Immunize For Good | Respect the Facts. Protect Your Child. Immunize for Good.

Journalist Seth Mnookin's new book, The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear, explores the public health scare over vaccines and autism. The 1998 paper in The Lancet by British physician Andrew Wakefield that sparked the panic has long since been debunked and retracted, and Wakefield himself has been barred from practicing medicine and accused of fraud. But that hasn't stopped thousands of people from refusing to vaccinate their children out of fear that they could become autistic. Mnookin warns of grave consequences. Recent outbreaks of measles, whooping cough, and other preventable infections have sickened thousands of children and killed more than a dozen in the United States. Vaccine rates are falling below the level needed to prevent an outbreak in a growing number of communities, including ones with wealthy, educated populations. Last week, Mnookin spoke with ScienceInsider about why. [+] more

SEATTLE (AP) — Bill Gates says he feels a responsibility to speak up for the world's poorest because they're likely to be hit hard as economic woes force governments to reduce contributions to foreign aid. [+] more

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, put together a video called Vaccines Save Lives, to try to describe why vaccines are a miracle in a vivid way. [+] more

Nearly four years after 20-year-old Sierra Krizman of Loveland died of bacterial meningitis, a group of Casper, Wyo., high school students heard about her story and of Fort Collins' 2010 meningococcal disease outbreak.Krizman's story inspired the students to write a bill a Casper lawmaker carried in the Wyoming Senate that, if passed, will mandate a state-funded meningococcal vaccine for all Cowboy State teens. [+] more