Immunization

An old childhood disease reared its head in Minnesota last year, infecting five young children and killing one of them, according to a recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The outbreak, of a disease known as "Hib" for short, is the latest of several contagious diseases making encore appearances after having been all but vanquished through immunization.

A federal panel recommended Wednesday that all children over the age of 6 months should be vaccinated for influenza every year. The recommendation, which is expected to be adopted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, would call for an estimated 30 million more children to be vaccinated -- although current vaccination rates suggest that less than a quarter of them, about 7 million, would actually receive the shots.

Officials with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scrambled Thursday to reassure the public that childhood vaccines were safe after news spread that an agency had acknowledged a link between a child's autism and the shots she received as a toddler. "Our message to parents is that immunization is life- saving," Dr. Julie L. Gerberding, the CDC's director, said at a hastily convened conference call with reporters. "There's nothing changed. . . .

A federal health panel for the first time has singled out smokers for vaccination because of their high risk of infection from a pneumonia-causing bacterium. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention already recommends the pneumococcal vaccine for children, adults over 65 and those with chronic illnesses and weakened immune systems. The panel's new recommendation, proposed Wednesday and expected to be formally adopted by the CDC, would expand the group to smokers ages 19 to 64.

Texas on Friday became the first state to require school-age girls to be vaccinated against a sexually transmitted virus that has been shown to cause cervical cancer. Gov. Rick Perry signed an executive order mandating that most girls, starting in September 2008, receive the vaccination against the human papillomavirus before entering sixth grade. More than a dozen states, including California, have been considering such a move.

George Warren didn't mind getting his 9-year-old daughter vaccinated against chickenpox. He didn't object to any of the 10 or so inoculations that California requires. But a vaccine to prevent cervical cancer and genital warts? For a preteen girl? "She's not gonna need it," said Warren, a 30-year-old land surveyor from Rescue, Calif., about 28 miles from Sacramento. "I'm a good parent. I tell her what's right and wrong."

Merck & Co., bowing to pressure from parents and medical groups, is immediately suspending its lobbying campaign to persuade state legislatures to mandate that adolescent girls get the company's new vaccine against cervical cancer as a requirement for school attendance. The drug maker, which announced the change Tuesday, had been criticized for quietly funding the campaign, via a third party, to require that 11- and 12-year-old girls get the three-dose vaccine in order to attend school.

When Texas Gov. Rick Perry ordered that all of the state's middle-school-aged girls be vaccinated against a sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer, the backlash was swift and sure. Critics argued that the executive order promoted promiscuity, trampled on parental rights and subjected children to a new vaccine with unknown long-term effects. Texas lawmakers, unhappy that Perry sidestepped their authority, pushed a bill through committee that would rescind the mandate.

A study of the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus has found that 3.4% of females in the U.S. ages 14 to 59 are infected with at least one of four viral types that could be blocked by the controversial vaccine Gardasil, researchers reported Tuesday. The study found that 3.1 million females have HPV types 6 or 11, which cause about 90% of genital warts cases, or types 16 or 18, which account for 70% of the roughly 11,000 cervical cancer cases diagnosed each year in the U.S.

Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson said in Santa Fe that he would veto a bill that would have required New Mexico girls entering sixth grade to be vaccinated against a sexually transmitted virus that can cause cervical cancer. Richardson had indicated he would sign the bill after it passed the Legislature last month. He said he changed his mind after parents and doctors told him their concerns about the program.