December 2007 Archives

SHORTAGE OF SHOTS FOR PNEUMONIA AND MENINGITIS LIKELY

About 1.2 million doses of a common childhood vaccine for pneumonia and meningitis are being voluntarily recalled after its manufacturer found a sterilization problem in the Pennsylvania factory where it is made - potentially causing a shortage in the Bay Area and nationally that could last for months.

Merck on Wednesday announced the recall of 11 lots of its Hib (haemophilius influenzae type B) vaccine and two lots of a combination vaccine for both Hib and hepatitis B. The Hib vaccine is given to children in three doses starting at age 2 months. The vaccine has routinely been recommended since 1990.

The announcement of the recall had doctors around the Bay Area scrambling to see whether any of their supplies were affected. The San Jose Medical Group said it does not have any of the recalled vaccine, while HMO Kaiser Permanente said Wednesday night that it was still investigating.

The Palo Alto Medical Foundation, another large medical group, said it has pulled its supplies of the recalled vaccine and is still monitoring the situation. Parents with concerns can call their children's doctors, said Ben Drew, a spokeswoman for the medical group.

"Reassuring parents will take more time and energy than shipping back the vaccine," said Dr. Dean Didech, the San Jose Medical Group's top medical officer, referring to the recall's fallout.

 Federal health officials said children who have already received the vaccine are not at risk and thatnone of the children who have received the vaccine will need to be re-immunized. Children who are supposed to receive the vaccine may have to wait until their pediatrician receives a new supply, but their health will not be harmed by the delay.

"This is not a health threatening situation right now for children, but it is an inconvenience" for doctors and parents, said Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "We'll try to do everything we can to try to restore access."

No one knows how many children may already have been vaccinated with recalled vaccine. However, Gerberding said, no adverse reactions in children have been reported to date. Merck also said it has not detected any actual contamination in either of its PEDVAXHIB or COMVAX vaccines. Yet the possibility of contamination exists, CDC officials said.

Any infections from the vaccine would probably show up at the inoculation site in the form of bumps or abscesses, said Dr. Anne Schuchat, who heads the CDC's national center for immunization and respiratory disease. Concerned parents should check with their children's doctors.

About 14 million doses of Hib vaccine are needed each year, and Merck and another manufacturer, Sanofi Aventis, each manufacture about half the needed doses. Sanofi's vaccines are not affected by the recall.

Although Sanofi is stepping up Hib vaccine production, the CDC also will release some of its stockpile of the vaccine to alleviate immediate shortages, officials said Wednesday.

Doctors nationwide may have had some inkling of problems with Merck's Hib vaccine as early as one month ago, when Merck notified the CDC that its Hib-only vaccine would be unavailable for shipment until 2008 because of a manufacturing concern, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians Web site.

The contamination involved unspecified equipment used in making the vaccine, which involves taking part of the Hib bacterium, diluting it and combining it with other agents. Barbara Kuter, executive director of pediatric medical affairs for Merck, said that during a routine evaluation of Merck's West Point, Pa., vaccine plant, a sterility test determined that the equipment was contaminated with a bacteria called Bacillus cereus, or B. cereus.

It is a spore-making microorganism commonly associated with food poisoning and has caused diarrhea and vomiting in people who eat contaminated foods.

While some meningitis outbreaks have occurred in countries with shortages of the Hib vaccine, CDC officials said it would take at least a year without the vaccine before doctors would expect to see any increases in diseases caused by the bacteria that the vaccine protects against.

Schuchat noted that about 94 percent of U.S. toddlers are vaccinated on schedule, and that levels of the bacteria in the nation's communities are low.

"We have a nice cushion of protection as we go into this recall," she said. 

The great lack of trust is evident even amongst doctors. Polls and questionnaires show that three doctors out of four (75 per cent) would refuse any chemotherapy because of its ineffectiveness against the disease and its devastating effects on the entire human organism.

This is what many doctors and scientists have to say about chemotherapy:“The majority of the cancer patients in this country die because of chemotherapy, which does not cure breast, colon or lung cancer. This has been documented for over a decade and nevertheless doctors still utilize chemotherapy to fight these tumors.” (Allen Levin, MD, UCSF, “The Healing of Cancer”, Marcus Books, 1990).

“If I were to contract cancer, I would never turn to a certain standard for the therapy of this disease. Cancer patients who stay away from these centers have some chance to make it.” (Prof. Gorge Mathe, “Scientific Medicine Stymied”, Medicines Nouvelles, Paris, 1989)

“Dr. Hardin Jones, lecturer at the University of California, after having analyzed for many decades statistics on cancer survival, has come to this conclusion: ‘… when not treated, the patients do not get worse or they even get better’. The unsettling conclusions of Dr. Jones have never been refuted”. (Walter Last, “The Ecologist”, Vol. 28, no. 2, March-April 1998)

“Many oncologists recommend chemotherapy for almost any type of cancer, with a faith that is unshaken by the almost constant failures”.(Albert Braverman, MD, “Medical Oncology in the 90s”, Lancet, 1991, Vol. 337, p. 901)

“Our most efficacious regimens are loaded with risks, side effects and practical problems; and after all the patients we have treated have paid the toll, only a miniscule percentage of them is paid off with an ephemeral period of tumoral regression and generally a partial one” (Edward G. Griffin “World Without Cancer”, American Media Publications, 1996)

“After all, and for the overwhelming majority of the cases, there is no proof whatsoever that chemotherapy prolongs survival expectations. And this is the great lie about this therapy, that there is a correlation between the reduction of cancer and the extension of the life of the patient”. (Philip Day, “Cancer: Why we’re still dying to know the truth”, Credence Publications, 2000)

“Several full-time scientists at the McGill Cancer Center sent to 118 doctors, all experts on lung cancer, a questionnaire to determine the level of trust they had in the therapies they were applying; they were asked to imagine that they themselves had contracted the disease and which of the six current experimental therapies they would choose. 79 doctors answered, 64 of them said that they would not consent to undergo any treatment containing cis-platinum - one of the common chemotherapy drugs they used - while 58 out of 79 believed that all the experimental therapies above were not accepted because of the ineffectiveness and the elevated level of toxicity of chemotherapy.” (Philip Day, “Cancer: Why we’re still dying to know the truth”, Credence Publications, 2000)

“Doctor Ulrich Able, a German epidemiologist of the Heidelberg Mannheim Tumor Clinic, has exhaustively analyzed and reviewed all the main studies and clinical experiments ever performed on chemotherapy .... Able discovered that the comprehensive world rate of positive outcomes because of chemotherapy was frightening, because, simply, nowhere was scientific evidence available demonstrating that chemotherapy is able to ‘prolong in any appreciable way the life of patients affected by the most common type of organ cancer.’ Able highlights that rarely can chemotherapy improve the quality of life, and he describes it as a scientific squalor while maintaining that at least 80 per cent of chemotherapy administered in the world is worthless. Even if there is no scientific proof whatsoever that chemotherapy works, neither doctors nor patients are prepared to give it up (Lancet, Aug. 10, 1991). None of the main media has ever mentioned this exhaustive study: it has been completely buried” (Tim O’Shea, “Chemotherapy - An Unproven Procedure”)

“According to medical associations, the notorious and dangerous side effects of drugs have become the fourth main cause of death after infarction, cancer, and apoplexy” ( Journal of the American Medical Association, April 15, 1998)

[via curenaturalicancro.com]