Vaccines

The two-decade search for an AIDS vaccine is in crisis after two field tests of the most promising contender not only did not protect people from the virus but may have put them at increased risk of becoming infected. The trials, which enrolled volunteers on four continents, have spurred intense scientific inquiry and unprecedented soul-searching as researchers try to make sense of what happened and assess whether they should have seen it coming.

A small trial of an experimental vaccine designed to activate the immune system against breast cancer suggests it may reduce the risk of death for most patients, U.S. military researchers said Sunday. The vaccine, designed to treat women with tumors that generate a protein called HER-2, has been licensed to privately held Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Apthera Inc. under the brand name NeuVax.

Mumps, once a common disease of childhood, was on track to be eliminated in the United States by the year 2010, thanks to widespread use of two doses of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine in early childhood. Then, inexplicably, the largest U.S. mumps epidemic in two decades occurred in 2006.

The United States is on track to report its highest incidence of measles cases since 2001, exacerbated by a rise in outbreaks worldwide and by clusters of people who are opting out of the vaccine because of religious beliefs or fears of a purported link between the shot and autism, health officials said Thursday. As of April 25, there were 64 reported cases of measles nationwide this year, including 12 in San Diego. One in five cases required hospitalization, said Dr.

Breakthroughs in technology, increased funding and higher profits are spurring a boom in vaccine discovery and development that could save or improve the lives of millions of people by attacking such scourges as cancer and malaria. Three new vaccines arrived on the market in 2006, the most in a single year. They include vaccines for the human papillomavirus, linked to cervical cancer, and for rotavirus, which causes severe diarrhea and kills 600,000 children globally each year.

IF the bird flu afflicting poultry flocks in Asia starts spreading efficiently among people, many millions could die. We have no natural immunity to this virus, and no effective vaccine is available. And even if we did have a potent bird flu shot, vaccine production is such a slow, unwieldy process that vaccine makers couldn't produce sufficient supplies fast enough to avert a catastrophe.

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.

Few doctors, parents or medical ethicists would dispute the astounding potential of the new human papilloma virus vaccine -- it protects against infections that cause 70% of all cervical cancer and most genital warts. "We use 'breakthrough' way too often, but this is a breakthrough," says Dr. Bradley Monk, an associate professor of gynecologic oncology at UC Irvine School of Medicine. "We are unbelievably enthusiastic to have a vaccine that prevents you from getting cancer."

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."

The Food and Drug Administration said it was notifying healthcare providers and consumers about reports of about 28 cases of infants suffering a serious bowel condition after receiving Merck & Co.'s new vaccine against rotavirus. The FDA said it was not clear how many of the 28 reported cases were caused by the vaccine. It said the condition, known as intussusception, can occur in the absence of vaccination.