1) "A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Vaccines" The Atlantic (January 23, 2012) - "Vaccines have helped transform health and health care around the globe. It's hard to believe that diseases like polio, smallpox, diphtheria, and whooping cough were common ailments within the last century. Today, these diseases are virtually or totally eradicated. This change is largely due the development of vaccines, which give our bodies the tools to fight disease-causing viruses and bacteria more effectively than they can by themselves... Despite their well-documented benefits, vaccines are frequently the subjects of public concern. Worries about safe manufacture, the effects of additives, and vaccines' side effects are some of the concerns that have accompanied vaccines in recent years. It is possible to weigh the costs or risks of vaccines against the benefits they make possible and come up with a cost-benefit ratio. Considering what vaccines are all about, including how and where they are made and which concerns are legitimate and which appear unfounded yields a cost-benefit calculation that isn't as tricky as you might believe."
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/01/a-cost-benefit-analysis-of-vaccines/251565/
 
2) "Sorting through fears, myths surrounding HPV vaccine" Chicago Tribune (January 24, 2012) - "Dr. Kenneth Alexander is a pediatric infectious disease researcher at the University of Chicago who has been studying the human papillomavirus (HPV) in the lab since 1992. When the HPV vaccine came out in 2006, he said he felt so strongly about its ability to prevent 90 percent of genital warts and 70 percent of cervical cancers that he made sure his two daughters - who were then 14 and 17 - were vaccinated. I recently talked to Alexander, who's also a paid spokesman for the manufacturers of both vaccines, because there are still many misconceptions about the virus and the vaccine."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-x-0125-trice-column-20120125,0,978404.column
 
3) "OPINION: Science, well sort of - the motivation of the mob" San Francisco Chronicle (January 23, 2012) - "I keep coming back to beliefs...how they are formed, held on to, rationalized and then put into action...and in that exploration, I keep coming back to myself...what do I believe, and why?  Most importantly, what will allow me to change my beliefs, and can I change those of others...? After a particularly unsettling few minutes of shrill non communication, I had the opportunity to approach one of the most vocal mob members.  He had been throwing out a series of questions about climate change and I thought I'd try a different tack. I calmly approached, smile on my face, gave him my card, and offered to talk to him at any time to try to answer his questions.  Looking down at it he said, 'What are you, a SCIENTIST??!' literally spitting out the word in a spray of spittle, his eyes bulging.  'No', I replied in feigned breathless curiosity, 'are you?'  In rapid fire he said we wasn't , but that he had taken a number of science classes in college, and he proceeded to recite a number of scientific formulas (I didn't really follow what he was saying) in an attempt to establish his non scientific, scientific bona fides... More often than not, when we are confronted with so-called science denial, it has much more to do with underlying ideologies or beliefs rather than any real debate about the science or its validity itself.  This is the case for everything from denial of evolution to fear of vaccines causing autism."
http://blog.sfgate.com/azwissler/2012/01/23/science-well-sort-of-the-motivation-of-the-mob/

 

4) "No Flu Shots for Most Late-Thirtysomethings During Swine Flu Outbreak" ABC News (January 24, 2012) - "Flu season may be a few months old, but peak season is yet to come. And new research has found that a large number of people at risk may still be refusing to protect themselves. Flu normally hits hardest in January or February, and infectious disease specialists say so far, this season has been very mild. But there are reports that nine people have died from swine flu this season in Mexico -- where the first swine flu outbreak began back in 2009, ultimately claiming 17,000 lives worldwide. Despite knowing how potentially deadly swine flu could be, a new report has found that only 20 percent of adults in their late 30s said they got a flu shot during the 2009 outbreak."
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/adults-late-30s-flu-shots-swine-flu-outbreak/story?id=15424047#.Tx7Bo6U7Uuc

 

5) "Stockpiled flu drug has 'modest' benefits: reports" Reuters (January 23, 2012) - "After billions of dollars worldwide have been spent stockpiling the anti-flu drug Tamiflu, two new reports cast doubt on the medication's benefits and say its side effects may have been underestimated. According to the widely respected Cochrane Collaboration, which analyzes past medical research, Tamiflu shortened the typical flu attack by just one day. And it didn't seem to reduce the number of infected people who landed in the hospital... Analyzing massive amounts of information from company-funded research, they found that the drug cut the time that people felt flu symptoms from about seven days to six days. But Tamiflu did not reduce the number of people who ended up being hospitalized, and there was 'no evidence it could stop (the spread of the) disease and no evidence it can reduce the risk of complications like pneumonia,' said Doshi."
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/23/us-stockpiled-fludrug-idUSTRE80M20Y20120123

