Vaccines policy - a test in the making

These folks don't know what they're doing! Read the end, where it says to give the vaccine in two separate jabs - aren't they talking about a new vax to combine them?


MMR Reduces Effectiveness of Chickenpox Vaccine
By Emma Hitt, PhD

ATLANTA (Reuters Health) - Doctors should give children the chickenpox
(varicella) vaccine either simultaneously with measles-mumps-rubella (MMR)
vaccine or wait at least 30 days if the vaccines are administered
separately, researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) report.

Varicella vaccine is recommended in the United States for children aged 12
to 18 months and for susceptible older children, adolescents and adults.

About 4 million cases of chickenpox occur in the US each year, and 95% of
people have had the virus by the time they reach adulthood. The illness can
be severe, but fatalities are rare.

Writing in the November 30th issue of the agency's Morbidity and Mortality
Weekly Report, CDC researchers report that when the two vaccines are given
less than 30 days apart but not simultaneously, there is a 2.5-fold
increased incidence of ``breakthrough disease,'' which they define as a case
of chickenpox that occurs more than 42 days after varicella vaccination.

According to Dr. Aisha Jumaan, with the CDC's National Immunization Program,
the amount of antibody in the blood doesn't increase enough to confer
immunity if one shot follows the other within 30 days. ``You need that
30-day period for the body to respond well to the second vaccine,'' she told
Reuters Health.

Jumaan said the CDC investigated the interaction with varicella vaccine
because of previous experience with smallpox vaccine, and had reason to
believe a similar reaction would occur because both vaccines contain live
poxviruses.

CDC researchers analyzed data from the Vaccine Safety Datalink project,
which included over 110,000 children between the ages of 12 and 71 months
from two health maintenance organizations.

They also checked to see if giving other vaccines within 30 days of
varicella would result in breakthrough disease, but found this occurred only
with MMR.

Jumaan noted that less than 1% of children receiving varicella vaccines
received another vaccine within less than 30 days, ``so it is a small
number.''

``It could be that these cases resulted from a child being vaccinated by
more than one provider, without telling each provider,'' she said.

Jumaan recommends that parents ask the doctor about revaccinating their
child if they believe the vaccines were not given simultaneously or were
given less than 30 days apart. ''But people should try to avoid this
situation in the first place,'' she said.

``Clinicians should already be aware of this recommendation for
administering MMR and varicella vaccines,'' Jumaan said.

She also pointed out that two different injections should be given for the
MMR and varicella vaccines. ``But there's no increased risk for adverse
events with administering the vaccines simultaneously, and it reduces the
number of visits a parent has to make to the clinic,'' she added.

SOURCE: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 2001;50:1038-1041.