With all due respect, it is extremely misleading to post things to LactNet which are not accurate. We should all check out our information with credible sources, preferably multiple sources, before we post. It is NOT TRUE that wild polio has been eradicated in the world. In the Western Hemisphere, and some other parts of the world, yes, in the entire world, absolutely not. Here is a segment from the CDC web site about polio, from 2001: Occurrence In the prevaccine era, infection with poliovirus was common, with epidemics occurring in the summer and fall in temperate areas. The incidence of poliomyelitis fell rapidly after the licensure of inactivated polio vaccine in 1955 and oral polio vaccine in the 1960s. The last cases of indigenously acquired polio in the United States occurred in 1979. Although a polio eradication program led to elimination of polio in the Western Hemisphere, where the last case associated with wild poliovirus was detected in 1991, an outbreak of vaccine-derived poliovirus type 1 occurred in the Dominican Republic and Haiti in July 2000. In spite of this recent outbreak in the Western Hemisphere, the global polio eradication initiative has reduced the number of reported polio cases worldwide by >90% since the mid-1980s, and worldwide eradication of the disease appears feasible in the near future. Risk for Travelers Travelers to countries where polio is epidemic or still endemic should be fully immunized. Because of polio eradication efforts, the number of countries where travelers are at risk for polio has decreased dramatically. Concurrent with the decline in polio incidence, the number of polio-endemic countries decreased from more than 120 in 1988 to approximately 50 in 1998. Approximately 75% of the world’s population resides in areas now considered free of wild poliovirus circulation, including the Western Hemisphere, the Western Pacific Region (which encompasses China), and the European region. Most of the world’s remaining poliovirus transmission is in two large endemic areas in south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Accelerated polio eradication strategies are being used in seven reservoir countries—Bangladesh, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, India, Nepal, Nigeria, and Pakistan—as well as in Afghanistan, Angola, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, and Tajikistan. Me again -- note that most polio infections are asymptomatic, so no one would know if a person infected with polio were to get on a plane and come to the US. The regions of the world where wild polio is still very common include Sub-Saharan Africa (where Mali is located). It is hoped that wild polio can be eradicated from the world in the next decade or so through extremely aggressive immunization campaigns. As with smallpox, once polio has been eradicated, maybe then we can stop the immunizations. Although of course, the US government is ramping up production of smallpox vaccine because of the risk of bioterrorism attacks using smallpox. Now, about measles. Someone posted to LactNet that recent measles outbreaks in the US have been in vaccinated populations. This also is not true. From Steven Dettwyler, Ph.D., Director of Immunization Programs for the State of Delaware: "The vast majority of measles we see in the US is imported (a child from Mexico, Asia, etc). I don't know if these children were nursed, but I do know that they did not get the measles vaccination. The only big outbreaks of measles in the US among US children have occurred when the public decides that they MMR vaccine is not worth the risk. Outbreaks occur like clockwork in the US, Japan, England and Ireland each time the immunization rates decrease. If you follow the statistics of outbreaks you can see that what this person is saying is simply not true and based on simplified and partial information." Me again: Last year, there was a measles outbreak in Texas from a planeload of children from China coming to the US to be adopted by US families. In the late 1980s or early 1990s, there were some local outbreaks of measles in the US among teenagers/college students who had received only the early childhood vaccine. That is why it is now recommended that older children get a booster. Vaccines do not 'take' in everyone (I've had numerous rubella vaccines that didn't result in any antibody production), or do not take strongly enough to produce complete protection. It is not appropriate to compare the death or disability of a child from a vaccination to the death or disability of a child from the disease the vaccination protects against. If you understand epidemiology and relative risk, then you know that the death and disability caused by NOT vaccinating is much higher than the death and disability caused by vaccinating. Vaccinating is not risk-free, to be sure. But is much lower-risk than not vaccinating. All of the scientific research bears this out. There are no credible studies linking vaccines to autism. Kathy Dettwyler _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html