Immunization

It's a question faced by countless travelers headed overseas: What's the best source for travel immunizations? Private physicians are one option. Private clinics specializing in travel medicine are another. But both can be expensive. For travelers flexible enough to make an appointment during somewhat limited business hours, a visit to one of the handful of county and city health clinics that offer immunizations could be the answer.

Invoking his right against self-incrimination, the former finance director of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum declined to testify before a grand jury about alleged corruption at the stadium, then answered questions after a judge granted him limited immunity, transcripts of the proceedings show. Ronald Lederkramer, once the Coliseum's No. 2 executive, left the Coliseum late last year after The Times reported that he used his personal credit card to buy hundreds of thousands of dollars in stadium equipment to pocket valuable reward points.

Your Aug. 10 editorial supporting mandated immunization benefits for insured children was a welcome boost to the drive for universal immunizations. The editorial rightly cites our poor record on protecting children through immunizations in the U.S. As a new charitable foundation dedicated to disease prevention and health promotion programs for Californians, we have set childhood immunization programs as a high priority. The task of immunizing the uninsured is daunting enough without adding to our burden the "otherwise (under)

In 1992, the acquittal of four police officers accused of beating Rodney King was the match that ignited a city, setting off a wave of violence that left 53 dead, thousands injured and hundreds of businesses destroyed. There was a lot of accumulated tinder to burn. Los Angeles was struggling with a faltering and de-industrialized economy that left too many without good jobs, a wave of demographic transition that caused ethnic and generational tensions, and a widening gap between rich and poor that was just beginning to emerge into public view - a bit like the U.S. today.

In order to enter or transfer into child-care centers, public and private elementary and secondary schools, children under the age of 18 years must meet the following California immunization requirements: INSTITUTION: Child care center, day nursery, nursery school development center AGE: 2-3 months VACCINE: Polio. TOTAL DOSES: 1 dose VACCINE: DTP. TOTAL DOSES: 1 dose INSTITUTION: Child care center, day nursery, nursery school development center AGE: 4-5 months VACCINE: Polio (OPV).

Public health officials say California's lackluster immunization rates could be a factor in the epidemic spread of whooping cough, a bacterial disease expected to take its largest toll in the state in five decades. California is one of only 11 states that does not require middle school students to receive a booster shot against whooping cough, also known as pertussis, which infects the respiratory system. The state is the only one in the nation to report such a dramatic surge in pertussis, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Mall of Orange and the county Health Care Agency will offer free back-to-school immunizations from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. Vaccinations are available only to school-age children and include polio and hepatitis shots. The state requires all children to be immunized before they attend school. In order to receive free immunizations, parents must bring all of their children's immunization records to the clinic.

The Pasadena Health Department will offer immunizations and the Mantoux TB test for schoolchildren. Immunizations will be offered for polio, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, influenza, measles, mumps and rubella. * Salvation Army Center, 960 E. Walnut St.; noon to 8 p.m. Sept. 1 (free). * Pasadena Unified School District, 351 S. Hudson Ave.; 8 to 11 a.m. Sept. 9, 11 and 14 ($2 per immunization, $8 for the TB test). * Pasadena Health Department at Jackie Robinson Center, 1020 N. Fair Oaks Ave.

Children entering school next month for the first time are required by law to have up-to-date immunization records, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services. Children are required to have at least four DTP (diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis or whooping cough) shots, three doses of oral polio vaccine and one combined shot of MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine.

State health officials have a message for parents: Preparing their young children for the first day of school requires more than buying them lunch boxes and new outfits. It also means having kids immunized against diseases. State law requires that children receive nearly a dozen immunizations by age 5. Officials from the state Department of Health Services recommend that children be given many of those shots by age 2.

People buy target-date mutual funds to avoid unpleasant surprises. But older investors in these retirement-oriented funds — and more broadly, any investors who hold fixed-income securities — could be in for an unexpected jolt if interest rates rise sharply, as they threatened to do in the first quarter. Interest rates fell to generational lows in recent years as the economy struggled in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. But with the economy gathering steam lately, many investment professionals say rates are much likelier to rise than fall.

For more than a year, Russia has prohibited its government-run museums from sending artworks to exhibitions in the United States. The ban has frustrated and puzzled American museum officials, because it was spurred by a legal decision unrelated to anything the museums themselves have done. Diplomacy has failed to lift it. Hopes have risen recently that the impasse can be broken by a bipartisan bill that passed unopposed in the U.S. House of Representativeson March 19 and is pending in the Senate judiciary committee.

Blocking "don't destroy me" signals that normally sit on the surface of tumor cells and render them resistant to immune-cell attack slows the growth of a broad range of human cancers when they're implanted in mice, researchers have found. The approach, reported by immunologists at the Stanford University School of Medicine, was effective against ovarian, breast, colon, bladder, liver, prostate and brain cancer cells. If the work can be repeated in people, the approach may someday help doctors marshal defender cells in patients' own bodies to fight cancers, the researchers said.

A nationwide settlement on foreclosure practices has ended one headache for the banks involved, but there are signs that it is only the beginning of many others. The agreement between 49 states and five large banks gives the financial giants immunity from future complaints about some aspects of their foreclosure practices. The banks had previously made changes to improve the way they foreclose on homeowners and had put aside most of the funds necessary to pay for the $25-billion settlement.

A former Marine testified Tuesday that he and other Marines were justified in breaking into a home in Iraq and killing everyone inside after their squad leader told them the house was to be treated as "hostile. " Stephen Tatum, testifying under immunity, said that after their superior, Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, labeled the home "hostile," there was no need to ask questions to distinguish between combatants and noncombatants before killing those inside with M-16 fire and grenades.

Brody Kennedy was a typical sixth-grader who loved to hang out with friends in Castaic and play video games. A strep-throat infection in October caused him to miss a couple of days of school, but he was eager to rejoin his classmates, recalls his mother, Tracy. Then, a week after Brody became ill, he awoke one morning to find his world was no longer safe. Paranoid about germs and obsessed with cleanliness, he refused to touch things and showered several times a day. His fear prevented him from attending school, and he insisted on wearing nothing but a sheet or demanding that his mother microwave his clothes or heat them in the dryer before dressing.

In recognition of its educational efforts, the national research arm of Prudential HealthCare has been awarded $250,000 to further research into ways to increase immunization rates of young children. The Warner Center-based managed-care provider will receive the funds from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Assn. of Health Plans.

Saying children in Los Angeles County have one of the lowest vaccination rates in the nation, a business coalition this week launched what it described as the largest private sector immunization drive ever undertaken in California. The group said it hopes to boost the county's 40% vaccination rate--the worst among California's most populous counties--by sponsoring more than 250 free clinics in the San Fernando Valley. The program will be expanded countywide next year.

After months of unrest that have brought his country to the edge of civil war, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh signed an agreement in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday to hand power to his vice president in a deal that leaves him immune from prosecution in the deaths of scores of protesters. The agreement reached with the opposition and backed by the U.S. and Persian Gulf nations allows Saleh to retain the title of president for three months while early elections are scheduled. A clever politician who has ruled for 33 years, Saleh has broken similar promises before and it remains to be seen whether he will finesse a loophole to stay in charge.

Irom Sharmila's mother has a simple dream: sitting down to a meal with her daughter. Irom hasn't willingly ingested food or water for 11 years, in protest of a law granting legal immunity to the armed forces for human rights abuses. As the anniversary of her hunger strike nears, her mother imagines what might be. "I'm still waiting for her to come home," said Shakhi Devi, 78, holding an album of her daughter's photos. She rarely visits the 39-year-old, the world's longest-serving hunger striker, because it's too painful.