Vaccine fear

[meteoricpath]

Vaccine fear has been gaining in the headlines again with Swine Flu (H1N1) topping incidence rates of 'seasonal' flu. My knee-jerk reaction to the vaccine fear is to call it a paranoia of the privileged, just so you know my view on the matter: full disclosure. However, knowing full well that science is fallible and adverse events are more than

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[hibiscus3]

just went to a talk on an assessment of autism in the somali community's kids here in minneapolis (it's way high)....which remains a mystery. the researchers were cursing wakefield's work because somali parents, along with many other parents, are hesitant to have their kids shot up with the various vaccines required to live here/go to school/ etc.

to me, the problem is that health officials (and researchers) don't do anything to build trust with such communities. the study done here involved zero somalis for example. gotta bring people into the fold and reduce the fear through participation and knowledge and skillsbuilding.

[meteoricpath]

Yes, I recently read an article referencing the Somali population in MN and Autism; it was in reference to the vaccine issue - I tried to find it for this entry but somehow couldn't.

Interesting that the IRBs there haven't caught on to the trend to include a representative population in their studies. It seems pretty irresponsible at this day and age not to build culturally specific programming from a community representative sample; there is so much literature to back up this approach. For all the big biomedical HIV trials I know we need to use culturally relevant feasibility studies before beginning, to increase recruitment and retention rates, if nothing else.