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Ezekiel J. Emanuel, M.D., Ph.D.

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How We Can Save Over 4 Million Children

Posted: 10/07/10 08:19 PM ET

Childhood vaccines are one of the great triumphs of modern medicine. Indeed, parents whose children are vaccinated no longer have to worry about their child's death or disability from whooping cough, polio, diphtheria, hepatitis, or a host of other infections. Vaccines are the most cost-effective health care interventions there are. A dollar spent on a childhood vaccination not only helps save a life, but greatly reduces spending on future healthcare.

Fortunately, the global effort to date has resulted in 80 percent of children or more being reached worldwide and many deaths are averted each year because of that. Unfortunately, thousands of children still die every day from vaccine-preventable diseases in developing countries. Life-saving vaccines we take for granted haven't yet reached them. But the good news is that there is a solution, and we are helping to solve that problem. Over the past decade, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), founded and supported in part by the U.S., has immunized more than 250 million children, preventing the deaths of over 5 million.

In the next five years, we can help save over four million more children in developing countries from early death -- if they receive critical vaccines. That is why the U.S. and Norway co-hosted a high level meeting of the GAVI Alliance partners and stakeholders in New York yesterday.
We have three new, extremely effective vaccines to roll out in developing countries:

  1. For pneumonia, which is currently the number-one killer in developing countries, killing over 2 million children each year: immunizing children could save up to 800,000 lives.
  2. For the diarrheal diseases that kill about 1.8 million people every year, we have a new rotavirus vaccine that could protect as many as/more than 300,000.
  3. A meningitis A vaccine is about ready to be rolled out to developing countries. Meningitis A has reached epidemic proportions, from Ethiopia in Africa's East to Senegal in the West. Meningitis epidemics are devastating to a country - not only from a health perspective but economically as well. Many die, but most people infected end up permanently disabled, mentally challenged, deaf, or blind. The new Meningitis A vaccine costs just 40 cents per patient, and protects for a decade. We could effectively eliminate Meningitis A epidemics in Africa with this vaccine.


Realizing the importance of this effort, the U.S. is stepping up its effort to get these vaccines to 250 million children by 2015. We are the world's largest donor, and are committed, with Norway, to engaging other leaders to join the fight. We are investing in refrigeration, strengthening the supply systems and logistics, and training workers to deliver these vaccines.

The President's Budget for 2011 increases our regular contribution to GAVI. This is part of a larger commitment to global health made President Obama's Global Health Initiative. Since 2001, the U.S. has provided over $647 million to GAVI. And we don't just give money. Through the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Centers for Disease Control, we give technical and logistical support to help governments and local partners distribute vaccines effectively and efficiently.

The U.S. cannot do this alone. Immunizing children is a shared responsibility of the world community. That's why GAVI is an exemplary and unique alliance, where countries, NGOs, private philanthropies, the World Health Organization, World Bank, vaccine manufacturers, and others work together on innovative solutions while holding each other accountable for efficient delivery of measurable impact. Indeed, a core principle of GAVI is that even recipient countries must partially fund the vaccines (based on the ability to pay) so they too have an investment in efficiently distributing vaccines to their children, and to ensure long term sustainability of the vaccine programs.

Unfortunately, just 16 countries contribute to GAVI, with the bulk of the funding coming from just 6 countries, including the US, Norway, and Britain, and a few philanthropies, such as the Gates Foundation and Fundación "la Caxia".

Vaccinating the 250 million children in developing countries by 2015 cannot rest on the shoulders of just 6 countries. GAVI is exactly the mechanism needed for the global community to come together in a coordinated way to not just set common goals, but to also follow through on them. Few international organizations have done so much good in such a short time.

There are at least 4.2 million children who are counting on all of us to do our part to get this right.

 
Childhood vaccines are one of the great triumphs of modern medicine. Indeed, parents whose children are vaccinated no longer have to worry about their child's death or disability from whooping cough,...
Childhood vaccines are one of the great triumphs of modern medicine. Indeed, parents whose children are vaccinated no longer have to worry about their child's death or disability from whooping cough,...
 