 

6) "Vermont whooping cough cases surge; schools take precautions" Burlington Free Press (VT)(January 24, 2012) - "A surge in whooping cough cases in Vermont has schools watching students carefully for signs of the highly contagious disease. Preliminary data from the Vermont Health Department indicate 91 cases of whooping cough in December... Nationally, a big increase in whooping cough began to become apparent in 2009, but it didn't' seem to take hold in Vermont until last year, she said... Vaccines offer good, but not complete protection against whooping cough, Schoenfeld said. Immunizations are recommended for children at age 6 months and again at 15 months. The Health Department in recent years has also recommended booster shots for children when they reach age 6 because otherwise, protection against pertussis fades, Shoenfeld said."
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20120124/NEWS02/201240303/Vermont-whooping-cough-cases-surge-schools-take-precautions?odyssey=tab%7Cmostpopular%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE
 
7) "Tactics and tropes of the antivaccine movement" Respectful Insolence (January 24, 2012) - "I've been an observer and student of the antivaccine movement for nearly a decade now, although my intensive education began almost seven years ago, in early 2005, not long after I started blogging. It was then that I first encountered several 'luminaries' of the antivaccine movement, such as J.B. Handley, who is the founder of Generation Rescue and was its leader and main spokesperson; that is, until he managed to recruit spokesmodel Jenny McCarthy to be its public face, and Dr. Jay Gordon, who, although he swears to high heaven he is not antivaccine, sure could have fooled me... Over the years, I think I've come to learn just about every antivaccine trope, canard, strategy, and argument there is. At least, I know all the major ones, many of the minor ones, and even quite a few of the obscure ones. I'm rarely surprised anymore, even when of late antivaccinationists have taken to referring to supporters of science-based medicine as 'vaccine injury denialists,' a term antivaccine activist Ginger Taylor notably used in 'The Role of Government and Media,' a chapter in the anti-vaccine book Vaccine Epidemic: How Corporate Greed, Biased Science, and Coercive Government Threaten Our Human Rights, Our Health, and Our Children, which was edited by Louise Kuo Habakus and Mary Holland, and now uses frequently on her blog."
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2012/01/tactics_and_tropes_of_the_antivaccine_mo.php?utm_source=networkbanner&utm_medium=link
 
8) "Despite mild flu season, don't skip shots, experts say" MSNBC - Vitals Blog (January 24, 2012) - "It's been a remarkably mild flu season so far this year, with far fewer reports of the fever, coughing, aches and pains that usually make winter so miserable. Of the laboratory samples sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention through the second week of January, only about 3.7 percent have come back positive for flu, compared with about 26 percent of those tested at the same time last year, records show... So far, Colorado is the only state to report even regional flu activity, and local activity has been reported in eight states. Everywhere else has reported only sporadic flu activity -- or none at all... But statistics show that most people who are going to get vaccinated do so by the holidays, with only about 20 percent of all flu shots doled out between December and May. About 36 percent of people in the U.S. older than six months had received flu shots by early November, according to the CDC. That was slightly more than the same time last year."
http://vitals.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/23/10219317-despite-mild-flu-season-dont-skip-shots-experts-say
 
9) "How Gen X reacted to the H1N1 pandemic" CNN - The Chart Blog (January 24, 2012) - "In April 2009, the CDC identified a new virus in humans: H1N1, or what was then called swine flu, and the wheels of the public health machine started turning. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global H1N1 pandemic in June, and by October 2009, the first doses of an H1N1-specific vaccine were administered. A study published Tuesday looks at how Americans in their thirties reacted to the availability of a vaccine.  In all, about one in five of those in Generation X got the H1N1 vaccine during the 2009-2010 pandemic, according to the researcher's analysis of survey data. On average, those with more education in general, and those who knew the most about influenza in particular, were most likely to either have taken or planned to get vaccinated against H1N1... Participants also graded information sources -- their doctors and news media, for example - on their trustworthiness regarding H1N1... At the bottom: Pharmaceutical company commercials, which beat only YouTube videos as an information source Generation X considered trustworthy regarding the flu."
http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/24/how-gen-x-reacted-to-the-h1n1-pandemic/