Bet For You And Your Family (NAPSA)}—Vaccines play an important role in keeping people of all ages healthy, and are the best way to protect yourself and you loved ones from potentially lifethreatening infectious diseases, “Routine vaccination is the most effective tool available to help ensure infectious diseases do Let’s use the pertussis vaccine again as an example. As with all vac- tines, the pertussis vaccine is not 100 percenteffective. Yet, 71 percent of all children who complete the full vaccination series are protected against the disease. The children who are protected by the vaccine have less disease, thus limiting the exposure of unprotected children and reducing the overall spreadof the disease. Tn recent years, there have not threaten cur health,” said David Neumann, PhD, Director of the National Partnership for Inununization (NPD. “Thanks to vacemes, we no longer see many diseases that once were a frightening fact of daily life. Many Americans, including physicians and parents, have never seen illnesses like polio, measles and mumps, which we successfully fought with immunization.” For example, take the disease pertussis, also known as whooping cough. Before the pertussis vaceine was introduced, there were more than 206,000 cases of whooping cough with up to 1,000 pertussisrelated deaths each year. Last year, thanks to the vaccine, fewer than 7,006 cases were diagnosed. Vaccines are Safe You may have seen headlines questioning vaccine safety. Yet, what many people do not realize is that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has strict standards for evaluating the safety of a vaccine before it can be approved for licensure. The FDA requires that every vaccine pass through three phases of clinical (huraan) trials that can Jast more than 10 years and involve thousands of participants. Clinicaltrials are carefully designed to make sure each vaccine meets specific safety standards required for licensure. Most side effects of vaccines are minor andtemporary, like a sore arra atthe site of injection. Serious events been a numberof community-wide Routine vaccination has helped to protect millions of peopie from diseases ke pollo, measles and mumps which were once an everpresent threat to daily life. are very rare. Even after a vaccine is in use, it continues to be closely monitored by the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) using a national system, called the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS). VAERS reports are closely monitored to detect any new or unusual increases in vaccine-related reactions. These reports also help identify pre-existingconditions that may contraindicate additional vaccine doses, and identify specific vaccine lots associated with adverse reactions. In addition to the national reporting system, phase four studies—multi-year studies involving many thousands of participants— continue to monitor a vaccine’s safety. Yaccines are Good Public Health Immunization not only benefits the people who are vaccinated, it aiso helps reduce the spread of disease to persons who have not been immunized. pertussis outbreaks reported in the U.S. They have been attributed to a variety offactors, inchuding children not getting the com- plete vaccine series recommended by medical experts. In Massachusetts, four outbreaks during the 1986s were attributed to lack of vaccination among children whose parents had philosophical or religious exemptions to vaccination. Dr. Neumann warns that without mass immunization, diseases like pertussis could return in full force. Find Gut More Get the facts about immunization and vaccine safety. Visit the National Partnership for Immunization’s website at wwi.partnersforimmunization.org. This comprebensive website provides information about vaccination for children and adults, incladinga chart that explains immunization recommendations for all ages. The National Partnership for Imniunization (NPI), a joint part- nership of the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition (HMB) and National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID), was formed to increase awareness of the importanceof infant, child, adclescent and adult immunization through partnerships with public aud private organizations.
