Enforcing a healthy learning environment for our children

Many states within our nation are doing what they can in order to encourage positive and healthy learning environments for today’s children. Children ranging from preschoolers to college students are required by law to meet specific vaccine requirements to enforce this achievable goal of establishing an educational environment, free of preventable diseases.

It’s inevitable that children in schools will carry and be susceptible to the common cold as well as other common germs that can be prevented through regular hand-washing, but vaccines help prevent the spread of those less common germs that cause more serious symptoms and outcomes.

The commonwealth of Virginia is no exception to this effort. According to the Virginia Department of Health (VDH), “Children vaccinated in accordance with either the current harmonized schedule or the harmonized catch-up schedules (including meeting all minimum age and interval requirements) are considered to be appropriately immunized for school attendance.” In order to be granted admission to a day care facility or school in Virginia, public or private, all students must meet the minimum immunizations requirements, which include; Diphtheria, Tetanus, and Pertussis (DTaP, DTP, or TDaP), Haemophilus Influenza Type b (Hib) Vaccine, Hepatitus B Vaccine, Human Papillomavirus Vaccine (HPV)*, Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) Vaccine, Pneumococcal (PCV) Vaccine, and Polio Vaccine.

Time specific-related requirements included:

All: Hepatitus B Vaccine

Children up to 60 months of age: Hib Vaccine and PCV

When entering kindergarten: First doses of TDaP and Polio Vaccines, second dose of MMR

When entering 6th grade: TDaP booster and HPV*

*Parents can opt out their child from receiving the HPV vaccine after reading board-approved materials regarding HPV.

Here is a helpful video regarding the TDaP booster required of rising 6^th graders in Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) in Virginia.

In order to document students’ vaccinations systematically, the VDH has an established School Entrance Health Form that is kept on file and is updated as needed for each student. Because Virginia schools require students to meet these minimum immunization requirements, and allow for very specific exemptions including religious exemptions, they have the ability, by law, to exclude children from school. According to state legislation, § 22.1-271.2. Immunizationrequirements., Section B it states, “Any student admitted conditionally and who fails to comply with his schedule for completion of the required immunizations shall be excluded from school until his immunizations are resumed.”

The Fairfax County Health Department is one of the many county departments that support and enforce the minimum immunization requirements in the commonwealth of Virginia. One of the ways that they are able to help members in their county to meet this requirement is by offering five clinic sites where it’s members can receive required school vaccinations free of charge.

Fairfax County Public Schools as well as other schools in the commonwealth of Virginia are doing their part in contributing to creating and enforcing an optimal learning environment for students and teachers alike. As a mother, I feel a sense of ease knowing that my children attend a school that has these requirements in place. These requirements that avert the spread of preventable diseases ultimately help to provide a positive and healthy learning environment.

Would you send your child to a school that didn’t have similar requirements in place?

References

VDH School Requirements. (2014). Retrieved from http://www.vdh.state.va.us/epidemiology/Immunization/requirements.htm

Seeking vaccine expertise

Many scientists and medical professionals are involved in making a difference in preventing diseases today. One of the leading doctors in this effort to protect our society against preventable diseases is Paul A.Offit, MD. Dr. Offit, a Baltimore native, grew up as the son of a shirtmaker and was motivated at the young age of five to become a doctor after spending time in a hospital during his recovery room a foot surgery. Driven by experiences that he had as a young boy he went on to become the first doctor in his family and has made a notable difference in the field of vaccines and disease prevention.

As the Director of the Vaccine Education Center and the Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Offit also fits in his schedule fulfilling the role of Professor of Vaccinology and Professor of Pediatrics at the University of the Pennsylvania School of Medicine. For the work that he tirelessly performs, Offit is the recipient of many prestigious awards, including awards from the Infectious Disease Society of America and the National Institutes of Health. He has also been published in medical and scientific journals, and written several books on the topic of vaccines and disease prevention.

