Vaccine scare threatens health in Ukraine

[trotsky]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iJnoCvLEOV9fG5CkDnfhJmwqGOmgD9750RGO0

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — A widespread scare about vaccine side effects in Ukraine has led to a sharp drop in immunizations that could result in disease outbreaks spreading beyond the former Soviet republic, international and local health officials say.

Hundreds of thousands of fearful Ukrainians have refused vaccines for diseases such as diphtheria, mumps, polio, hepatitis B, tuberculosis, whooping cough and others this year, according to official estimates. Authorities have canceled a U.N.-backed measles and rubella vaccination campaign funded by U.S. philanthropist Ted Turner, and will have to collect and incinerate nearly 9 million unused doses in coming months.

Sounds like Ukraine has a similar dynamic feeding the anti-vaccination fears as we do in the USA:

Ukraine has an educated population but rumors and misperceptions spread easily. Constant political turmoil and a devastating financial crisis — one of the worst in Europe — has fueled mistrust of Ukraine's crumbling health care system, and authorities in general.

And here we have your average Ukrainian parent echoing the same falsehoods the US anti-vax movement spreads:

Nina Zaichenko, a 25-year-old interior designer in Kiev, says she has decided not to immunize her 1-year-old daughter, Dasha, against any diseases until at least the age of 3. She fears the infant's body is still to weak to handle vaccinations and she does not trust the local health system to acquire and properly store high-quality vaccines. "The chances of a child getting sick from a vaccine and from the disease itself are equal," Zaichenko said, an assertion experts say has no basis in the truth. "It's a hard choice for parents to make."

[dropkickpa]

1. WTG guys!

:applause: Yer doing a real bang up job!

[cosmik debris]

2. Making the world safe for...

...diphtheria, mumps, polio, hepatitis B, tuberculosis, whooping cough and others requires many allies. And the most potent of those allies is ignorance.

[xchrom]

3. recommend

[semillama]

4. Recommend

It's like some evil madman's insane plot to conduct a population-wide experiment with infectious diseases. Isn't Latveria located over there somewhere?

[beam me up scottie]

5. And look who's behind it:

Experts blame the Ukrainian scare on government mismanagement and irresponsible media coverage of an anti-vaccination campaign launched after the May death of a 17-year-old boy who had received a combined shot for measles and rubella.

Activists including members of the homeopathic and alternative healing industries blamed his death on the vaccination. Ukrainian authorities said they needed to investigate and halted the campaign to revaccinate 9 million Ukrainians aged 16-29 for measles — a leading cause of childhood death — and rubella, which can cause serious birth defects.

The Ukrainian Health Ministry and World Health Organization concluded that the boy died of septic shock from a bacterial infection unrelated to the vaccine. But the ministry decided last month to terminate the revaccination campaign, saying there was no longer enough time to administer the vaccines before they expire this summer and that people would refuse the shots.

UNICEF says it believes only up to 30 percent of Ukrainians who need revaccination for measles and rubella would turn up if the campaign were restarted today. Only 400,000 people received vaccines before the campaign was stopped.

The anti-vaccinistas are no different than the Pope who opposes the use of condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS.

[xchrom]

6. this should be an OP on it's own. wish i could rec it. nt

[beam me up scottie]

9. Thank you.

Soon they'll have blood on their hands just like the Pope.

[xchrom]

7. kick

[xchrom]

8. kick

[beam me up scottie]

10. Kick for science

[hedgehog]

11. Ukraine will make a good reservoir for the re-emergence of a lot of these diseases!

[xchrom]

12. kick