MMR – measles, mumps, rubella – vaccination is again in the news as an outbreak of measles that began at Disneyland before Christmas has spread to six states. As of last Friday, 70 people have been diagnosed with measles, and hundreds more have been exposed at schools, doctor’s offices, hospitals, shopping malls and other places visited by infected patients. Arizona reported its first case of measles related to Disneyland when a woman in her 50s was diagnosed. The outbreak has spread to Utah, Washington, Colorado, Oregon and across the border to Mexico. The Institute of Medicine has produced a number of reports on the safety and importance of vaccination. We asked Kathleen Stratton, an Institute of Medicine Scholar and Study Director of several notable IOM reports on vaccines, for her thoughts on vaccination and public health.
“Vaccines save lives. That’s a fact. We need vaccines developed against some very serious infectious diseases, like respiratory syncytial virus, and we need everyone to heed advice regarding existing vaccines, like the measles vaccine.”
The reports below and others on the subject of vaccination are free to download from our website.
Vaccines are among the most safe and effective public health interventions to prevent serious disease and death. Because of the success of vaccines, most Americans today have no firsthand experience with such devastating illnesses as polio or …
Modern transportation allows people, animals, and plants–and the pathogens they carry–to travel more easily than ever before. The ease and speed of travel, tourism, and international trade connect once-remote areas with one another, eliminating …
About a quarter of deaths worldwide–many of them children–are caused by infectious organisms. The World Health Organization reports that new infectious diseases are continuing to emerge and familiar ones are appearing in new locations around …
In 1900, for every 1,000 babies born in the United States, 100 would die before their first birthday, often due to infectious diseases. Today, vaccines exist for many viral and bacterial diseases. The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, passed …
This eighth and final report of the Immunization Safety Review Committee examines the hypothesis that vaccines, specifically the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and thimerosal-containing vaccines, are causally associated with autism. The …