 
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07:23 PM on 10/16/2010
Well, at least none of the commenters have brought up the "fact" that Louis Pasteur recanted of the germ theory on his deathbed. Thank Cthulhu for small favors.
Josephius
No, not microbio, molecular bio and biochemistry!
07:23 PM on 10/12/2010
Nice! This thread is AWESOME! I'm used to seeing the pharma profiteering conspiracy rants when immunizations are mentioned, but these eugenics claims here are priceless!
02:03 AM on 10/31/2010
Ya, lol! I'm a dentist {any Temple Grads out there!} and just recently saw a video of the guy who wrote The Fluoride Deception, you'll love it for sure! ;-) I should say that I too PEED MYSELF over some of this stuff, but Codex Alimentarius?. Wants to bring back 7 of the most toxic chemicals known to man, called Persistent Organic Polutants {POP's}.

See the *Codex Alimentarius* page at http://dollarpages.org and the Fluoride links are in the drop-down menu. Fluoride makes the BBB [blood-brain-barrier] more permeable to poisons like Aluminum which of course is linked to Alzhiemer's.

Also at dollarpages, interview with neurotoxicologist Dr. Chris Shaw discussing H1N1 vaccine kills neurons

Moreover, Dr. Shaw pointed out that no testing was done. 6 ferrets that all died. Hmmm, I'll not be taking that shot anytime soon! Then of course there are the Gardasil [Silgard] stories on the website organized by the mothers who's daughters turned into vegetables, one story not on the home page, of truthaboutgardasil.org [linked from dollarpages] talks about her daughter's shit being the size of a GRAPEFRUIT {don't fall off your chairs!} Truth is stranger than fiction. I'm just sayin, but that is just the tip of the iceberg and the 25,000 times the EPA levels of mercury pointed out by a doctor interviewed on Fox News who said he would never give it to his children [see dollarpages scroll down under the starfish girl.
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p456
Walking Tall.
03:20 PM on 10/12/2010
One sure way to save these children is to keep the war mongering GOP out of office. The supreme court gave them a gift of unlimited campaign finance reform. The corporations are out spending the Dems two to one right now and it will get worse. We need to get out and vote like never before. All these shadow organizations are code for foreign contributions that are trying to influence out elections. Not to mention all of these private lobby firms. All of the money in this years election is nothing compared to what we are going to see in 2012. Americans who love this country and the constitution and what it stands for better get to the polls and vote for real this time. "SAVE THE CHILDREN? We can't compete with this carpet bomb of money they are going to drop on us if we don't come together.
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sabelmouse
i love to tumble , ask me why .
11:12 AM on 10/12/2010
yay. now there is a watchdog to monitor anti vaccination rumours.
http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/globalhealth/research/vaccines
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Sheldon101
sheldon101blog.blogspot.com Wakefield transcripts
02:27 PM on 10/12/2010
What a great idea. Thanks for telling us about it.

They have a very impressive advisory board. http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/globalhealth/research/vaccines/vaccineadvisoryboard
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sabelmouse
i love to tumble , ask me why .
06:36 AM on 10/13/2010
methinks you think i like the idea? i don't.
01:07 AM on 10/16/2010
Is it possible to view this site without logging in?
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Foodgrade
Learn to grow banannas
05:46 PM on 10/11/2010
The need for 100% coverage with the basic vaccines dosen't even require discussion. There is no excuse for any child on this planet to go without Vaccination. The flu cons are another story, I'm talking about Polio, smallpox and such including Vaccines for local diseases. Some things you just do and save the parsing for later.
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Sonic hedgehog
A true word needs no oath
01:19 AM on 10/12/2010
smallpox has been declared eradicated in the 70s. There is no smallpox vaccination for children anymore.
07:40 AM on 10/12/2010
Yes, smallpox has been "officially" eradicated, although cases do still appear in 3rd World countries.

WHY? Do you think there are so few cases of smallpox?

Answer: Worldwide VACCINATION programs.

