Immunization

A new state law that took effect this summer mandates that students cannot enter, advance to or repeat the seventh grade if they have not started the three-dose hepatitis B series, administered over four to six months. The new law is intended to catch older children who missed earlier inoculations and are approaching the years when the disease is often contracted. Officials said many children don't get the immunization shots they need on time.

Preliminary trials of an AIDS immunization treatment developed by Dr. Jonas Salk, the polio vaccine pioneer, show the technique appears to be safe, and as a result, expanded trials have begun at USC Medical School to determine whether the approach can help prevent the deadly disease, the researchers are reporting today. Salk and Dr.

In an effort to stem the worst measles epidemic in more than two decades, officials at Los Angeles County health clinics said Thursday that they will begin offering free vaccinations on evenings and Saturdays. The stepped-up effort to eradicate the disease--which has already taken the lives of at least six Californians this year--was announced at a press conference at the Hubert H.

JIMMIE INGHRAM, a 70-year-old African American, had his last flu shot 30 years ago. "It made me real sick," he said as he played a video game at the Golden Agers Senior Activity Center. Since then, Inghram has avoided the vaccine, as have many others at the center, even though free shots are offered periodically in the same building.

Haunted by memories of a recent measles epidemic that took 40 young lives, public and private health workers in Los Angeles County are in the midst of another drive to vaccinate preschool children for measles, whooping cough and other preventable childhood diseases. Once again, they are reporting disappointing results.

Polio, the world's great crippler of children, will survive into the next century. But if all goes well, it will also be the new millennium's first great casualty. Over the next 12 months, an international effort will attempt to drive polio into the most exclusive category of human disease--those eradicated from Earth. The list has one item: smallpox.

Democratic Party officials are blaming politics for Orange County's withdrawal of support for free child-immunization drives scheduled next month and sponsored by local Democrats. In letters sent to county leaders and to U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, party members said they believe that one aide--and possibly two--for the all-Republican Board of Supervisors pressured the county Health Care Agency to renege on pledges of vaccine and other supplies for use during the Aug.

California's health maintenance organizations do a good job caring for heart patients and providing immunization for children but don't do as well serving the needs of the mentally ill, according to a state survey released Tuesday. The annual HMO "Quality of Care Report Card," from the state's Office of the Patient Advocate, ranks the 10 largest health maintenance organizations based on 39,000 customer reports. The survey also includes some of the larger doctor groups in metropolitan areas.

Polio could be eradicated by 2005 if governments in four key countries give full backing to extensive immunization campaigns, according to officials from the World Health Organization. The disease might never be conquered unless a window of opportunity offered by a new flow of funds is used now, the officials said Tuesday in Geneva. "Polio eradication is a top priority," said new WHO Director-General Lee Jong-wook. "We have eliminated it from almost every country in the world.