Health, Vaccine | featured news

A large new government study should reassure parents who are afraid that kids are getting autism because they receive too many vaccines too early in life. The study, by researchers at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, found no connection between the number of vaccines a child received and his or her risk of autism spectrum disorder. It also found that even though kids are getting more vaccines these days, those vaccines contain many fewer of the substances that provoke an immune response.

With the nation in the grip of a severe influenza outbreak that has seen deaths reach epidemic levels, New York State declared a public health emergency on Saturday, making access to vaccines more easily available.

As the country's flu outbreak becomes an epidemic, odds are that you've had a few sheepish feelings about not doing something you probably should have: Gotten a flu shot. As of this November, the majority of American adults 64.8 percent, to be exact had not received a flu immunization. This wasn't a surprise to researchers: Flu is a disease with one of the lowest vaccination rates.

HPV is a sexually transmitted disease that is most commonly passed between people during vaginal or anal intercourse. But it can also be transmitted through genital-to-genital, or hand-to-genital contact, which is how the participants in the study likely got the virus, the researchers said. Out of the more than 40 sexually transmitted HPV strains, more than a dozen have been identified as cancer-causing, according to the National Cancer Institute.

Nabel said no vaccine being tested today "is likely to hit it out of the park," but many researchers do feel advances in broadly neutralizing antibodies are key to developing a highly successful HIV vaccine. "It's really a new day when we start to think about where we are with AIDS vaccines," Nabel said.

Boys ages 11 and 12 years should be routinely vaccinated against the human papillomavirus, or HPV, to protect against anal, mouth and neck cancers that can result from sexual activity, a federal advisory committee said.

The first flu shot that works with a less-scary skin prick instead of an inch-long needle is hitting the market this fall.

Vaccines can cause certain side effects but serious ones appear very rare - and there's no link with autism and Type 1 diabetes, the Institute of Medicine says in the first comprehensive safety review in 17 years....

Health officials are urging adults to get vaccinated against pertussis and flu as a way protect babies and other vulnerable patients.