You want proof? Look at the arms & thighs of people born before the early 1960's and you'll find the vaccination marks. Both adults and children were vaccinated in large numbers & it was a requirement for International travel.

SMALLPOX VACCINATION is what eradicated SMALLPOX.
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Sheldon101
sheldon101blog.blogspot.com Wakefield transcripts
04:01 PM on 10/11/2010
Tiered Pricing
--------------
Vaccines are made by private companies that need to make a profit and vaccines are very expensive to develop, test and bring to market. But because most vaccines are bought by governments, vaccine makers can charge prices that more closely matches what the market will bear. That's a lot in 'rich' countries and very little in poor countries. The very little in poor countries can still be a lot.

The way this is done is by tiered pricing http://www.who.int/immunization_financing/options/en/briefcase_pricingtiers.pdf
See also http://patientsandpatents.wordpress.com/2009/07/23/tiered-pricing-enables-health-for-all/
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Sheldon101
sheldon101blog.blogspot.com Wakefield transcripts
09:08 PM on 10/10/2010
"Vaccination greatly reduces disease, disability, death and inequity worldwide"
===========================================
This short article from the World Health Organization should be read by everyone interested in vaccines and vaccination. Not just because it responds to nonsensical claims made in these comments, but because it explains a lot of concepts that most people reading and writing on vaccines and vaccination get wrong.

http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/2/07-040089/en/
09:02 AM on 10/11/2010
Is that the same WHO that receives kickbacks from vaccine manufacturers or are we talking about a different one?

http://www.naturalnews.com/028936_WHO_vaccines.html
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sabelmouse
i love to tumble , ask me why .
12:25 PM on 10/11/2010
german doctors have acused STICKO of the same thing.
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Martin Houde
I am no microbe
01:01 PM on 10/11/2010
They probably did receive kickbacks of some kinds. No organization is immune to corruption, sadly. But in your place, I would not cite a biased website that does a poor work of mentioning its sources, citing news reports but not the studies themselves. I've checked it.

Also, that corruption for H1N1, for which the panic was admittedly overblown, but the media had a huge part in that, does not eliminate the fact that mass vaccinations have been widely successful for a variety of diseases. Influenza is a particular case, since there are several strains in circulation at the same time, all of which mutate relatively easily.

Smallpox has been eradicated. A whole lot of other diseases like polio, measles, diphteria, pertussis, tetanus, tuberculosis have been successfully kept at very low levels. Sure, clean water and sanitation played a huge part too.

And your naturalnews website might take some examples from the WHO article. Check the referencing. Not an abcnews report. Actual scientific papers.
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Pyrum
07:40 PM on 10/10/2010
These children need good food and clean water far more than they need vaccinations. Get your priorities straight.
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LukeTunyich
Biomechanics and Health
09:32 PM on 10/10/2010
You are right.

The waste number of children is dying each day because of the lack of food and/or the absence of clean water. (Probably, many people who worry about vaccine thing that those children would die anyway because they are not vaccinated.)

It is difficult for me to understand that so many people care about vaccine and they don’t care about the minimum of living condition like food and clean water.

Sometimes, I think they don’t care for children but the only thing they care is to spread the “glory” of medical industry and the “glory” of established medical professionals.
03:18 AM on 10/11/2010
It's legitimate—critical, even—to debate about what our priorities ought to be, but it's ludicrous to say that people who dedicate their lives to establishing childhood vaccination programs in the third world actually do not care about children. This kind of comment baffles me.
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sabelmouse
i love to tumble , ask me why .
11:48 AM on 10/11/2010
absolutly. god complex. it also costs us very little compared to radically changing a system that exploits and leaves whole populations in poverty.
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04:35 AM on 10/11/2010
I agree. If the time and resources currently channeled into vaccination programs, particularly in third world countries, were instead focused on improvement of nutrition and sanitation, I believe more lives would be saved.
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Sheldon101
sheldon101blog.blogspot.com Wakefield transcripts
04:45 PM on 10/11/2010
I believe that you choose to believe that more lives would be saved if money went elsewhere because you oppose vaccination.
HansB
The only good certainty is a dead certainty
07:35 PM on 10/10/2010
"The U.S. cannot do this alone." Implied: the US is doing most of the lifting.

