Tag: recommendations

National Immunization Awareness Month

This year, we celebrate the 17th annual National Immunization Awareness Month.

History of National Immunization Awareness Month

The National Partnership for Immunization first designated August as National Immunization Awareness Month in 2001.

“NIAM was officially announced to the media and the immunization community with a kickoff event at the National Press Club on August 1, 2001. Key stakeholders, including maternal and child health professionals, immunization advocates and policymakers participated in a press conference and reception in Washington, D.C. to celebrate the initiation of this yearly event.”

Are you up-to-date? Vaccinate! An early theme of National Immunization Awareness Month.
Are you up-to-date? Vaccinate! An early theme of National Immunization Awareness Month.

In addition to giving awards to a few members of Congress, the TV show ER got a media award at the first National Immunization Awareness Month because the show “portrayed the importance of vaccinations using the story of an unvaccinated child who was sent to the emergency room and subsequently died from measles. The episode effectively relayed the important messages that measles still occurs in this country, that the disease can be deadly and that it can be prevented by immunization.”

In 2006, the CDC “took over” National Immunization Awareness Month, continuing NPI’s campaign focused around the theme, “Are You Up to Date? Vaccinate!”

Unfortunately, the CDC didn’t really sponsor the month. They just recognized that it was happening on their website…

“While CDC does not sponsor this month, CDC does support and encourage the efforts of state and local health departments and other immunization partners to celebrate NIAM and use this month to promote back to school immunizations, remind college students to catch up immunizations before they move into dormitories, and remind everyone that the influenza season is only a few months away. It’s a great reminder to our nation that people of all ages require timely immunization to protect their health.”

It wasn’t until 2013 that National Immunization Awareness Month really came back.

That’s when the National Public Health Information Coalition started coordinating NIAM activities, including key messages, sample media materials, social media content, and event ideas to:

  • Encourage parents of young children to get recommended immunizations by age two
  • Help parents make sure older children, preteens, and teens have received all recommended vaccines by the time they go back to school
  • Remind college students to catch up on immunizations before they move into dormitories
  • Educate adults, including healthcare workers, about vaccines and boosters they may need
  • Educate pregnant women about getting vaccinated to protect newborns from diseases like whooping cough (pertussis)
  • Remind everyone that the next flu season is only a few months away

In 2014, NIAM began to also focus on a different stage of the lifespan each week, from infants, children and teens to pregnant women and adults.

National Immunization Awareness Month 2017

What’s going on in #NIAM17?

In addition to adding a ‘Back to School’ category for school age children that lasts throughout the month to make sure kids are ready for school, NAIM17 continues with different themes each week:

  • Vaccines are safe. Vaccines are necessary. Vaccines work. These are good messages to learn in NIAM17.
    Vaccines are safe. Vaccines are necessary. Vaccines work. These are good messages to learn in NIAM17.

    Babies and Young Children: A healthy start begins with on-time vaccinations. (July 31-August 6)

  • Pregnant Women: Protect yourself and pass protection on to your baby. (August 7-13)
  • Adults: Vaccines are not just for kids. (August 14-20)
  • Preteens/Teens: Ensure a healthy future with vaccines. (August 21-27)

Are your kids up-to-date?

National Immunization Awareness Month is a great time to get educated about vaccines and learn that:

  • Vaccines protect against serious diseases.
  • These diseases still exist and outbreaks do occur.
  • Vaccines are recommended throughout our lives.
  • Vaccines are very safe.

It’s also a good time to learn how to avoid getting scared by anti-vaccine talking points and the misinformation pushed by the anti-vaccine movement.

What To Know About National Immunization Awareness Month

National Immunization Awareness Month is a great time to learn why vaccinating and protecting your family is an important and safe decision.

More About National Immunization Awareness Month

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Best Books to Help You Research Vaccines

There are many books to help you get educated about vaccines and avoid getting influenced by vaccine scare stories and anti-vaccine talking points.

Some can even help you understand why you are afraid of vaccines.

Unfortunately, if you simply search Amazon for books about vaccines, you are going to be hit with a list of anti-vaccine books. These are books that push their own made-up, so-called alternative immunization schedules and misinformation about vaccines to scare you away from vaccinating and protecting your kids.

Best Vaccine Books

Which books about vaccines have you read?

Did you even realize you had so many choices?

These books about vaccines can help with your research about vaccinating and protecting your family.
These books about vaccines and vaccine-preventable diseases can help with your research about vaccinating and protecting your family.

