PHA-Exch> Pneumonia vaccine - an open letter to DG, WHO (a response)

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Dr. B. Ekbal ekbalb at gmail.com

Yes we should intervene and correct such policies if they are not
scientifically valid. But I think we are slowly moving towards an anti
vaccine lobby. The super specialty private hospital lobby  and all the
naturopaths and homeopaths who are campaigning unscientifically against all
forms of vaccination will be happy.

In India at present even the primary vaccines are not available because of
the closure of the vaccine factories. After initial statements we are
keeping mum on this issue. In Kerala I just checked with the officer in
charge of Vaccine delivery the situation is that we got only 1.5 lakhs doses
of DPT this month where as our monthly requirement is 6 lakhs. Because of
the campaign against pulse polio etc many are not much worried about this.
Since vaccination is hazardous if the vaccine factories are closed all the
more better!!! And for your information Kerala with such a high health
status diptheria cases are being reported now. Who is there to expose
deaths due to the lack of vaccines? Activists are busy reporting vaccine
deaths.
On the one hand we talk about preventive health  and when it comes to
vaccine prevention we take an opposite position. Many of the arguments
against vaccination which are being raised now could be raised aginst small
pox vaccination also. Fortunately we could eradicate small pox probably
because such anti vaccine activism was not there earlier.
Treat this as my personal view points.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://phm.phmovement.org/pipermail/phm-exchange-phmovement.org/attachments/20081008/3073277d/attachment-0001.html>