  

Alongside two of his colleagues, Offit jointly conducted research that lead to the invention of RotaTeq, a vaccine used around the world to prevent rotavirus. Rotavirus is a virus that causes diarrhea, which can lead to dehydration. Back in 1979, Offit was motivated to find a solution to the problem of rotavirus-induced diarrhea after losing a 9-month-old patient to this virus during his pediatric residency. In February 2006, RotaTeq was incorporated into the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) recommended immunization schedule after its approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Offit has been and is a great advocate for the use of vaccines. He is a member of several well-known national committees and boards that support disease prevention and autism awareness. Because of Offit’s contributions in the field of vaccines, Offit has been the focus of many anti-vaccine efforts as a result of an unproven claim that links vaccines as a cause for autism. According to Gerber and Offit (2009) many global studies have been conducted with the intent to disprove the supposed link between vaccines and autism and the findings all point to the lack of a connection between the two.

In addition to his extensive expertise in vaccines, Offit has reviewed the research in the area of vitamins and supplements. Offit found, through his interpretations and analyses, that essentially too much of a good thing can be bad for you. Offit does not support the use of daily supplements that are not regulated by the FDA. So many of the vitamin and supplement manufacturers are creating products that encourage an excess in dietary supplements of what the body needs in order to maintain a healthy balance. For the average human, this excess of supplements can cause for he body’s antioxidants and free radicals to become unbalanced and result in making the body more susceptible to cancer, heart disease, and a decreased life span, all of which we can agree are undesirable outcomes. Offit has compiled his findings on this topic and authored a book titled, Do You Believe in Magic? Vitamins, supplements, and all things natural: A look behind the curtain. 

References

Gerber, J. S., & Offit, P. A. (2009). Vaccines and Autism: A Tale of Shifting Hypotheses. Clinical Infectious Diseases, 48, 456-461.

Offit, P. A. (2008, May 15). Vaccines adnn Autism Revisited-The Hannah Poling Case. The New England Journal of Medicine, 358, 2089-2091.

Offit, P. A. (2013, June 09). Don’t take your vitamins. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/opinion/sunday/dont-take-your-vitamins.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

What's next in the topic of vaccines?

As was discussed in my last post, vaccines have been a successful part of medical history for over two centuries. Some might go as far to say that they are “among the most effective interventions in the history of the public health” (Koff et al., 2014). With the discovery of each new vaccine, another disease begins to lose its battle against the human race. However, some of those germs that lead to disease are persistent and do whatever they can to attempt to stay one step ahead of current advances. This is evident with cases of influenza. Each year, new strands of influenza are discovered and as a result new influenza vaccines are created and mass-produced for the general public. These influenza germs that we attempt to fight off each year, through the current influenza vaccination, continue to mutate in an effort to withstand the antibodies that are targeted to kill them. Scientists and medical professionals are constantly looking for new ways to combat the viruses among us.

In February of this year, 35 vaccine experts got together in California for the first of a three part meeting series to discuss an innovative approach to vaccines. The driving force bringing this group together was “the need for a new, human immunology-based clinical-research initiative to accelerate the development of new and improved vaccines” due to limitations and challenges that are reached when conducting testing on animals (Koff et al., 2014). This initiative will be known as the “Human Vaccines Project” which hopes to discover a plan to prevent and control major diseases and cancer through vaccines.

According to Koff et al. (2014), this group of experts agreed that the three hindrances to improving today’s vaccines are:

1.     Inadequate understanding of how to generate specific, potent, broad and durable immune responses in humans.

2.     The lack of understanding of the precise antigens needed to elicit protective immunity against intractable pathogens and cancer.

3.     The lack of understanding of how to best optimize vaccine efficacy in populations, ranging from newborns to the elderly.

If these three areas can be overcome, then these scientists believe that our society will be on its way to tackling major diseases and cancer through the use of vaccines. In order to get to their end goal, and once the initial hindrances are overcome, several significant steps will need to be taken. This is where the Human Vaccine Project plays is role. Because animal testing only offers so many scientific results, the idea is to take the testing to the human level. “The group concluded that comprehensive assessments of human responses to licensed and experimental vaccines in rapid, focused and iterative clinical research trials could create novel strategies for the generation of long-lived protective immune responses in humans and thus enable the accelerated development of vaccines against infectious diseases and cancer” (Koff et al., 2014).  Below is a chart that helps to visual the plan constructed by the experts at this recent meeting.