Some of my favorite vaccine books that can help you with your research on vaccination and making the right decision for your child include:

  • Autism’s False Prophets. Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure
  • Bad Faith: When Religious Belief Undermines Modern Medicine
  • Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks
  • Calling the Shots: Why Parents Reject Vaccines
  • The Cutter Incident: How America’s First Polio Vaccine Led to the Growing Vaccine Crisis
  • Dangerous Pregnancies: Mothers, Disabilities, and Abortion in Modern America
  • Deadly Choices. How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All
  • Do Vaccines Cause That?!
  • Do You Believe in Magic? The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine
  • Immunity by William E. Paul, MD
  • On Immunity: An Inoculation
  • NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity
  • The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear
  • Panicology: Two Statisticians Explain What’s Worth Worrying About (and What’s Not)
  • Polio. An American Story
  • Polio Wars: Sister Kenny and the Golden Age of American Medicine
  • Pox. An American History
  • Smallpox and the Literary Imagination, 1660-1820
  • Tabloid Medicine: How the Internet is Being Used to Hijack Medical Science for Fear and Profit
  • Twin Voices: A Memoir of Polio, the Forgotten Killer
  • Vaccinated. One Man’s Quest to Defeat the World’s Deadliest Diseases
  • Vaccination: A History from Lady Montagu to Genetic Engineering
  • Vaccine. The Controversial Story of Medicine’s Greatest Lifesaver
  • The Vaccine Race: Science, Politics, and the Human Costs of Defeating Disease
  • Vaccines and Your Child. Separating Fact from Fiction
  • Your Baby’s Best Shot. Why Vaccines Are Safe and Save Lives

How many of these books about vaccines have you read?

What To Know About Vaccine Books

If you were scared away from vaccinating your kids because of a book you read or something you saw on the Internet, consider reading a few of these vaccine books that are based on evidence, not fear.

More Information on Vaccine Books:

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Is the HPV Vaccine a Savior or the Most Dangerous Vaccine Ever Made?

I’m still surprised at the responses some parents have when I mention that it is time for their kids to get their HPV vaccine.

Despite what you might read on the Internet, the HPV vaccines are safe and necessary.
Despite what you might read on the Internet, the HPV vaccines are safe and necessary.

While most say things like, “good, I was wondering when they would start it,” a minority still use arguments that could come straight off of any anti-vaccine website or forum.

Is the HPV Vaccine Dangerous?

The HPV isn’t dangerous, but it is easy to see why some parents still think that it is.

How many myths about the HPV vaccine have you heard?

“I don’t like this vaccine… Heaven help us if we have a generation of kids who get a hepatitis B vaccine and a HPV vaccine and they think that now unprotected sex is okay…

I don’t think it is really clear that this vaccine is really as safe as they say it is and it is certainly not as dangerous as they say it is, but I recommend against it in my practice.”

Dr. Jay Gordon discussing the HPV vaccine on the Ricki Lake Show

You can rest assured that they aren’t true.

Deciding to Get an HPV Vaccine

The HPV vaccines are well studied and in continuing studies have only been found to cause mild side effects, just like most other vaccines.

Still undecided?

“The manufacturers of Cervarix and Gardasil are following patients in Scandinavia for at least 15 years to verify that protection from both vaccines lasts at least that long.”

National Cancer Institute on HPV Vaccines

Parents who are still hesitant should know that:

  • Gardasil, the first HPV vaccine, was approved by the FDA in 2006. The first phase 1 and phase 2 trials began in 1997. It has been given to over 200,000,000 children, teens, and young adults for over 10 years now all over the world.
  • while fainting might occur after vaccination, it is also not uncommon after other vaccinations and medical procedures, especially in teens. It is not a specific issue caused by the HPV vaccine or any vaccine, for that matter.
  • the HPV vaccine does not cause primary ovarian failure, venous blood clots, behavior problems, multiple sclerosis, autoimmune disorders, or any of the other serious side effects you read on the Internet
  • while the HPV vaccine won’t protect against all forms of HPV, it protects against the forms that are most likely to cause cervical cancer. Just two types of HPV, types 16 and 18, cause 70% of cervical cancers, and another two types, types 6 and 11, cause 90% of genital warts. All are included in the Gardasil vaccine and Cervarix includes the types most likely to cause cervical cancer.
  • HPV is not rare – in fact, it is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States. While many infections do go away on their own, spontaneously, others linger and can cause cervical cancer.
  • HPV doesn’t just cause cervical cancer though, it can also cause vaginal, vulvar, penile, and anal, and oropharyngeal cancer, and genital warts
  • the HPV vaccines seem to provide long lasting protection, although, as with any new vaccine, we won’t know just how long the true duration of protection is until the vaccines have been out even longer. So far, Gardasil and Cervarix are providing protection that lasts at least 8 and 9 years.
  • boys need the HPV vaccine too, as there are around 11,000 cases of HPV induced cancer in men each year, including anal cancer and cancers of the mouth/throat and penis.
  • you want your child to get the HPV vaccine before they are having sex, to prevent them from ever getting infected with HPV, which is why it is routinely recommended when kids are 11 to 12 years old. That they are not sexually active yet is the whole point! As with other vaccines, if you continue to wait, you might eventually wait too long, although you can still get the vaccine if they are already sexually active, even if they are already infected with HPV, as it might protect them against another strain that they don’t have yet.
  • getting the HPV vaccine does not make it more likely that a teen will have sex
  • using condoms will not prevent all HPV infections. HPV can also spread through nonpenetrative sexual contact.
  • cervical cancer is serious, with about 4,200 women dying of cervical cancer each year, even in this age of routine pap tests
  • although you may hear that the HPV vaccine has been banned in some places, it is still offered in Japan, Utah, and other places where they talk about these bans, and since 2014, at least 64 countries have added the HPV vaccine to their immunization schedule

Get educated about vaccines and get your kids their HPV vaccine series. Remember that if you start the series before your kids are 15 years old, they only need two doses of the vaccine. After 15 years, they need 3 doses.

What To Know About Deciding to Get an HPV Vaccine

The HPV vaccines are safe, they work, and are necessary, which are beliefs shared by experts and most parents who decide to get their kids vaccinated and protected against HPV.

More Information on Deciding to Get an HPV Vaccine

 

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New Vaccine Laws and Mandates

Every good vaccine bill doesn't make it into law.
NY passed a law in 2015 that  eliminated religious exemptions to getting vaccines.

California passed a new vaccine law, SB 277, in 2015.

Most states, including California, already had vaccine mandates though. The difference now is that in California, you need a medical exception to attend school if your kids aren’t vaccinated.

With the passage of SB 277, California joined Mississippi and West Virginia as the only states that do not allow either religious or personal belief vaccine exemptions.

They still aren’t forcing anyone to get vaccinated though.

“The term mandate is somewhat misleading, because there are exceptions — always on medical grounds, frequently on religious grounds, and sometimes on philosophical grounds. Moreover, the thrust of mandates is not to forcibly require vaccination but to predicate eligibility for a service or benefit on adherence to the recommended immunization schedule of vaccination. ”

Y. Tony Yang on Linking Immunization Status and Eligibility for Welfare and Benefits Payments

And in some countries that already have mandates, they aren’t even doing a very good job of making sure that kids even get vaccinated. Many people will be surprised to learn that 14 European countries already mandate one or more vaccines, typically DTP, polio, and MMR.

What’s New in Vaccine Laws

Internationally, the idea of vaccine mandates is a big issue as we continue to see outbreaks of measles in Europe and other areas of the world.

“Parents who vaccinate their children should have confidence that they can take their children to child care without the fear that their children will be at risk of contracting a serious or potentially life-threatening illness because of the conscientious objections of others. ”

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott on “No Jab No Pay”

Unlike the Disneyland outbreak in California, the outbreaks in Europe are on a much bigger scale.

And with more cases we see what everyone fears – more deaths.

That’s why we are finally seeing new vaccine laws, including some that mandate vaccines in some other countries, including:

  • Australia – the Australian government began a “No Jab No Pay” plan in 2016 that removed the conscientious objector exemption on children’s vaccination for access to taxpayer funded Child Care Benefits, the Child Care Rebate and the Family Tax Benefit Part A end of year supplement.
  • Estonia – A proposal was put before the Estonian Parliament, the Riigikogu, to make immunizations compulsory.
  • Germany – a new law, if approved (it has already passed the Bundestag or national parliament), will require parents to have a medical consultation before deciding to delay or skip vaccines or they can be fined up to $2,800. Even with the law, in Germany, “vaccinations remain voluntary. But some politicians have suggested that mandatory vaccination is on the way if concerted efforts to encourage vaccinations don’t work.”
  • Italy – the Italian Parliament has given final approval to the Decree-Law Containing Urgent Measures on the Compulsory Vaccination of Children, which makes vaccinations against 12 diseases mandatory for children as a condition of school registration, for both private and public schools.
  • France – is working to expand their list of mandated vaccines to now include protection against 11 diseases instead of just three (diphtheria, tetanus, and polio). All of these vaccines were previously recommended to attend school, but were only voluntary.
  • Romania – a draft Vaccination Law could bring fines to parents who don’t vaccinate their kids and would keep them out of schools. Doctors could be fined too! The draft law is headed to Parliament for debate.

