On April 11, 2008, the National Vaccine Advisory Committee tookan unusual step: in the name of transparency, trust, and collaboration,it asked members of the public to help set its vaccine-safetyresearch agenda for the next 5 years. Several parents, giventhis opportunity, expressed concern that vaccines might causeautism — a fear that had recently been fueled by extensivemedia coverage of a press conference involving a 9-year-oldgirl named Hannah Poling.
When she was 19 months old, Hannah, the daughter of Jon andTerry Poling, received five vaccines — diphtheria–tetanus–acellularpertussis, Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), measles–mumps–rubella. . . [Full Text of this Article]
Source Information
Dr. Offit is chief of infectious diseases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine — both in Philadelphia.
Patsner, B.
(2009). Riegel v. Medtronic, Inc.: Revisiting Pre-emption for Medical Devices. J Law Med Ethics
37: 305-317
Omer, S. B., Salmon, D. A., Orenstein, W. A., deHart, M. P., Halsey, N.
(2009). Vaccine Refusal, Mandatory Immunization, and the Risks of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases. NEJM
360: 1981-1988
[Abstract][Full Text]
Opel, D. J., Diekema, D. S., Lee, N. R., Marcuse, E. K.
(2009). Social Marketing as a Strategy to Increase Immunization Rates. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med
163: 432-437
[Abstract][Full Text]
Brumback, R. A.
(2008). The Appalling Poling Saga. J Child Neurol
23: 1090-1091
Poling, J. S., Offit, P. A.
(2008). Vaccines and Autism Revisited. NEJM
359: 655-656
[Full Text]
