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Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Analysis: Vaccine complications rare; no evidence vaccines cause autism.

USA Today (7/1, Szabo) reports that according to an analysis published online in Pediatrics, “serious complications related to vaccines are very rare, and there is no evidence that immunizations cause autism.” Researchers arrived at those conclusions after having analyzed data from 67 separate studies. In a report issued in April, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention explained that vaccines given to babies and youngsters over the past 20 years “will prevent 322 million illnesses, 21 million hospitalizations and 732,000 deaths over the course of their lifetimes.” TIME (7/1) also reports on this story.
        The AP (7/1, Stobbe) reports that the analysis also “mirrors and updates a 2011 report on vaccine safety by the US Institute of Medicine” which “found vaccines can cause certain side effects but serious ones are very rare.” According to experts, “such risks need to be balanced against the benefits of vaccines – the prevention of millions of illnesses and thousands of deaths annually.”
        CNN (7/1, Christensen) reports that an accompanying editorial “suggests doctors, who parents typically trust to tell the truth about medical information, need to use this study to speak with confidence about the importance of vaccinating children.”
        The NBC News (7/1, Fox) website also covers the analysis, which was conducted by Dr. Courtney Gidengil and colleagues at the RAND Corporation and commissioned by the Federal government.

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