Childhood immunization is one of the major public health measures of the 20th century and is now receiving special attention from the Clinton administration. At the same time, some parents and health professionals are questioning the safety of vaccines because of the occurrence of rare adverse events after immunization. This volume provides the most thorough literature review available about links between common childhood vaccinesâ€"tetanus, diphtheria, measles, mumps, polio, Haemophilus influenzae b, and hepatitis Bâ€"and specific types of disorders or death. The authors discuss approaches to evidence and causality and examine the consequencesâ€"neurologic and immunologic disorders and deathâ€"linked with immunization. Discussion also includes background information on the development of the vaccines and details about the case reports, clinical trials, and other evidence associating each vaccine with specific disorders. This comprehensive volume will be an important resource to anyone concerned about the immunization controversy: public health officials, pediatricians, attorneys, researchers, and parents.

From the 1930s to the 1950s, in response to the rising epidemic of paralytic poliomyelitis (polio), Texas researchers led a wave of discoveries in virology, rehabilitative therapies, and the modern intensive care unit that transformed the field nationally. The disease threatened the lives of children and adults in the United States, especially in the South, arousing the same kind of fear more recently associated with AIDS and other dread diseases. Houston and Harris County, Texas, had the second-highest rate of infection in the nation, and the rest of the Texas Gulf Coast was particularly hard-hit by this debilitating illness. At the time, little was known, but eventually the medical responses to polio changed the medical landscape forever. Polio also had a sweeping cultural and societal effect. It engendered fearful responses from parents trying to keep children safe from its ravages and an all-out public information blitz aimed at helping a frightened population protect itself. The disease exacted a very real toll on the families, friends, healthcare resources, and social fabric of those who contracted the disease and endured its acute, convalescent, and rehabilitation phases. In The Polio Years in Texas, Heather Green Wooten draws on extensive archival research as well as interviews conducted over a five-year period with Texas polio survivors and their families. This is a detailed and intensely human account of not only the epidemics that swept Texas during the polio years, but also of the continuing aftermath of the disease for those who are still living with its effects. Public health and medical professionals, historians, and interested general readers will derive deep and lasting benefits from reading The Polio Years in Texas.

In 1988, the World Health Organization launched a twelve-year campaign to wipe out polio. Thirty years and several billion dollars over budget later, the campaign grinds on, vaccinating millions of children and hoping that each new year might see an end to the disease. But success remains elusive, against a surprisingly resilient virus, an unexpectedly weak vaccine and the vagaries of global politics, meeting with indifference from governments and populations alike. How did an innocuous campaign to rid the world of a crippling disease become a hostage of geopolitics? Why do parents refuse to vaccinate their children against polio? And why have poorly paid door-to-door healthworkers been assassinated? Thomas Abraham reports on the ground in search of answers.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of diagnostic imaging in infectious diseases. It starts with a general review of infectious diseases, including their classification, characteristics and epidemiology. In separate chapters, the authors then introduce the radionuclide imaging of 50 kinds of infectious diseases. Volume 1 covers 21 viral infections. Volume 2 has 29 chapters discussing 24 bacterial infections and 5 parasitic infections. Each disease is clearly illustrated using cases combined with high-quality computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The book provides a valuable reference source for radiologists and doctors working in the area of infectious diseases.

Considers legislation to authorize the Government to provide free polio vaccine for needy children.

Poliomyelitis, better known as polio, thoroughly stumped the medical science community. Polio's impact remained highly visible and sometimes lingered, exacting a priceless physical toll on its young victims and their families as well as transforming their social worlds. This social history of infantile paralysis is plugged into the rich and dynamic developments of the United States during the first half of the twentieth century. Children became epidemic refugees because of anachronistic public health policies and practices. They entered the emerging, clinical world of the hospital, rupturing physical and emotional connections with their parents and siblings. As they underwent rehabilitation, they created ward cultures. They returned home to occasionally find hostile environments and always discover changed relationships due to their disabilities. The changing concept of the child, from an economic asset to an emotional commitment, medical advances, and improved sanitation policies led to significant improvements in child health and welfare. This study, relying on published autobiographies, memoirs, and oral histories, captures the impact of this disease on children's personal lives, encompassing public-health policies, hospitalization, philanthropic and organizational responses, physical therapy, family life, and schooling. It captures the anger, frustration, and terror not only among children but parents, neighbors, and medical professionals alike.