Again, none of these laws mean that anyone is being forced to vaccinate their kids.

Even in the case of vaccine mandates, they are simply requirements to attend daycare or school.

We are also seeing some new vaccine laws in the United States, including changes for the start of the 2017-2018 school year:

  • Indiana – pharmacists can give more vaccines, any vaccine that the CDC recommends, either with a prescription or by protocol for kids over are at least 11 years old and adults
  • Iowa – now requires a meningococcal vaccine for students entering 7th (one dose) and 12th (one or two doses) grades
  • Nevada – now requires a meningococcal vaccine for students entering 7th grade (one dose) and college (a dose after age 16 years)
  • Pennsylvania – unvaccinated students now only have a 5 day grace period at the start of the school year to get vaccinated (it used to be 8 months) before getting expelled from school.

It’s easy to navigate the new laws.

Get educated and get your kids vaccinated. Vaccines are safe, vaccines work, and vaccines are necessary.

What To Know About Vaccine Mandate Laws

Vaccine mandate laws are expanding as we are seeing more outbreaks of vaccine preventable diseases.

More Information on Vaccine Mandate Laws:

Updated August 20, 2017

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Immunization Posters and Slogans

Getting your kids vaccinated and protected is a good idea.

Vaccines are safe, necessary, and they work.

Why do we need posters and slogans to help educate people about their benefits?

A billboard in Minnesota educates parents about the benefits of the chicken pox vaccine.
A billboard in Minnesota educates parents about a benefit of  vaccines – protecting those who rely on herd immunity.

Maybe because as long as there have been vaccines, there have been anti-vaccine slogans scaring parents away from them.

Immunization posters are also a good way to raise awareness of new vaccines and new  recommendations for getting vaccinated.

Educating Parents About Vaccines

This slogan, during a whooping cough epidemic, reminded parents to get their kids vaccinated now.
This slogan, during a whooping cough epidemic, reminded parents to get their kids vaccinated now.

In the early 1980s, vaccine preventable diseases had come roaring back as folks in England and other countries got scared to vaccinate and protect their kids with the DTP vaccine.

It is reported that “public confidence in the pertussis vaccine collapsed in the early 1970s as a result of widely publicised concern about its safety and campaigns for compensation for children damaged by the vaccine.”

It got so bad that as vaccination rates fell to less than 30% in 1978, there were at least 154 deaths and 17 cases of brain damage in the UK because of pertussis infections, even though the concerns about the pertussis vaccine were widely unfounded.

“While You Make Up Your Mind About Whooping Cough Vaccination, Thousands Of Children Are Holding Their Breath” was an effective poster at this time. It highlighted the fact that you could sometimes wait too long to get your kids vaccinated, as pertussis cases and deaths grew during the outbreaks.

Vaccination rates eventually went up again, as parents made up their mind to vaccinate and protect their kids.

Immunization Posters and Slogans

Other immunization slogans and posters that have been used, including many historical posters, include:

Is your child vaccinated against smallpox? Diphtheria strikes unprotected children. Fight Polio Poster
Immunization Saves Lives Diphtheria is Deadly Be Well - get your polio vaccine
Let your child be a rubella hero Polio Vaccine - don't wait until it's too late. Stop Rubella
Whooping Cough is not a bird... Keep Measles a Memory poster. Be Wise - Immunize Your Child
MMR is a cheap shot that can millions. Parents of Earth, are your children fully immunized? MMR Shot - three way protection.
Are your kids fully immunized? Can you prove it?
Before it's too late. Vaccinate. Whooping cough is back! Which vaccines do kids need? All of Them. And on Time!
Shots might hurt for a moment, but they can protect for a lifetime.
Hepatitis B can be prevented. Stop measles with just one shot, well two... different-folks-posters
Dr. Seuss said Don't Wait: Vaccinate! Vaccines give all kids a chance A child's health is as precious as a work of art: immunize your child today
 HPV vaccines prevent cancer Know. Check. Protect. World Immunization Week 2014 She got her flu shot, not the flu.
Think Measles Don't Wait. Vaccinate. Psy helping get the word out that we are close to ending polio.
Jull got the Mumps. Meningitis B vaccination poster during an outbreak at Princeton. Mumps is not just for kids anymore

Although you hopefully already know all about all of the vaccines that your kids need, if you see a new immunization poster or slogan, ask your pediatrician for more information.

