vaccines

By Matthew Motta, University of Pennsylvania;

We had a really bad flu season this year. The CDC just announced that about 80,000 Americans were killed.

The media trope “if it bleeds, it leads” is at play in undermining accurate messages with respect to the status of vaccine compliance. A fear-based technique intended to capture the audience by news outlets is, sadly, a tried-and-true one.

Making the rounds in the news media is a serious medical condition called acute flaccid myelitis (AFM). It predominantly occurs in children causing among other symptoms weakness in the extremities.

Anti-vaxxers insist that measles is just a harmless childhood infection. After the Disneyland outbreak, anti-vaxxers derided public health concerns by referring to it as "Mickey Mouse Measles." The facts indicate otherwise.

The MMR vaccine protects against three viral diseases: measles, mumps, and rubella, hence it's name.

The account of the Virginia-based Red Hen restaurant owner insisting Press Secretary Sarah Sanders leave the premises due to presumed political differences has been playing on a loop of social and mainstream media punditry.

A multidisciplinary team from Texas just published their work in PLOS Medicine on U.S.

The reason there is no universal flu vaccine is because the influenza virus constantly changes.

Measles, which still kills about 90,000 people around the world every year, isn't the only microbe making a comeback.