5 Albertans ill after mumps shot: Health Canada halts use vaccine

Today, Canada suspended use of three batches of a mumps vaccine after five people fell ill in the midst of a vaccination campaign in the western province of Alberta.

Health Canada advised against the use of the three lots of measles, mumps and rubella vaccine sold by MerckFrosst Canada, while it investigates five suspected cases of anaphylaxis, a potentially life-threatening allergic reaction characterized by swelling and difficulty breathing.

All five cases involved adults aged 20 to 30 in Alberta who had a previous history of allergy. All have fully recovered.

Canadian officials are now trying to determine if the vaccine may be having the same adverse reaction elsewhere

A joint investigation by Health Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada and Health Alberta is being carried out in conjunction with distributor MerckFrosst Canada. It is soliciting reports of adverse effects from other countries that use the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine MMR-II.

Parent Merck & Co Inc markets the vaccine in the European Union, Australia, Hong Kong, China, Argentina, Russia, the United States, and elsewhere.

"Because all of our vaccine producers now are all global, then we also reach out globally to determine whether or not there are any other adverse events or clusters of adverse events that people are seeing elsewhere related to this product, or related to any of these lots that may be gone elsewhere," said Dr. Arlene King, a director with the Public Health Agency.

King said Canadian officials would also be contacting regulatory authorities in other countries.

Read the full story at the Reuters website.

Vaccination opposition leverages social networks to spread opinion

Opponents of vaccinations are using YouTube, FaceBook and other internet social networks to promote their views that vaccines are dangerous, says a research letter published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Public health officials need to understand the impact these efforts can have on universal vaccination campaigns and find ways to counter this dangerous trend, said researchers from the University of Toronto and York University in Canada, the CP reported.

"This is their new strategy for communicating," said senior author Dr. Kumanan Wilson, an internal medicine specialist and public health policy researcher.

"These people believe their viewpoint is not being aired in public. They believe that they are being shut out of the discourse and they want to get their viewpoint out. And this is their way of creating commercials for their viewpoints."

Wilson said vaccination opponents are putting a lot of effort into using internet social networks to promote their opinions.

"And other people ... just from the view counts and the ratings, are coming on and wanting to find out more about these viewpoints. Their videos are being viewed and rated highly," Wilson said.

Healthday

Editors opinion:

"Instead of criticizing this phenomenon, the healthcare industry should cease the opportunity to start promoting social networks among their peers themselves. The industry can really benefit from the more efficient, more targeted and better accessible forms of communication.
Also, if they want to grab the attention of many for certain important health care related messages to the public, social networks are one of the better and fastest ways of doing that.
It's about time that the industry moves away from their good old ancient faxes and starts adopting today's ways of communication"