Living Wisdom / AVN E-newsletter

Antibiotics blamed for child deafness
The discovery by researchers at the Institute of Child Health in London triggered calls yesterday for a national screening programme for pregnant women to detect babies at risk. An estimated 20,000 premature babies are treated each year with the powerful antibiotics, called aminoglycosides. The drugs are also used to tackle infections in children with cancer and chronic illnesses such as cystic fibrosis, and in adults. Genetic specialists at the Institute of Child Health, who reviewed blood samples from over 9,000 children, found one in 500 had a genetic mutation that made them vulnerable to aminoglycosides.
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Scandal Rages Over Gardasil Vaccine Deaths, Paralysis And Illness
Despite Merck & Co.'s claims that Gardasil is safe, stories abound over
devastating reactions to the three-shot inoculations that claim to prevent
some-not all-types of the human Papillomavirus (HPV). For instance, after just one injection a 13-year-old girl was diagnosed with
Acute Pancreatitis, spent nearly 100 days in the hospital, and underwent two
surgeries to remove Pseudocysts. Her family filed a petition for vaccine
compensation seeking damages from the government.
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$100m gift bolsters AIDS fight
Businessman will start institute to find vaccine
The hunt for an AIDS vaccine, a scientific quest that has stumped infectious disease researchers for two decades, is receiving a $100 million boost from a Massachusetts technology magnate, whose gift will create a Boston institute fusing the expertise of doctors, engineers, and biologists. Stunned by scenes of desperation he witnessed in HIV-ravaged South Africa, Phillip Terrence Ragon is spending a considerable chunk of his fortune to accelerate research for a vaccine that would slow the relentless spread of the virus that causes AIDS and now infects more than 33 million people worldwide.
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Outbreak of Varicella at a Day-Care Center despite Vaccination
Background In seven studies of the effectiveness of the varicella vaccine conducted since it was licensed, the effectiveness was 71 to 100 percent against disease of any severity and 95 to 100 percent against moderate and severe disease. We investigated an outbreak of varicella in a population of children with a high proportion of vaccinees who were attending a day-care center in a small community in New Hampshire.

Results Varicella developed in 25 of 88 children (28.4 percent) between December 1, 2000, and January 11, 2001. The index case occurred in a healthy child who had been vaccinated three years previously and who infected more than 50 percent of his classmates who had no history of varicella. The effectiveness of the vaccine was 44.0 percent (95 percent confidence interval, 6.9 to 66.3 percent) against disease of any severity.

Conclusions In this outbreak, vaccination provided poor protection against varicella, although there was good protection against moderate or severe disease. A longer interval since vaccination was associated with an increased risk of vaccine failure. Breakthrough infections in vaccinated, healthy persons can be as infectious as varicella in unvaccinated persons.
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