Vaccination News

by John W. Whitehead, Rutherford.com

The flu season is here once again. During the last flu season, doctors reportedly wrote more prescriptions for the drug Tamiflu than any other flu treatment. But after recent reports about the Food and Drug Administration’s reluctance to issue a warning about certain possible dangers of using Tamiflu, one has to wonder which is more dangerous—the flu or the FDA?

First approved by the FDA in 1999, Tamiflu was touted as a drug that could significantly reduce the length and severity of influenza. These claims even prompted the U.S. government to purchase 20 million doses of Tamiflu—at a cost of $2 billion—in the event that a bird flu pandemic occurred. The Pentagon followed, paying a whopping $58 million in July 2005 for treatments of U.S. troops around the world.  

Continue reading "Which is More Dangerous to Your Health—the Flu or the FDA?" »

Purpose of review: Plant pollens are the most common cause of seasonal allergic disease. The number of patients undergoing treatment for allergies to the pollen of Japanese cedar (major antigens: Cry j 1 and Cry j 2) has increased steadily each year. Integration of an effective, safe and inexpensive clinical program would be greatly improved by addressing deficiencies in systemically delivered immunotherapy.

Recent findings: We have demonstrated that feeding mice transgenic rice seeds accumulating the T-cell epitope peptides of Cry j 1 and Cry j 2 before systemic challenge with total protein of cedar pollen inhibits the development of allergen-specific IgE, IgG and CD4⁺ T-cell proliferative responses. The levels of allergen-specific CD4⁺ T-cell-derived allergy-associated T-helper 2 cytokine of IL-4, IL-5, and IL-13 and histamine release in serum were also significantly decreased. Moreover, clinical symptoms were inhibited in an experimental sneezing-mouse model.

Continue reading "Peptide Immunotherapy for Allergic Diseases Using a Rice-based Edible Vaccine" »

Are you wondering who might have called for this research, as I am? What is the real purpose of this number - 62 million dead people? I think, this number is in the news for a simple reason. Fear. Put fear in us. When this pandemic will come (not if, but when), the solution will be a vaccine shot.

BOSTON, Dec. 22 (UPI) -- U.S. and Australian researchers have re-analyzed data from 27 countries on the 1918 pandemic and estimate a similar pandemic might kill 62 million today.

Based on 2004 population data, the researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and the University of Queensland in Australia say if a similarly virulent strain of flu virus were to strike today approximately 96 percent of deaths would occur in developing countries.

Continue reading "1918 pandemic could kill 62 million today" »

BAKERSFIELD -

The grant would triple the amount of money that has been raised over the past decade to develop a vaccine.

Valley Fever occurs naturally in Kern County and is contracted by breathing in a fungus found in soil.

Last year, nearly 1,600 cases were diagnosed in Kern County, but according to the Health Department, there could be a lot more considering about 60 percent of the people who have it also have no symptoms.

The next step could be funding through the appropriation of a new bill or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services could make the funds available.

via 17KGET

As expected, now it appears that there's too much of influenza vaccine shots. Surprise? Not really. Despite mass media attacks on the consumer to push these rather useless shots and secure profits of pharma corporations, the customers are not in a hurry to get an injection against flu. Who knows, maybe we are a bit less ignorant and more resistant to panic news than it was expected. 

HAWAII - This year you won't see long lines at makeshift vaccination clinics.  What you will see at health insurer HMSA are vials and vials of unused flu vaccine.

"It appears that the demand based on the estimates that everyone provided to us just didn't arrive," said Sr. Vice President Cliff Cisco.

The past two years, demand exceeded supply so much that the shortage left some going without a shot. So everyone, doctors and health insurance companies, increased their orders.

Continue reading "HMSA has Vials of Unused Flu Vaccine" »

Federal health officials yesterday scuttled the largest piece of the Bush administration's two-year program to counter bioterrorism, canceling an $877.5 million contract with VaxGen to develop an anthrax vaccine after the company missed a deadline to begin human testing.

The decision, delivered in a one-page letter, ends a troubled effort by the small California firm that has come to symbolize the failures of the government's ambitious $5.6 billion Project BioShield. The termination occurred on the same day President Bush signed legislation attempting to salvage the program by reorganizing its management and pumping more money into firms doing the work.

Continue reading "Anthrax Vaccine Contract Voided, Thwarting Administration" »

A persistent criticism from opponents of the Pentagon’s anthrax vaccination program is the charge that defense officials purposely put squalene in some vaccine lots to boost troops’ immune responses and increase the length of time vaccine stocks would remain effective.

The Pentagon and the vaccine’s manufacturer have repeatedly denied those charges, but opponents continue to question whether the fatlike substance may have played a role in illnesses developed by some troops who got anthrax shots during the 1991 Persian Gulf War and in the early stages of the Pentagon’s mandatory anthrax vaccine program in the late 1990s.

Continue reading "Critics question safety of vaccine additives" »

by Michael N. Westley

A vaccine that prevents the spread of the human papillomavirus (HPV) has been approved for women and promises to decrease the risk of cervical cancer.

But in the face of such an exciting announcement, one question remains: What about the guys?

Of course, men don't have cervixes, but they do contract and spread HPV, which can cause genital warts and in some cases, rectal cancer. Research also has shown that men are excellent carriers of the strain of HPV that causes cancer in women without developing any symptoms themselves.

The good news is that a vaccine for men may not be too far away, according to a Utah researcher.

Continue reading "Researchers making progress to create men's HPV vaccine" »