Despite the reality of measles, rotavirus, and a plethora of other infectious diseases, there's yet another anti-vaccine movement afoot in California. And its aim is to turn the clock back to the 10th Century.
It's another vaccine success story, this time about rotavirus vaccines. Not only do the vaccines prevent the sometimes dangerous dehydration that accompanies this infection, they are also associated with a decreased occurrence of non-febrile seizures in infants and young children.
As the anti-vaccine movement garnered Hollywood momentum, science stood largely silent. However, Dr. Paul Offit, inventor of the Rotavirus vaccine, took to the helm to fight for children's health and safety. Here's an informative conversation with a true expert in the field.
Public Health Ontario, in collaboration with the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, have published data which reveal a 71 percent drop in hospitalizations due to rotavirus infection since the introduction of the rotavirus vaccine in 2011.
Rotavirus, which causes severe gastroenteritis, doesn t get the same degree of attention that others viruses like measles or chickenpox get, but it can be a troublesome infection especially for young children. The CDC lists a number of daunting statistics for children under 5. Rotavirus causes: 70,000 annual hospitalizations, more than 400,000 doctors visits and 200,000 emergen
On rare occasions, a new vaccine or drug will work so well that a previously untreatable disease or condition quickly becomes a distant memory. It doesn t happen often, but when it does, the entire game changes in one inning.
One of the most common childhood illnesses, rotavirus, which infects almost 100 percent of children at one time or another, has been badly beaten down, thanks to the work of a host of researchers from the public and private sectors (including Dr. Paul Offit, a member of the ACSH board of directors, and chief of the division of infectious diseases and director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children s Hospital of Philadelphia), as well as three pharmaceutical companies: Wyeth, Merck and GlaxoSmithKline.
For children in the developed world (and their parents), rotavirus a childhood equivalent to norovirus (the stomach flu) is very unpleasant, but usually self-limiting.