Sharp drop in U.S. chickenpox deaths with vaccine

[Ian David]

Sharp drop in U.S. chickenpox deaths with vaccine

(Reuters Health) - Deaths from chickenpox, although rare, have dipped steeply after the U.S. began vaccinating against the virus in 1995, a new government report concludes.

Since the early 1990s, the bug has gone from killing 105 a year to causing fewer than 20 annual deaths between 2003 and 2007.

Writing in the journal Pediatrics, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) call the results "impressive" and say they show the benefit from the vaccine program is larger than expected.

<snip>

Now, the number of people who get infected has been cut dramatically. The CDC's new report, which updates an earlier analysis from 1995 to 2001, shows deaths have dropped by as much as 88 percent over the first 12 years since the varicella vaccine was introduced.

More:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/25/us-deaths-with-vaccine-idUSTRE76O0YJ20110725

[laconicsax]

1. K&R

[HuckleB]

2. Recommended!!!!!

[xchrom]

3. funny how that works. nt

[vim876]

4. Hmm..

A friend of mine got meningitis caused by the chicken pox virus as an adult because while they gave him the vaccine as a kid, nobody thought to tell him it'd wear off by his mid-20s.

[HuckleB]

5. That's quite a claim.

[vim876]

7. Are you actually...

suggesting I made this up? It would be one thing for you to argue that the plural of anecdote is not data (I agree, but I think problems this serious, rare or otherwise, are worth taking into consideration), but I am saddened that you have so little faith in other people that you think I'm making this up. This happened to my best friend. He got meningitis when he was about 23, had no idea how, and a shingle appeared while he was still in the hospital, so the doctors figured out it was most likely caused by herpes zoster (the chicken pox virus), for which he had been vaccinated as a kid. I know I'm just an anonymous commenter on the internet, but really? What's the point in reading fora like this if you are just going to disbelieve stories because they challenge/complicate your opinions?

[laconicsax]

6. Did the booster turn him into the Hulk?

:shrug:

[Warpy]

8. Uh, everybody has known it would need to be redone

every few years, I guess your friend either didn't listen to the doctor or didn't go to a doctor to listen to.

That's been the real fear all along, that young adults would feel immortal and not keep up the shots. Chicken pox in kids is annoying and rarely fatal. Chicken pox in adults is a much more serious illness.

[HuckleB]

9. Kick.