Action Alert: NY To Mandate Meningitis Vaccine for 7th Graders
From the NY Alliance for Vaccination Choice:
Urgent Calls & Faxes Needed Tomorrow, Tuesday, June 1st to
STOP new meningitis shot mandate for 7th graders in NY and to oppose Assembly Bill 10313 and Senate Bill 7156.
Tomorrow, Tuesday, June 1, 2010 you need to get in the car and come to Albany to stop an effort to sneak through yet another mandatory vaccine in New York, this time for the meningitis vaccine, for both seventh graders and college students. If you can't make it to Albany get on the phone, fax, and click on the Take Action link above to send your legislators an email and tell your legislators to fix state government and fix the $9 billion+ deficit and pass decent autism health insurance reform rather than interfere with your families' health decisions.
No other state, or country requires, adolescents to get this shot. Only two states, New Jersey and Connecticut require it for college students, and that's only for students who live in dormitories.
The State Senate may vote on this bill on Tuesday and it is on the agenda for the Assembly health committee. They are trying to push this through before anyone knows what they are doing.
Meningitis is an extremely rare disease affecting about 50 to 60 people per year in NY. And the meningitis vaccine, according to the manufacturer, isn't very effective. Assuming all the claims made by the manufacturer are correct, vaccinating everyone in the state may reduce the number of infections by 10 to 20 cases per year. Yet according to the CDC the vaccine manufacturers 1% of the people who get the vaccines (about 2000 people per year) can expect a serious adverse reaction including serious neurological damage and death.
And study after study has determined that mandatory meningitis vaccines don't make economic sense; the money spent on other health care activities can save more lives and prevent more injuries.
JOIN US IN ALBANY, JUNE 1, at 10 am on the State Street steps of the Legislative Office Building. Handouts will be provided and we will help you find your legislators. Carpools are being organized.
Please email Rita Palma and Lisa Rudley at [email protected] for more information.
Please call and fax the following legislators.
All the prefixes are 518-455-####
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, PH: 3791 FX: 5459
Assembly Health Chair Richard Gottfried, PH: 4941 FX: 5939
Assemblywoman Crystal Peoples-Stokes, PH: 5005 FX: 5471 (Sponsor of the Assembly bill)
Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, PH: 5585 FX: 5409 (Co-sponsor of the Assembly bill)
Sen. Tom Duane, PH: 2451 FX: 4846, Chair of the Health Committee
Sen. John Sampson, PH: 2758 FX: 4806, Senate Majority Leader
Sen. Dean Skelos, PH: 3171 FX: 6950, Senate Minority Leader
Sen. Malcolm Smith, PH: 2701 FX: 2816,
Sen. Tom Libous, PH: 2677 FX: 2065
Sem. Velmanette Montgomery, PH: 3451, FX: 6854. (Sponsor of the Senate Bill)
PLEASE RAISE THESE POINTS!
Stop Assembly Bill 10313 and Senate Bill 7156
• Why should New York's seventh graders be the first in the world to be required to get this shot?
• Why the extreme measure with no epidemic/ emergency?
• The shot is available now to those who want it- why the mandate?
• Do we have studies to show the case/ fatality rate(s) will be less with a mandate?
• Are there proven safety studies? Where?
• 1,500 cases arise annually in the US--will this requirement harm more than it helps?
• Disease rate is low with no mandate. Are there other, and better, prevention measures?
• The shot does not prevent 100% of the strains yet gives a false sense of security.
• The law also repeals the requirement to educate the recipient with info on the shot.
• Will this cause our youngest and brightest to attend college out of state?
• NY is 9.2 billion dollars in debt. This will cost the taxpayer MILLION$$!
Directions to the Capitol in Albany.
The New York State Assembly chambers are located in the Capitol Building. Most Assembly offices are in the Capitol, Legislative Office Building and Agency Building 4. These buildings are all part of the Empire State Plaza complex in downtown Albany, New York.
The Empire State Plaza also houses many State agencies and commissions, as well as the Empire State Plaza Convention Center, New York State Museum and Empire Center at the Egg.
Driving Directions
From the North: Take Interstate 87 (Northway) to Interstate 90 (East) exit, proceed east to Interstate 787 and take Empire Plaza exit.