​Get Educated. Get Vaccinated.

What To Know About Immunization Posters

Although immunization posters won’t ever replace the information you get from your pediatrician, they can help you get educated and raise awareness about new vaccines and new recommendations.

More About Immunization Posters and Slogans

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Hepatitis A Outbreaks

The hepatitis A vaccine, introduced in 1996, worked to decrease the incidence of hepatitis A infections in the United States.
The hepatitis A vaccine, introduced in 1996, worked to decrease the incidence of hepatitis A infections in the United States. Source – CDC Division of Viral Hepatitis

Hepatitis A is a now vaccine-preventable disease thanks to the hepatitis A vaccine that was first licensed in 1995.

Despite being added to the childhood immunization schedule in 1996 (kids living in high risk areas at first and gradually expanded to all kids in 2006), we do continue to see outbreaks of hepatitis A.

Hepatitis A

Although they are all viruses that can cause hepatitis, hepatitis A doesn’t share too much in common with hepatitis B and C.

Unlike hepatitis B and C, hepatitis A:

  • often doesn’t cause any symptoms at all in very young children
  • is spread by fecal-oral transmission (not blood and body fluids), typically from one person to another or after eating or drinking contaminated food or water
  • is much less likely to cause complications, but still did cause over 100 deaths from fulminant hepatitis A each year

In older children and adults, they symptoms of hepatitis A can include jaundice, fever, malaise, anorexia, nausea, abdominal discomfort, and dark urine, all of which can linger for up to two to six months.

Hepatitis A Epidemics and Outbreaks

In the prevaccine era, before the mid-1990s, hepatitis A outbreaks were common and “hepatitis A occurred in large nationwide epidemics”

After it became a nationally reportable disease in 1966, we saw peaks of hepatitis A disease in the early 1970s and again in the early 1990s and an estimated 180,000 infections per year in the United States.

Not surprisingly, those large nationwide epidemics soon disappeared as hepatitis A vaccination rates rose.

“Vaccination of high risk groups and public health measures have significantly reduced the number of overall hepatitis A cases and fulminant HAV cases. Nonetheless, hepatitis A results in substantial morbidity, with associated costs caused by medical care and work loss.”

CDC on the Epidemiology and Prevention of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases

We do still see some hepatitis A outbreaks though, including:

  • a multistate outbreak in 2016 linked to frozen strawberries (143 cases and 56 hospitalizations)
  • an outbreak in Hawaii in 2016 linked to raw scallops (292 cases and 74 hospitalizations)
  • a multistate outbreak in 2013 linked to pomegranate seeds from Turkey (162 cases and 71 hospitalizations)

So you can get hepatitis A if you are not immune and you are caught up in one of these outbreaks. Still, hepatitis A cases are at historic lows, with about 1,390 cases being reported in 2015.

Even more commonly, you might get hepatitis A if you are not immune and travel to a part of the world where hepatitis A either has high or intermediate endemicity (many people are infected), including many parts of Africa, Mexico, Central and South America, Eastern Europe, and Asia.

Or you could just be exposed to someone who traveled to or from one of these areas, became infected, and is still contagious.

There have also been outbreaks among men having sex with men, among IV drug users, and the homeless. These outbreaks are often the most deadly, and include fatal outbreaks in Michigan, California, and Colorado.

Avoiding Hepatitis A

How can you avoid getting caught up in one of these hepatitis A outbreaks?

Get vaccinated.

Can’t you just wash your hands or avoid eating contaminated food? Since you can get hepatitis A by simply eating food that has been prepared by someone who has hepatitis A and is still contagious, washing your own hands won’t be enough. Even drinking bottled water when traveling might not protect you from contaminated water if you use ice cubes or wash fruits and vegetables in water that might be contaminated.

Remember, if your child did not get a routine 2-dose series of the hepatitis A vaccine when they were between 12 to 23 months old, they can still get one at any time to get immunity against hepatitis A infections.

“On February 25, 2009, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommended routine hepatitis A vaccination for household members and other close personal contacts (e.g., regular babysitters) of adopted children newly arriving from countries with high or intermediate hepatitis A endemicity.”

