Some Vaccines Help Recipients Stave Off Other Infections; Measles Vaccine Does Not Cause Autism, Large Study Shows

NPR: The Unintended Benefits Of Vaccines
“A new study shows that vaccination with a weakened strain of salmonella not only protects against typhoid fever but also seems to rev up the immune system to fight off other problems, like influenza and yeast infection. … For decades, scientists have observed an extraordinarily positive side effect among children who receive the measles vaccine: Deaths from measles plummet among vaccinated children, and so do deaths from unrelated diseases like pneumonia and diarrhea. The same result has been found as a consequence of live polio vaccine and bacille Calmette-Guerin, or BCG, vaccine for tuberculosis. When those vaccines are introduced to poor areas of the world, studies have shown, deaths from many other causes, not just the vaccine-targeted disease, go down…” (Brink, 3/4).

STAT: It’s old news that vaccines don’t cause autism. But a major new study aims to refute skeptics again
“A massive new study from Denmark found no association between being vaccinated against measles, mumps, and rubella and developing autism. In science and public health circles, that issue has long since been considered settled … But the size of this study — involving 657,461 Danish children born between 1999 and 2010 — should, in theory, bolster the argument that doctors and public health professionals still find themselves forced to make in the face of entrenched and growing resistance to vaccination in some quarters…” (Branswell, 3/4).

Additional coverage of these studies is available from The Guardian, National Geographic, Quartz, and Washington Post.

The KFF Daily Global Health Policy Report summarized news and information on global health policy from hundreds of sources, from May 2009 through December 2020. All summaries are archived and available via search.

KFF Headquarters: 185 Berry St., Suite 2000, San Francisco, CA 94107 | Phone 650-854-9400
Washington Offices and Barbara Jordan Conference Center: 1330 G Street, NW, Washington, DC 20005 | Phone 202-347-5270

www.kff.org | Email Alerts: kff.org/email | facebook.com/KFF | twitter.com/kff

The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news, KFF is a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, California.