Wrong. The GAVI site itself (http://www.gavialliance.org/about/donors/table/index.php) shows that as of July 2010, the US had contributed or committed slightly more than ONE TWENTIETH of total commitments. In absolute terms the UK, France and Italy were significantly more generous - despite their far smaller populations and economies. Together the UK, France and Italy have slightly more than half the US population, yet they committed 11 times more than the US.

Also, the number of contributing nations is not a good yardstick. Countries naturally contribute to efforts they are good at - especially when some of the money comes back. I've never heard the Dutch lament that they carry out an unfair share of the dredging in the world. Of course they do. Similarly the US, the UK and France are big players in the vaccine field. Of course they contribute more.
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05:57 PM on 10/10/2010
providing clean water, a basic necessity, will do far more than vaccines. But then GAVI MEMBERS investments wouldnt profit from that
03:12 AM on 10/11/2010
Why does it have to be one of the other? Providing clean water, vaccines, health education and a suite of essential drugs as defined by the WHO would do far more than any single intervention.
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sabelmouse
i love to tumble , ask me why .
11:53 AM on 10/11/2010
because the vaccination is what is focused on. we vaccinate therefore we are good people and have done our bit.
the rest is to difficult anyway and we can just forget about it.
Josephius
No, not microbio, molecular bio and biochemistry!
07:20 PM on 10/12/2010
What is clean water going to do for respiratory infections or those spread through incidental contact? It doesn't do anything for colds and flu here, and it certainly won't do anything for measles, mumps, rubella, pertussis, as well as tetanus, hepB, HiB, and others.
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04:14 PM on 10/10/2010
It strikes me that more than a few people on this thread have either never heard of Eugenics or would support it if they have. Vaccination programs, by the admission of people who promote them like Bill Gates, are a part of neo-Eugenics in the world today, which is making a big comeback. If neo-eugenicists like Ezekiel Emmanuel are at the forefront of our "world health campaigns" we should all be shuddering and not applauding his appeals. You may think the world is overpopulated and you would have a point there, but to engage in population reduction is an answer that I can't live with. Vaccinations are so often contaminated with potentially lethal ingredients like squaline and mercury, especially in developing countries that it's hard to see it any other way. Lack of commitment to human rights for the least powerful is the main motivating factor for promoting LDC vaccine campaigns. I say not way; find another way.
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Sheldon101
sheldon101blog.blogspot.com Wakefield transcripts
08:52 PM on 10/10/2010
Question: Is anyone looking into birth control vaccines? Answer:Yes.
Question: Is there any evidence that vaccines for children in poorer countries have some secret birth control or death inducing factor? Answer: No.
Question: If you vaccinate children, can you impact the population in the future? Answer: Most probably yes. If parents can be more certain that they will have children survive to adulthood, they may have fewer children and the overall population growth will be lower.

The other point to remember is that vaccination, worldwide is a pretty public endeavor. There are not that many companies that make vaccines and they get tested a lot. And it wouldn't be hard for someone to simply take a few vaccine doses and test them.

Vaccines are held to very high standards of purity and contaminants are carefully looked for. Canada, where I live, tests almost every lot of every vaccine used in Canada at a government lab. That's in addition to the tests done by the vaccine maker.
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11:04 AM on 10/11/2010
Oh, you mean like the contaminants found in the Rotavirus vaccines that have simply been disregarded?

What about the huge problem with Urabe strain of the measles vaccine that was discovered (it was CAUSING menangitis), only to result in the vaccine being fire-sold and used on British children.

Ya, that vaccine industry. It's all about safety.

Also, you need a major reality check and a subscription to Fierce Biotech and Fierce Vaccines if you think only a few companies make vaccines.
03:09 AM on 10/11/2010
Ghostpigeon, please share your source in which Bill Gates "admits" that, "Vaccination programs... are a part of neo-Eugenics [sic] in the world today..."

