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Spare a thought for vaccine policies
- Vaccines are considered the greatest of public health strategies to prevent disease.
- The eradication of smallpox was a triumph in this area. Nevertheless, there are many ongoing debates on vaccines and their use in India.
- Several factors drive public anxiety: poor immunisation coverage of established inexpensive vaccines, push for newer expensive products, perceptions about the vaccine industry, conflicts of interest among decision makers, perceived pressures on institutions responsible for public policy, scepticism about scientific truths and perceived risks.
- The failure of the predicted swine flu pandemic to materialise combined with profits for vaccine and pharmaceutical industries, increased public mistrust of health authorities.
- Many factors drive public perceptions. While scientific evidence and economic analysis have a major impact, a complex mix of psychological, socio-cultural and political factors also drives public discernment.
- Vaccination programmes and policies in India have to contend with many complex issues.
- Adverse effects: Vaccines are very safe and many studies have documented that their adverse effects are very rare or very minor. However, poor monitoring systems in our country do not allow for systematic surveillance.
- Deaths: Sudden deaths after immunisation are not unheard of and occur very, very rarely. However, the system of investigation into such tragedies is non-uniform and many enquiries tend to absolve the vaccine and procedures.
- Vaccine supply: The sudden forced stoppage of essential vaccine production by government manufacturing facilities resulted in massive disruption to immunisation schedules and programmes.
- Private players: Liberalisation of the Indian economy has increased the number of private players in the vaccine industry. The right-to-health-care argument has found enthusiastic support from the vaccine industry. The recent attempts to argue for expensive vaccines with limited protection (e.g. pneumococcal vaccine) for uncommon disorders fuelled speculation about the role of big business in pushing commercial interests.
- International involvement: Many international financial institutions are more than willing to fund vaccine programmes. However, their focus tends to be on the newer and more expensive vaccines and for pre-production and monopolistic pricing arrangements.
- Failed pandemic: The failure of the swine flu pandemic to materialise, after the initial hype and scare, played into the hands of the vaccine and pharmaceutical industry, which bagged massive contracts.
- Unethical trials: Deaths of young tribal girls enrolled in the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine trial in Andhra Pradesh resulted in suspension of the programme.
- International disagreements: International disagreements add to public concerns. These include the American recommendation for the removal of thiomersal (a chemical to prevent biological contamination) from childhood vaccines, the French decision to withdraw the hepatitis B vaccine from school programmes, and the temporary Japanese suspension of the Haemophilus influenza B vaccine. The unwarranted controversies related to the tetanus vaccine and sterilisation in Mexico and the polio vaccine and HIV in Nigeria did not help the cause.
- New reality: Deception employed to wage war (in Iraq), massive corruption within governments and collusion between business, politicians and bureaucrats has resulted in public suspicion of authority.
- Scientists cite complex technical arguments, often based on non-Indian data, in support of new vaccines. They imply that all those who raise any objections are part of the anti-vaccine lobby. On the other hand, those against such initiatives emphasise the lack of good Indian data, selective citation of evidence and cast aspersions about business interests.
- There is an urgent need to establish sentinel centres in order to determine the prevalence of the diseases and conduct large-scale trials to assess impact. Even though the vaccines may be efficacious, a detailed cost-benefit analysis from a public health perspective is mandatory for policy-making.
- The current wave of public scepticism seen in many parts of the world has been described as a “crisis of confidence.”
- Vaccine interventions and policies in the current socio-economic and political climate require much more than research evidence for implementation.
- National policies need to be relevant, valid, accountable and participatory. Communication, dialogue and engagement with all stakeholders are crucial to building public trust, mandatory for successful vaccine programmes, and call for a revolution in policy-making.
Media association honours green shows
- The Environmental Media Association has recognised six Hollywood productions for spreading the word about going green.
- Warner Bros.' animated “Yogi Bear” and the documentary “Revenge of the Electric Car” were honoured
Good monsoon but bad forecast
- The season ended with the country, as a whole, receiving one per cent more rain than the long-period average.
- The rains have been geographically well distributed too, with the north-west, the central region, and the southern part of the country getting more than average rainfall. Only the north-east recorded a deficit.
- Consequently, the country is looking forward to a bumper harvest in the kharif season.
- In its end-of-season report, the IMD agreed that its operational long-range forecasts had not been “very accurate.”
- It explained that the sudden re-emergence of a La Nin˜a — the cooling in the equatorial Pacific Ocean that is usually beneficial for the monsoon — led to increased rainfall in the second half of the season.
- What is clear is that the department needs to re-evaluate the parameters that go into the statistical model used for its seasonal predictions. These parameters have remained unchanged for the past five years.
Taken-for-granted rocket
- The PSLV rocket has been so successful as a satellite-ferrying vehicle that its launch no longer makes news — or so it seems.
- One of the two buses organised by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to take journalists from Chennai to Sriharikota, was empty
- Many journalists who didn't turn up for the event later said they would have come if it had been a GSLV rocket, which has till now proved to be fault-prone.
Open web surging ahead
- Several free open source tools (generally called learning management systems) that serve as teaching aids are also in place.
- a learning management system (LMS) helps the instructor host course materials on the Net and generally featured with numerous communication/collaboration tools for the teacher to engage with students.
- A free LMS that has gained immense popularity amongst the academics is Moodle (http://moodle.org/). Like other LMS applications, Moodle also helps a teacher host her course in a systematic order and post teaching materials on-line. Moodle offers numerous tools that facilitate teacher/students interaction/collaboration. Facilities to make general announcements, to send group mails and create discussion forums are also available. The instructor can host assignments and other activities that can be completed on-line. It has built-in facilities to create Wikis and web pages too. Assessment tools such as grade-book, quiz building module etc are also supported.(use it for quoting example)