 (Image from www.nature.com)

In theory, this sounds like this is the next step to take, but who would be a willing participant in a study like this?

The next two meetings are scheduled to meet later this year and the early part next year with the project’s implementation date of 2015. The next meeting will discuss the possible organizational structure and its business plan followed by the final meeting, which aims to meet with potential stakeholders, identify funds for the project, and create a desired timeline of milestones.

To view more about the Human Vaccines Project and the grant that is funding it, click here.

For the complete article, “Toward a Human Vaccines Project”, in Nature Immunology, click here to view it.

Reference

Koff, W. C., Gust, I. D., & Plotkin, S. A. (2014, July). Toward a Human Vaccines Project. Nature Immunology, 15, 589-592.

To vaccinate, or not to vaccinate

Many people today are presented with the question of whether to vaccine or not to vaccine. This is a question that all parents or soon-to-be parents will come across as they contemplate the health and well being of their child. As the case has been for many years, we currently have the resources to prevent our children from contracting preventable diseases, saving them the struggle of fighting off those unwelcomed bugs with the aid of vaccinations.

Dating back to as early as the late 1700’s, when the first vaccine was successfully administered, smallpox became less prevalent in societies with high smallpox vaccination rates. Leaving some societies with low smallpox outbreak rates and eventually eradicating the disease altogether. Because of the smallpox vaccine, we are no longer faced with the struggles or death that once consumed societies around the world due to this preventable disease. Vaccines have also been the cause for extremely low rates of polio and measles, which at one time ran rampant through societies. These are just a couple of the success stories, of many, that have proven the benefit of vaccine usage.

The science behind vaccinations is very simple. Through each injection received, the patient is exposed to a nominal amount of the germ. Because the body is exposed to a small amount of the germ, the body may present mild symptoms, indicating the body’s ability to fight off this unwanted guest. The human body has the amazing ability to, within just a few days, build up defenses against the germ that was introduced into the body.  Upon the germ’s arrival in the body, the white bloods cells immediately recognize that there is an invader present and thus begins to build up its defenses.  These defenses, also known as antibodies, are then stored in the body for an extended period of time, some indefinitely. Then at any point when this vaccinated patient is exposed to the same germ, their body already has the necessary antibodies in place to fight off the disease and not be affected by it.

More on how a vaccine works can be found here. 

Center for Disease Control and Protection 2014 Vaccine Schedule here.

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) vaccine schedule, children from the ages of newborn to 18 years old will receive 14 different vaccines, some consisting of a series of two or three injections. A couple of vaccines, such as the DTaP vaccine, allows for the benefit of vaccinations against Diphtheria, tetanus, and acellular pertussis, with the administration of just one injection. This schedule has been designed and recommended by medical professionals who have conducted research, completed studies, collected data, interpreted and analyzed the data, and now recommend these vaccinations while keeping the health of children and future children in mind.

Two vaccines that are currently recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and CDC are the varicella vaccine (licensed in 1995) and the MMR vaccine (licensed in 1963). Both vaccines have proved to be very effective, most importantly by decreasing outbreak rates that can be attributed to increased vaccination rates and herd-immunity effects. Herd-immunity is the benefit received by a population when the majority is immunized, which leads to a decreased opportunity for an outbreak. This is also a great benefit to those that are not eligible for vaccinations including, pregnant women, babies, and immunocompromised individuals

Vaccines have been proven to be of great benefit in societies around the world. Aiding in building up defenses in one child at a time.

What are you thoughts on vaccines? Are you in favor, or not in favor of vaccinations? Do you support certain vaccines and not others?

References:

1.     Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Vaccines and Immunizations Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/default.htm

2.     CDC, Understanding How Vaccines Work,  Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/patient-ed/conversations/downloads/vacsafe-understand-color-office.pdf

3.     American Academy of Pediatrics, 2014 Vaccination Schedule, Retrieved from http://www2.aap.org/immunization/izschedule.html