I fail to see the connection between vaccination and eugenics. First, vaccines save lives and although adverse reactions do occur, they are rare, and almost never deadly. Second, much of the vaccination effort is targeted at the very populations that develop and distribute the vaccines. American scientists and policy makers focus a lot of their energy on vaccinating middle class white kids in the US. So, even if vaccines were as dangerous as you claim, vaccination programs on the whole would not resemble eugenics. Finally, the world population has continued to explode even as vaccines become more common. So EVEN IF vaccines are deadly AND there is a concerted effort to use inoculations for population control, it's not working.
09:33 AM on 10/11/2010
UNICEF Nigerian Polio Vaccine Contaminated with Sterilizing Agents Scientist Finds

http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/mar/04031101.html
02:36 PM on 10/10/2010
It's nice to see a pro-vaccination article on HuffPo for once. Unfortunately, the majority of the comments reflect the misinformed, anti-science sentiment I've come to expect from this site.
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03:38 PM on 10/10/2010
It is most definitely not "anti-science" sentiment, but the fact that vaccinations have consistently failed to show much more than nominal effectiveness outside non-vaccinated control groups and have shown to be the cause of autism and other learning disabilities, fatal reactions, etc. Science has not proved the case for vaccinations. I'll take my chances.
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Tresco
Sistagirl Laughin' Thingy Award Winner!
07:44 PM on 10/10/2010
Wow, It's like actually seeing a person who argues the world is flat.
HansB
The only good certainty is a dead certainty
08:32 PM on 10/10/2010
You CAN take your chances, if you live in a country where the overwhelming majority of people are vaccinated, meaning that diseases don't find enough carriers to thrive. However, if you think of visiting Congo, I'd strongly advise you to overcome your hostility to vaccines and at the very least be inoculated against polio. (Not that they'd let you in if you aren't.)
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sabelmouse
i love to tumble , ask me why .
11:58 AM on 10/11/2010
why is it anti science to question vaccination? is enquiry not the fondation of science and is not the derision of the enquiring mind a sign of a anti science mind set.
basicly pro vaccination people are asking us to blindly follow and do as we are told because they are right. sounds more like reigion to me than science.
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cable1977
Against logic there is no armor like ignorance
01:33 PM on 10/11/2010
It is not anti-science to question, it is anti-science to ignore data that disagrees with your conclusions. Science is a process that begins with a question, or hypothesis, and proceeds to test that hypothesis, but if the data is not in sync with your hypothesis, then the hypothesis is abandoned, not continually repeated like a mantra as the anti-vaccine movement does.
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Doybia
11:27 AM on 10/10/2010
The good doctor wrote: Indeed, parents whose children are vaccinated no longer have to worry about their child's death or disability from whooping cough, polio, diphtheria, hepatitis, or a host of other infections. Vaccines are the most cost-effective health care interventions there are.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The results would be more impressive if some of the disasters supposedly resulting from the diseases weren't actually caused by medical practices in the first place:
http://insidevaccines.com/wordpress/2010/09/07/polio-causes-and-effects-part-i/
(how injections provoke polio)
http://insidevaccines.com/wordpress/2010/10/10/polio-causes-and-effects-part-ii/
(get your tonsils out, get bulbar polio, end up in an iron lung or dead)
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hxwhite
10:16 AM on 10/10/2010
This vaccination experiment should not be laid at our children's feet. The burden is to great and our children are suffering at epidemic numbers.
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Sheldon101
sheldon101blog.blogspot.com Wakefield transcripts
08:47 PM on 10/12/2010
I know this is what you choose to believe. Thankfully, the evidence does not support this view. And that's what counts, the evidence of how safe and how effective the vaccines are --- and it doesn't matter what people choose to believe. In other words, it doesn't matter what "Mommy knows" or what Mommy observes.
09:56 AM on 10/10/2010
Well, let's force a mandate on everybody in the world to buy insurance!!!! That will fix it!!!
Well, if those lazy poor people can afford the co-pays and deductibles, that is. And if their kids do not have any pre-existing conditions, such as, er, being pre-existing as poor children without medical care.
Problem solved!