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Paul Thomas tries to deter Oregon Medical Board with harassing lawsuit

This article about how Dr. Paul Thomas is trying to deter the Oregon Medical Board with a lawsuit was written by Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, Professor of Law at the University of California Hastings College of the Law (San Francisco, CA), who is a frequent contributor to this and many other blogs, providing in-depth, and intellectually stimulating, articles about vaccines, medical issues, social policy, and the law.

Professor Reiss writes extensively in law journals about vaccination’s social and legal policies. Additionally, Reiss is also a member of the Parent Advisory Board of Voices for Vaccines, a parent-led organization that supports and advocates for on-time vaccination and the reduction of vaccine-preventable diseases. She is also a member of the Vaccines Working Group on Ethics and Policy.

Anti-vaccine Oregon pediatrician Paul Thomas is unhappy that the medical board is – finally – acting against him for misleading parents on vaccines and providing sub-standard care. So he decided to sue the medical board with a lawsuit that, for the most part, is designed to harass. He may have one procedural point, but it’s not likely to justify the rest of his many claims, and board members may turn the tables on him using Oregon’s anti-SLAPP law.

Read More »Paul Thomas tries to deter Oregon Medical Board with harassing lawsuit

Parents, children, loss of custody and immunization

This article uses the very recent decision of the Supreme Court of Oregon in Department of Human Services v. S.M. (pdf) to discuss a specific question: if parents lose custody of their children, can they still refuse immunizations? The Oregon Supreme Court joins others in saying that the answer is no. As discussed, this is the right result.

Loss of custody and immunization is a key issue of parental rights on several levels. Let’s discuss the case in Oregon in detail

Read More »Parents, children, loss of custody and immunization

Pertussis vaccine reduced length and severity of whooping cough

Except for the evidence that says it's not a failure.

Except for the evidence that says it’s not a failure.

I know, there are just so many tropes and outright lies pushed by the vaccine deniers, it’s really hard for this writer to keep up with it all. But there’s one that has always bothered me, but I didn’t have quite enough evidence to lustfully debunk in my usual manner.

As has been shown in few studies, the vaccine against whooping cough (Bordetella pertussis), either  DTaP or Tdap (which also protect against tetanus and diphtheria), isn’t as effective in providing long-term protection as our expectations, based on other vaccines. Although the antivaccination cult has misinterpreted and misstated the actual numbers, an analysis of the data from the Washington State pertussis epidemic in 2011-2012 provided us with the following information:

  • Ages 5-9 unvaccinated or under vaccinated children are 6 times more likely to become infected with pertussis than fully vaccinated. 
  • Ages 10-13 unvaccinated or under vaccinated are 25 times more likely to become infected with pertussis than fully vaccinated. 
  • Ages 14-18 unvaccinated or under vaccinated  are 6 times more likely to become infected with pertussis than fully vaccinated.

In other words, not getting the vaccine made it easier to get infected with whooping cough.Read More »Pertussis vaccine reduced length and severity of whooping cough

Despite activities of vaccine refusers, nearly all kids immunized

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that most kindergartners in the United States received their recommended vaccines for measles and other diseases during the 2012-2013 school year. However, the CDC also mentioned concern about unvaccinated clusters of children that are at risk from vaccine preventable diseases, and may pose a health risk to the community at large.

Overall, 48 states and DC (as well as 8 US jurisdictions, including Guam, Puerto Rico and other territories) reported 2012-13 school vaccination coverage. Approximately 94.5% of kindergartners had received their complete MMR vaccinations, an insignificant drop from the 2011-12 level of 94.8%.  DTaP coverage was 95.1%, above Healthy People 2020 target of 95%. For the varicella vaccine, 93.8% of American kindergartners received both necessary doses.

Read More »Despite activities of vaccine refusers, nearly all kids immunized

Waning whooping cough immunity after DTaP–a new analysis

Protect Your Baby from Whooping Cough.

Despite the fact that over 95% of kindergarteners in the United States are properly vaccinated against whooping cough (Bordetella pertussis) with the DTaP vaccine, there are persistent reports that the rates of whooping cough have risen during the past few years. Several outbreaks, along with an outright epidemic in Washington state, seemed to indicate that the vaccine’s effectiveness is waning faster than expected.

A recently published study in Pediatrics evaluates reports of increased rates of pertussis in the six years after receipt of the fifth (of five) DTaP doses. These reports suggest that waning of immunity to pertussis from DTaP is occurring before the recommended booster age of 11 to 12 years. The researchers tracked more than 400,000 Minnesota and Oregon children using immunization records and state health department whooping cough data. All of those children were born between 1998 and 2003 and received the recommended series of five DTaP shots, the final one usually given at 4-6 years old.Read More »Waning whooping cough immunity after DTaP–a new analysis