From the South: Take New York State Thruway (Interstate 87) to Exit 23 - straight through Toll Booth to Interstate 787, then take Empire Plaza exit.
From the East: Take Interstate 90 and cross Hudson River. Take exit to Interstate 787 South, along river. Take Empire Plaza exit.
From the West: Take the New York State Thruway (Interstate 90) to Exit 24 (Albany), proceed east on Interstate 90 to Interstate 787 South, along river. Take Empire Plaza Exit.
Visitor Parking
The following map highlights some of the visitor parking areas in and around the Empire State Plaza.
Carol
Yes I commented under the wrong post
There was bad blood between Deer and Horton from the beginning. Deer took Horton to the small claims court for pre-empting the Sunday Times story. My guess is that Horton was embarrassed because of the evidence which he was party to that it was known that Andy was working for the Legal Aid Board - however, quite rightly the Lancet failed to support the Deer/Harris contention that the 1998 paper was funded by the LAB and identical with protocol for a study for which LAB had provided funding. So there was also disagreement.
As we know Deer is a great bearer of personal animous.
John
Posted by: John Stone | May 21, 2011 at 03:25 PM
John,
I think you meant to respond to a post of mine on another thread.
Yes, it's interesting about Horton. I was surprised to see Deer going after him in the BMJ article. I thought Horton had done what they wanted. But if Horton's was saying in 2004 that the journals are ventriloquist dummies for drug companies, they wouldn't have been too happy about that.
Posted by: Carol | May 21, 2011 at 02:26 PM
Carol,
Yes, Horton re-wrote the article for his book MMR Science and Fiction to somehow make Andrew Wakefield the villain of the piece, and by January 2008 he was leading an initiative increase the ties between the pharmaceutical industry and the medical profession.
I wrote to BMJ at the time:
'This initiative [1] flies in the face of many warnings, notably the report of the Commons Health committee on 'The influence of the pharmaceutical industry' (2005) [2] and is extraodinary considering Dr Horton's own 2004 essay in the New York Review of Books, 'The Dawn of McScience' [3] which warned of misalliance of the medical profession and the pharmaceutical industry. What has happened in the last three or four years to make us forget everything we apparently ever knew?
'It remains troubling that the Chief Exective of Reed Elsevier plc (publishers of the Lancet), Sir Crispin Davis, is also a non-executive director of pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline [4].
[1] Ferriman, Royal college sets up working party to improve relations between doctors and drug industry, BMJ 2008;336:14 (5 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.39428.617431.DB
[2] http://www.lindalliance.org/pdfs/HofCHealthCommittee.pdf
[3] http://www.nybooks.com/articles/article-preview?article_id=16954
[4] http://www.gsk.com/about/boardofdirectors.htm
http://www.bmj.com/content/336/7634/14.2/reply
And of course now you have people likely Fiona Godlee of BMJ who parade their integrity while making light of their pharmaceutical industry ties.
http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.d1335/reply#bmj_el_250882
I think things have deteriorated and the hypocrisy is even worse.
John
Posted by: John Stone | May 21, 2011 at 01:56 PM
The National Medical Association held a benefit to promote meningitis vaccination. The video begins with Richard Thomas discussing mandatory vaccination with a "reporter." Paul Offit and Nancy Snyderman are on the medical committee.
http://www.goodnewsbroadcast.com/component/content/article/94-events/118154-national-medical-association-benefit
Here "The Truther Girls" discuss meningitis vaccines. According to her, Meningitis B accounts for 70+% of infections, but none of the vaccines on the market protect against this strain:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DfLNK0zenI
Posted by: Carol | May 21, 2011 at 01:06 PM
Texas law mandates that all first time college students living in a dorm after Jan. 1, 2010 get the meningitis vaccine. Interestingly, the majority of cases of meningitis in college dorms are viral meningitis and this vaccine obviously only covers the bacterial strains. It's a disconnect. Why expose your kid to the vaccine if it can't protect against the common viral form?
Posted by: lexlux | June 15, 2010 at 04:21 PM
Jane;
Where did you get that number?
Posted by: Benedetta | June 02, 2010 at 04:25 PM
RE: Only two states, New Jersey and Connecticut require it for college students, and that's only for students who live in dormitories.
I think more fact checking is needed!
