He had shingles, a painful disease that attacks mostly people older than 50. . . . For Dorn, a 69-year-old retired Xerox exec from Miami, the disease waned after eight weeks of "industrial-strength" prescription pain killers. For some, it can become chronic for years, even causing eye problems and, rarely, blindness.
But a new national study says people who get a little-known shingles vaccination can cut their risk of the debilitating disease by 55 percent. It's a Kaiser Permanente review of 300,000 people's medical records published Tuesday in The Journal of the American Medical Association. Zostavax was introduced by Merck & Co., Inc., in 2006, but only about 10 percent of Americans who need it -- those 60 and over -- have been vaccinated, the study says. Most aren't aware it exists. Also, a vaccination costs as much as $219.
Medicare will pay for the vaccine through ts Part D prescription plan.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/01/11/2011957/vaccine-for-shingles-ailment-effective.html
Shingles is a serious disease.
There is a vaccine for shingles.
This vaccine should be taken by seniors.
Medicare will pay for the vaccine.
But, because of the constant general anti-vaccine hysteria by no-nothing media celebrities, older people aren't getting the vaccine.
Instead, they are getting the disease.
The government needs to enforce the law and start prosecuting people who go on TV and radio and dispense fraudulent and inaccurate medical advice without medical degrees, ala Oprah and Jenny McCarthy and Suzanne Somers. It's bad enough that phony anti-autism recommendations have already unnecessarily exposed thousands of children to measles, mumps and rubella.
No comments:
Post a Comment