US : H1N1 Pandemic Flu Hits Pregnant Women Hard

Via Health Day :

" MONDAY, May 24 : Pregnant women who get the H1N1 pandemic strain of flu are at high risk of experiencing serious complications for themselves and their unborn child, a new study finds.

According to the report, there has not been much data about the effect of the novel H1N1 flu on pregnant women and their fetuses, and what data exists is conflicting.

In other pandemic flus -- in 1918 and 1957 -- pregnant women were at a high risk of being hospitalized and dying, the researchers noted.

"In keeping with prior pandemics, pregnant women don't do well with pandemic flu, because they have a compromised immune response," said influenza expert Dr. Marc Siegel, an associate professor of medicine at New York University in New York City.

In addition, they don't do as well because they lack immunity to these new flu strains.

"So, if you put together that they don't have the immune response that you would like, plus they don't have previous immunity, it's a bad combination," he said.

The report is published in the May 24 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine."

US : Misinformation About Vaccine Safety Puts Kids at Risk of Illness

Via Health Day:

" Almost one-third of U.S. parents surveyed delayed vaccines for their very young children in 2008, and 12 percent simply refused to have their children immunized, possibly making them more vulnerable to illness, a new study shows.

Physicians report that children who don't receive recommended vaccine doses by the time they're 2 years old are at risk of developing a variety of diseases. But some anti-vaccine activists contend that the shots can cause side effects, including autism, although health officials say repeated studies have failed to uncover such a link.

For this study, researchers analyzed the results of a 2008 national survey of parents and health-care providers."