From the Louisiana State University Student Health Center:
Meningococcal Requirement: Beginning Fall 2006, it is mandatory for students enrolling at LSU to be vaccinated against meningococcal disease. A dose of Menactra at anytime or a dose of Menomune within the last year will serve as satisfactory evidence of current immunization against meningococcal disease.
Posted by: TWY | June 02, 2010 at 03:15 PM
An adverse reaction can be something as simple as a low grade ever or sore arm. Serious vaccine reactions are 1 in 1,000,000-2,000,000
Posted by: Jane | June 01, 2010 at 10:12 PM
Here is the link for the proposed bill. This article should have included that.
At the link, there is a "comments" space at the bottom. Leave comments there.
THE PROPOSED BILL IS HERE:
http://open.nysenate.gov/legislation/api/1.0/html/bill/S7156
Posted by: exasperated | June 01, 2010 at 09:06 PM
Alastair, it's Neisseria meningitidis that's referenced in this particular post, because (as Benedetta alludes to) vaccines for HiB and Streptococcus pneumoniae are already mandatory in New York (and most other states) for entrance into kindergarten. Since you're such a careful news reader, I'm sure you already know what a miserable failure the pneumococcal vaccine Prevnar has been (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/14/health/14vacc.html?ei=5124&en=d98c7d9bde6faa0e&ex=1381723200&exprod=digg&pagewanted=print)
Posted by: Theresa O | June 01, 2010 at 06:27 PM
Alastair
The article talks about college students so I (easily)decided that is was talking about meningococcal or Neisseria. Esp since the rest of the stuff you listed are not even a close contest. Sorry, but it is true.
The article also said the CDC said 1 percent, so the article did say where on Earth they got that figure from.
Now if you wanted them to link you to the CDC - 1 percent statement - place on the internet, or newspaper, or science magazine like a biblography I see no harm in that.
And I would not mind seeing that myself. I would copy it down and mail it to all my senators, congressmen, health department to rub their noses in it.
I would ask--- hey, is it known that each vaccine that is given is going to at the least cause one percent vaccine adverse reactions, while others (that are bad) will cause even a larger percent. Like the darn DPT shot my kids took - maybe it was 3 or 4 percent over the 1 percent!
Because I am thinking that if every vaccine causes 1 percent adverse reaction then 36 vaccines added together would add up to 36 percent, or are we not even discussing boosters??? Just one vaccine per disease. Let me see MMR and chicken poxs (4)/ DPT (3)/ rotetech (the diarhea one) (1)/ Hep B (1)/ Hib (1) - That is already 10 percent of the population.
Posted by: Benedetta | June 01, 2010 at 11:30 AM
I think that anybody that thinks vaccine choice is a bad idea... should watch this video of Ms. Stephanie Arnold who was severely injured 8 years ago by the meningitis vaccine "menomune" and still suffers from symptoms of the injury today.
http://www.autismmedia.org/media2.html
Erik
Posted by: Erik Nanstiel | June 01, 2010 at 09:47 AM
Why does NY & NJ get all these mandates that no other state has? Could it have to do with the fact that NJ has three drug company national headquarters and NY has 1?
Posted by: AnaB | June 01, 2010 at 07:27 AM
This is a very sloppy article. For a start, there's a large difference between bacterial meningitis and other kinds.
Within the group of bacterial meningitis, there are even more divisions. To which vaccine are you even referring? Haemophilus influenzae? Neisseria meningitidis? Streptococcus pneumoniae? These aren't combined vaccines, so before you start spouting figures, you need to be very clear about which one you're talking about.
If you take Hib meningitis alone, there are about 4 common vaccines for preventing this. When you mention "the manufacturer", wouldn't it be helpful to the reader to mention who this manufacturer is?
When we look at one of the biggest Hib vaccines around today, "ActHib", you can see that there were no serious complications, deaths or neurological damages in any of the clinical trials. This involved thousands of babies. The documents which show this are online, just Google ActHib product sheet. Where on Earth did you get this 1% figure from?
Posted by: Alastair C | June 01, 2010 at 12:42 AM
CDC made the statement that 1 percent of the population would have an adverse reaction to this vaccine??? What has happened at the CDC?
Posted by: Benedetta | May 31, 2010 at 09:51 PM