Best of 2016: Taking a shot at better health
We did several tips last year about how vaccinations prevent illnesses by bolstering your immune system and how the benefit-to-risk ratio - for ALL vaccines - is 40,000-to-1!
We reported: The HPV (human papilloma virus) vaccine protects against most genital warts, 70 percent of cervical cancers, cancers of the anus, penis, vulva, vagina, and throat. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that "within six years of vaccine introduction, there was a 64 percent decrease in 4vHPV-type prevalence among females 14 to 19 and a 34 percent decrease among those 20 to 24 years." We can expect to see a major decrease in the incidence of cervical cancer, as well as the other cancers triggered by HPV.
We reported: From 1958 to 1962, the U.S. averaged 503,282 cases and 432 annual childhood deaths from measles complications - pneumonia, croup and encephalitis! After the measles vaccine was introduced, measles was declared eradicated in 2000. (These days, it's in the MMR/measles, mumps, rubella inoculation.) Yet in 2014, a 5 percent vaccine failure rate, coupled with travel by an ever-increasing number of unvaccinated folks, saw 634 cases in the U.S. Mumps cases also are on the rise. Get your children vaccinated!
We reported: The flu vaccine reduces your chances of getting influenza by about 60 percent and reduces children's risk of flu-related pediatric intensive-care-unit admissions by 74 percent. The flu vaccine annually prevents over 40,000 deaths, mostly among children and the elderly.
Vaccine questions: Get your facts straight at www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules and our columns.
Distributed by King Features Syndicate, Inc.
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