E-drug: Medicalisation - A way of life (cont'd)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
While over-treatment of certain medical conditions is not desirable,
vaccination against HBV is not one of those example. It has been
shown in Taiwan that the national vaccination program has resulted
in reduction of incidence of liver cancer among the vaccinated
cohort (N Engl J Med 1997; 336:1855-1859).
As for the safety of vaccine, someone cited a Boston Globe article
about law suits against vaccine manufacturers. In that particular
news article, two studies published in the New England Journal of
Medicine were cited (N Engl J Med 2001; 344:327-332 and
319-326). Both studies did not find an increased risk of multiple
sclerosis among vaccinees who received the HBV vaccine.
Public health would be better served by concrete data and
appropriate interpretation than by opinion.
K. Arnold Chan, MD, ScD
Department of Epidemiology
Harvard School of Public Health
kachan@hsph.harvard.edu
--
Send mail for the `E-Drug' conference to `e-drug@usa.healthnet.org'.
Information and archive http://satellife.healthnet.org/programs/edrug.html
Mail administrative requests to `majordomo@usa.healthnet.org'.
For additional assistance, send mail to: `owner-e-drug@usa.healthnet.org'.