine as soon as possible, and many also will offer the new H1N1 vaccine when it becomes available.
A list of participating schools is not yet available. Dr. Dora Anne Mills, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said Tuesday that many schools will partner with area health care providers such as hospitals, visiting nursing organizations, and health clinics for the actual administration of the injectable vaccines. But those providers may not have enough clinical staff to devote to giving the vaccines and will be looking to recruit recently retired nurses and other clinicians who are not their regular employees.
The emergency proclamation allows for those clinicians, once their credentials have been approved, to become temporary employees of the state, relieving provider agencies from the administrative burden and legal liabilities associated with hiring them directly.
Mills said a similar process was employed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita when Maine nurses and other providers worked with rescue and recovery teams on the Gulf Coast.
Schools are no more liable for injuries associated with the vaccine clinics than they would be for injuries incurred at a basketball game or other community event, Mills said. And while vaccine manufacturers are generally not liable for ill effects of the vaccines they produce, Mills said, the federal government does have a compensation fund for vaccine-related illnesses or injuries.
“The H1N1 vaccine is being manufactured using the identical process as the seasonal vaccine,” she added. “There is no reason to think it is any less safe than the seasonal vaccine.”
Hundreds of cases of H1N1 have been confirmed in Maine, with many times that number of cases presumed. The virus is linked to one death in Maine. Although symptoms in this country have been relatively mild in most cases, public health officials predict a surge in the number of cases and possibly in the severity of the symptoms beginning this fall.
Unlike the seasonal flu, H1N1 thus far has proved to be more dangerous to young people, including children, teens, pregnant women and young adults. School-age children, in particular, are seen as a primary source of transmission to other vulnerable populations. Public health officials advise these groups to be vaccinated against the seasonal flu to help maintain their general good health, and to get the H1N1 vaccine as soon as it becomes available.
Click here for the full report from Bangor Daily News
Polio Vaccine Blamed for Outbreaks in Nigeria
August 14, 2009
MSNBC
Polio is spreading in Nigeria and health officials say in some cases it’s caused by the vaccine used to fight the paralyzing disease.
In July, the World Health Organization issued a warning that this particular virus might extend beyond Africa. So far, 124 Nigerian children have been paralyzed this year — about twice those afflicted in 2008.
Nigeria and most other poor nations use an oral polio vaccine because it’s cheaper, easier, and protects entire communities. But it’s made from a live polio virus which carries a small risk of causing polio. In even rarer instances, the virus in the vaccine can mutate into a deadlier version that ignites new outbreaks.
A virologist with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says genetic analysis proves such mutated viruses have caused at least seven separate outbreaks in Nigeria.
The vaccine used in the United States and other Western nations is given in shots, which use a killed virus that cannot cause polio.
Click here for the full report from MSNBC
