tetrahedron.org Some oppose hepatitis vaccine for kids

Attached is a superb article published today in Ohio, where the legislature is reconsidering its mandatory Hepatitis B vaccine. Note two important aspects of this article: (1) it discusses actual physicians opposed to the vaccine and (2) it discusses the financial ties of the AMA and AAP which taint their endorsement of the mandatory vaccine.

It is worth sending this article to any legislators in other states considering the mandatory vaccine requirements.

Some oppose hepatitis vaccine for kids
Kevin Lamb
DAYTON DAILY NEWS
Wednesday, April 28, 1999

Children younger than 14 are three times more likely to be killed or seriously injured by hepatitis B vaccines than to catch the disease, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons said in opposing Ohio’s mandate that children entering kindergarten this fall must begin receiving three doses of the vaccine.

An Ohio House committee will continue hearings and possibly vote today on legislation that would suspend the requirement for one year.

“I’m gratified that a physicians’ group is courageous enough to finally speak up,” said Kristine M. Severyn of Centerville, a pharmacist with a Ph.D. that involved the composition and physical effects of drugs. As director of Ohio Parents for Vaccine Safety, Severyn already had given the Health, Retirement and Aging Committee letters opposing the mandate from 24 individual physicians.

The American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics have endorsed the vaccine, but Severyn and the AAPS expressed concern about the organizations’ financial ties to vaccine manufacturers. Severyn has a thank-you letter from the AAP for a $100,000 donation in 1988 from Merck & Co., which manufacturers vaccines for hepatitis B and other diseases.

The AAPS statistics came from the federal National Vaccine Information Center’s last tabulated year, 1996, when there were 872 “serious adverse events” and 48 deaths associated with hepatitis B vaccinations of children younger than 14, compared with 279 cases of hepatitis B in that age group. “Serious” was defined as requiring an emergency room visit or hospital stay, or causing death or life-threatening or disabling injuries.

“Nevertheless, government health officials cavalierly dismiss reports of serious adverse vaccine effects as coincidental,” said Dr. Jane M. Orient, AAPS executive director.

Dr. Virginia Haller, chief of the Ohio Department of Health’s family and community health division, calls the vaccine’s risks slim and vaccines in general “the No.1 accomplishment in the effort to improve the health and well-being of U.S. citizens.” Haller told the House committee that only about one in 600,000 recipients suffers severe allergic reaction to the hepatitis B vaccine and that it successfully immunizes 90 percent to 95 percent of them.

Hepatitis B is not spread by casual contact. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends targeting the vaccine to people with the disease’s distinct risk factors: multiple sex partners, injection-drug use, frequent occupational exposure to blood and transmission at birth from an infected mother. Ohio’s mandatory hepatitis B vaccine was tacked onto a hazardous waste bill last year without debate because committee chairman Dale Van Vyven, R-Cincinnati, was unaware of opposition. Now Van Vyven plans to introduce two amendments to the bill under consideration.

One would require state health officials to study the vaccine in the next year. The other would enable informed parents to decline any vaccine for personal or religious reasons, in which case schools could not bar their children unless county health officials declare there is a risk the disease will be transmitted at school.

The AAPS said no Ohio school has reported hepatitis B transmission.

CONTACT Kevin Lamb at 225-2129 or e-mail him atkevin_lamb@coxohio.com