The following is via ABC News:
While children in the U.S. are often required to be current on their vaccinations or receive a special waiver in order to attend public school, there is no requirement for adult vaccinations, despite several diseases that continue to present dangers. Public health officials have long struggled to bring adults in the U.S. up to date on vaccines.
“Vaccinations are not just for kids,” Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told ABC News. “There are any number of vaccines that are targeted to adults. We can do a much better job to deliver these vaccines.”
Officials from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s advisory committee on immunization practices released new recommendations for hepatitis B, influenza and HPV vaccines today as part of its annual vaccination guidelines.
Among the possible reasons the report cited for low vaccination coverage among adults in the U.S. were “competing priorities with management of patients’ acute and chronic health conditions, lower prioritization of immunization for adults compared with other preventive services, and financial barriers to providing vaccination services to adults.”
Not surprisingly, adults who had health insurance were more likely to be up to date on their vaccination coverage. Immunization rates for people with health insurance were two to five times those for people without health insurance.
The CDC found that another barrier to vaccine coverage could be physicians themselves. It reported that approximately 25 percent of internists felt age-based vaccination recommendations for adults were difficult to follow. Additionally, 29 percent reported that vaccine recommendations based on medical condition were difficult to follow.
The advisory committee recommends using amplifiers – including patient reminders, recalling patients who have missing vaccines and having alerts in electronic medical records – to improve immunization coverage for adults.
Schaffner said he hoped additional funding to help adults afford vaccinations, especially if they don’t have health insurance, could be implemented on a national level in order to improve vaccination rates.
“The population, with the exception of the influenza vaccine, doesn’t think about vaccines for adults very often,” he said. “These are important to you, and most of these are communicable diseases.”
Among the changes to the CDC’s recommendations this year are updates on administering the hepatitis B, HPV and flu vaccines. For the HPV vaccine, the CDC now recommends only two doses five months apart, if started before age 15. If the vaccination is started after age 15, then three doses are recommended.
To protect against meningitis, healthy adults are now recommended to have only two – not three – doses of the serotype B meningitis vaccine. However, three doses are recommended in cases of meningitis outbreaks or if a person is at increased risk for contracting the disease.
For those with chronic liver disease or liver enzymes that are at worrying levels, the CDC now recommends receiving the hepatitis B vaccine to protect the liver from infection.
Finally, the CDC recommends using the common injection flu vaccine, not the nasal mist, which was found to be less effective in studies.
(Source: ABC News)
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6 Responses
If the CDC really wants to help this happen they need to provide INDIVIDUAL vaccines as an option. Currently it is all bunches, like: Measel-Mumps-Rubella or Tetanus & Whooping cough.
For adults that is more likely to be problematic.
1) We are not blank slates. My husband was required to be “up” on about 7 serums for his job, including Measels-Mumps-Rubella, but he had been vaccinated only a few years before when another work site required it. So we did a blood test, but it showed only two passed. When he had to have the whole package deal again, his immune system reacted to the other two, which it recognized as invaders. He was miserable for 48 hours- like having a bad flu. Baruch HaShem that was it. For someone with an auto immune disorder- that would likely trigger a major flare up.
2) Some people also have allergies. My doctor, and myself, WANT me to have the whooping cough (pertussis) vaccine again. My lungs are vulnerable and I already had whooping cough once as an adult. But I am violently allergic to the tetanus vaccine. I know I am not the only one. Tough luck- They ONLY come together. We asked the Board of Health & CDC. No go. Kind of stupid in this age of biotechnology.
oh, like all the adults were dying in the streets from communicable diseases until now!
This is a great idea for all these adults who want to make sure their kids are ” protected” and vaccinate them. It’s time for all of you to try out the wonderful reactions you will get. And of course Rabbi Hoffman should be the first one to get them. If the CDC recommends it , it must be important .
To Avodas Chesed; who said it’s more problematic for adults, it’s actually more problematic for kids who get 73 vaccines by the time they are 18.
To geklapta hoishana : who said kids were dying of communicable diseases?? Maybe people will start seeing the fraud in this entire vaccine lie.
To the person who contracted Pertussis as an adult and is concerned about contracting it again, you actually are in a much better place then someone who received the aP or accellular pertussis vaccine. This is because the studies indicate that TH1 and TH2 antibody immunity from aP seem to only provide protection for severe pertussis infection symptoms for between 6 months and 4 years, whereas naturally acquired Pertussis infection induces a very strong Th17 and TH1 Memory response which appears to provide protection of somewhere between 4 and 20 years. This brings up the issue of the misconception that aP for adults will protect un-vaccinated infants that they come into contact with. The 2013 FDA Baboon study by Warfel demonstrated that the baboons that were vaccinated with aP were still able to colonize B Pertussis and spread it. Whilst the group of Baboons that were infected naturally did not colonize the bacteria upon subsequent attempts at reinfection.What this means is that even though you have been vaccinated for Pertussis – Whooping cough – Although the vaccine may protect you from experiencing severe symptoms it does not prevent you from being a carrier of the whooping cough bacteria and so you could be walking around feeling fine and asymptomatic while spreading Pertussis all over the place. On the other hand if you did not receive the vaccine and contract Pertussis you will get sick with a cough. Presumably if you are coughing you will stay away from infants to avoid making them sick. Once you recover from the illness, you will no longer be capable of being an asymptomatic carrier for two reasons. One the strong TH17 and TH1 memory cell response.Secondly because your immune response will start in the lungs and air passageways thereby preventing colonization as opposed to a blood based antibody vaccine response.
YWN has reported measles and mumps outbreaks among yeshiva bochurs from time to time in the past. The physicians who study infectious diseases and vaccines know what they are talking about, and it is critical for populations to be immunized against potentially serious diseases. Yes, in the US, there are few deaths from vaccine-preventable diseases, but if immunization rates drop any lower, people will start dying of preventable diseases.
New schedule for the dead coming next ???