Vaccines & Viruses: Leukemia vaccine claims might be overhyped

Press overstatement. In a news release last month, the University of California, San Francisco, said its researchers had published a study in Nature explaining “how a commonly administered vaccine protects against acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the most common type of childhood cancer.” Media outlets, including Time, United Press International, and The New York Times, repeated the claim that the vaccine against Haemophilus influenzae Type B, or HIB, protects children against leukemia. But one NPR journalist was skeptical. Reporter Tara Haelle asked several outside researchers whether the Nature study, which involved mice, really supports the leukemia protection claim. They said, no. The study describes a mechanism for how recurrent infections might cause cancer in blood cells, but it stops short of proving that kids immunized against HIB are less likely to develop leukemia. Haelle concluded the study is interesting and adds to leukemia science, but cannot not be taken as evidence the HIB vaccine reduces cancer risk. “In short, this study's press release greatly oversold the findings,” she wrote.

California bill. The vaccine bill that would end philosophical and religious vaccine exemptions for California schoolchildren passed the state Senate a few weeks ago and has moved to the Assembly, where it needs approval by just one committee (not three, as in the Senate) before it comes up for a full vote. A guest columnist for The Siskiyou Daily News pointed out the bill’s co-sponsor, Democratic Sen. Richard Pan, has received thousands of dollars in campaign donations from pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer, AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, and Novartis. Lots of politicians get corporate donations, and Pan is a pediatrician, after all, but the connection deserves a mention in the interest of full disclosure.

Another virus from Liberia. A 55-year-old man died at a New Jersey hospital last week of a rare viral illness called Lassa fever, which he apparently contracted while traveling in Liberia. The man had been flagged for Ebola monitoring when he returned to the United States, but he didn’t tell hospital staff his travel history when first checking into a hospital with a fever and sore throat. Doctors sent him home, but he returned to the hospital and died four days later. Deaths from Lassa fever only occur in about 1 out of 100 cases. There is little risk of a U.S. outbreak because the virus does not spread easily.

Doctors fail to change minds. Researchers recently tested a communication training program to help doctors convince more vaccine-hesitant parents to get shots for their newborns. But the program did not work, according to a new study in Pediatrics.

Novel approach. Japanese scientists are trying to create a vaccine to prevent not a virus, but high blood pressure.

Breakfast isn’t served. The Midwest bird flu outbreak that is ravaging U.S. chicken farms has sharply raised the demand—and price—of eggs. The situation prompted the Whataburger fast-food chain to cut back its breakfast hours.