ACIP on the  Latest Hepatitis A Vaccine Recommendations

Adults can get the vaccine too. It is an especially good idea if you are not immune and will be traveling out of the United States or are in another risk group, including food handlers, daycare workers, health care workers, and people who consume high risk foods, especially raw shellfish.

What to Know About Hepatitis A Outbreaks

Although we are at historic lows for cases of hepatitis A, make sure that your family has been vaccinated against hepatitis A so that they don’t get caught up in the next outbreak.

More Information on Hepatitis A Outbreaks:

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Johns Hopkins Hospital Warns Patients about Vaccine Shedding

The original Johns Hopkins Hospital Patient Guide did warn immunocompromised patients about contact with those who were recently vaccinated.
The original Johns Hopkins Hospital Patient Guide did warn immunocompromised patients about contact with those who were recently vaccinated.

Are recently vaccinated people causing outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases?

Should kids be put in quarantine after they get their vaccines?

Of course not, but some anti-vaccine folks continue to push outdated information that hospitals, including Johns Hopkins, warn cancer patients to avoid children who were recently vaccinated.

Although vaccine shedding is a concern with some live vaccines, like the oral polio vaccine and the small pox vaccine, it is important to keep in mind that neither has been used in the United States for some time now.

Hospitals no longer warn patients about restricting exposure to people who have recently been vaccinated.

Were websites scrubbed of information about shedding as part of some conspiracy?

Of course not.

They were simply updated to keep up with the latest guidelines.

Can Immunocompromised Patients Have Visitors?

These guidelines about kids with cancer aren’t that new though.

As far back as 2001, an article in the journal Pediatrics & Child Health, “Practical vaccination guidelines for children with cancer,” recommended that household contacts of immunosuppressed children should receive:

  • all routine, age-appropriate vaccines, including DTaP, IPV, Hib, MMR, and Tdap,  and that no special precautions are necessary because transmission of disease from these vaccines does not occur.
  • the varicella vaccine and that even in the event of a vaccine-associated vesicular rash, the transmission risk is low and the consequences of infection are limited by the attenuated nature of the vaccine virus.
  • an annual flu vaccine

These recommendations for household contacts of immunosuppressed children are based on the 2000 Red Book: Report of the Committee on Infectious Diseases.

The recommendations in latest (2012) edition of the Red Book  state that household contacts of people with an immunologic deficiency should also:

  • receive the rotavirus vaccines if indicated
  • receive either the inactivated influenza vaccine or live attenuated influenza vaccine, giving preference to the inactivated influenza vaccine only if the immunosuppressed person is a hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) recipient in a protected environment.
The revised Johns Hopkins Hospital Patient Information Guide no longer warns about contact with children who were recently vaccinated.
The revised Johns Hopkins Hospital Patient Information Guide no longer warns about contact with children who were recently vaccinated.

So hospitals should no longer be warning patients about restricting exposure to people who have recently been vaccinated.

In fact, the latest guidelines from the Immune Deficiency Foundation Advisory Committee state that except for the live oral poliovirus vaccine, close contacts can receive other standard vaccines because viral shedding is unlikely and these pose little risk of infection to a subject with compromised immunity.

The Immune Deficiency Foundation also warns that, “The increased risk of disease in the pediatric population, in part because of increasing rates of vaccine refusal and in some circumstances more rapid loss of immunity, increases potential exposure of immunodeficient children.”

In other words, they are concerned about the risk of disease from intentionally unvaccinated kids and not from those who were recently vaccinated!

So, what about visitors?

“Tell friends and family who are sick not to visit.  It may be a good idea to have visitors call you first.”

The Johns Hopkins Hospital Patient Information Guide

Although you can’t prevent every cough and cold that might keep you from visiting a friend or family member who is being treated for cancer or has another immune system problem, keeping up to date on all vaccines can help to make sure that you don’t spread a vaccine-preventable disease, like measles or chickenpox, to them.

What To Know About The Johns Hopkins Vaccine Warning

Not only is Johns Hopkins Medical Center not telling cancer patients to avoid contact with children who recently received vaccines, they have gone out of their way to correct that misinformation from anti-vaccine websites.

Johns Hopkins Medicine, which includes the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System went out of their way to correct this anti-vaccine misinformation.
Johns Hopkins Medicine, which includes the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System went out of their way to correct this anti-vaccine misinformation.

Some folks haven’t gotten the message though and continue to push the idea that Johns Hopkins and other Hospitals warn cancer patients to avoid contact with recently vaccinated children.