Kids & Shingles/was Fwd: News Alert: New Vaccine Approved

[Guest guest]

>

> I heard it was an increase in shingles cases among CHILDREN,

unheard of

> before.

Yes, that's right. And the researcher was threatened if his work

was published.

http://www.vran.org/vaccines/cpox/shingles-threat.htm

Data Reveals Threat of Shingles Epidemic From Vaccine Use; Health

Officials Threaten Legal Action Against Researcher

Wednesday October 1, 2003

PEARBLOSSOM, Calif., Oct. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Three different analyses

of reported cases of shingles and chickenpox were published today in

the October 2003 issue of Vaccine and suggest the threat of a

shingles epidemic in the US due to mass vaccination with varicella

(chickenpox) vaccine. Data collected under the CDC-funded Varicella

Active Surveillance Project (VASP) of the Los Angeles County

Department of Health Services Acute Communicable Disease Control

Unit revealed that when chickenpox disease was significantly reduced

in a population, there was an unexpectedly high number of shingles

cases among unvaccinated children with a previous history of

chickenpox. Shingles is usually mild in children and can be severe

in adults. Complications from shingles, which is caused by the

reactivation of the chickenpox virus that lies dormant in the body,

result in about three times the number of hospitalizations and five

times the number of deaths as those from chickenpox disease.

The analyses were authored by Goldman, Ph.D., a former research

analyst with the VASP, using capture-recapture methods. Goldman

worked from 1995 through late 2002 at one of three projects in the

nation assigned to actively study the effects of chickenpox vaccine

and received reports from three hundred different public and private

schools, daycares, and healthcare facilities. He observed that

because the vaccine is eliminating chickenpox disease, children and

adults no longer receive the natural boost to their immune systems

that they received from periodic exposures to the disease. Due to

the dramatic decline in chickenpox, children are now experiencing a

higher incidence of shingles and Goldman predicts that a large-scale

increase in shingles incidence will soon become manifest among

adults -- a group more susceptible to serious complications.....

(continues - check out the link)