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For Parents : General
- All About Vaccines is a web
page for kids about why we need vaccines. It's brief and straightforward.
- The Allied Vaccine Group is a collection of
websites dedicated to presenting valid scientific information about
vaccines. Its members present vaccine information based on scientific
research, followed by honest disclosure of the research results. The
Vaccine Page is a member.
- The Children's Vaccine Program at PATH aims to
significantly reduce the time it takes for vaccines to reach children living
in poor countries. More than two million children die each year from diseases
that these vaccines could prevent.
- The Canadian
Immunization Awareness Page, overseen by a coalition of
ten national organizations, has an attractive, quick-to-load
website that carries all basic information on the who, what,
where, when and why of immunization. The page is
offered in French as
well as English; entering either version, the language choice
is offered right at the top of the page.
- The CDC National Immunization Information Hotline offers live, trained specialists to give each caller individualized attention. The phone number (for English) is 1-800-232-2522 and, for Spanish, 1-800-232-0233. There is also a TTY line, 1-800-243-7889. The website itself gives much information and is quite easy to navigate.
- Guía Práctica de Vacunación is a Spanish-language site that gives information about vaccines and infectious diseases to health care professionals, nurses, teachers, students, parents and the public. The site is produced and maintained by Dr. Carlos Kohler, Director of Preventive Medicine, City of Bahía Blanca, Argentina. Along with much other information, it provides country-by-country vaccination schedules for Western Hemisphere nations.
- HealthCentral.com maintains an Immunization
and Vaccines Center that is newsy and well documented.
Columns by Dr. Dean Edell and others explore the ongoing
immunization controversies.
- Healthy
Living - Immunisation is a section of The Better Health
Channel, a product of the State Government of Victoria,
Australia. A document with many links, it leads to details on
each vaccine-preventable disease, as well as to official
information on The Victorian Child Health Record.
- History of Vaccination - Vaccines and vaccination
have a long history, dating back to Edward Jenner and even before. Several websites have
addressed that history, some in a very brief way and others in more detail. From the
former category to the latter, here are two recommended sites: Vaccines - How and
Why (from Access Excellence Classic Collection) and The legacy of Edward Jenner (from the
Archives of The British Medical Journal).
- History of Vaccination 2
The World Health Organization (WHO) has a fairly complete story on vaccines from then to now, broken down into time periods.
- How Vaccines Work is a simple, direct statement from the National Partnership for Immunization. It covers the bases adequately in just six PDF pages.
- This Web site of the Immunization Action
Coalition provides information for the public and the media on vaccines and
vaccine-preventable diseases. The site includes video footage,
photographs, case histories, recommendations, and other
resources. The site was developed by the Immunization Action
Coalition and is financially supported solely by the CDC.
- The Immunization Education Program (IEP) is a public-private partnership between the Pennsylvania Department of Health
(DOH) and the Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (PA
AAP). It is of particular value for state-specific information.
- Immunization At A Glance is a handy page of the World Bank website that gets at the key issues, beginning with the question, Why Is Immunization of High Priority?
- Immunization
FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) lists the required and recommended vaccinations in
Italy. It is one of the pages of Malinf (Malattie
Infettive), the Infectious Diseases division of the Italian Ministry of Health
in Rome.
- The
Immunization page of the BabyCenter website includes an easy-to-understand rundown on
childhood immunizations and the compelling arguments in favor of them. Vaccines
against individual diseases are addressed.
- Immunizations from
KidSource. A fast checklist from another commercial source, with a chart that's nicely
formatted to be readable on your browser's screen. You also may wish to print this chart,
which fits comfortably on a single page.
- The
Institute For Vaccine Safety (IVS) at Johns Hopkins University draws on all the
resources of that institution to provide a forum for the rational discussion of vaccine
safety issues, based on IVS' own research. Newly-produced, the website is in a formative
stage (as is the Institute), but already promises to be of extreme value to parents, other
adults, practitioners, researchers and the responsible media.
- Misconceptions About
Immunization is a valuable collection of information that aims to dispel some of the
many myths about vaccination that are rampant on the Internet. It's part of the Quackwatch website managed by Stephen Barrett, M.D., a retired
psychiatrist and prize-winning author and/or editor of some 46 books in the health field.
- NPI,
the National Partnership for Immunization, promotes
immunization across the human life span. NPI is a joint
program of National Healthy Mothers, the Healthy Babies
Coalition and the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.
- The
National Centre for Immunisation Research (NCIRS)"
was established at the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children,
Sydney, by Australia's National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC)
in August 1997, to carry out research and give independent
expert advice about all aspects of diseases which can be
prevented by vaccination, particularly in children.
- The National Immunization Information Hotline, funded
by the CDC, can be reached through the website of the American
Social Health Association. It provides toll-free information, support, educational
materials and referrals about vaccine-preventable diseases in children and adults.
Counselors give individualized information to parents and providers about vaccine
schedules, requirements for school entry, adverse events, contraindications and more. The
hotline is open from 8AM-11PM Monday through Friday. The phone numbers are 1-800-232-2522
(English) and 1-800-232-0233 (Spanish).
- The
National Network for Immunization Information provides the
public and other groups with up-to-date, scientifically valid
information related to immunization to help them understand
the issues and to facilitate informed decision making. NNII
provides Immunization NewsBriefs, an electronic clipping
service for news on immunizations and vaccines. This free
subscription is delivered to your e-mail address three
mornings each week. The
National Network for Immunization Information is a member
of the Allied Vaccine Group.
- Overview of Vaccine Safety is a page from the CDC National Immunization Program website. It carries comprehensive information on vaccine safety before and after licensing of a new vaccine, and offers sections on Improvements in Vaccine Safety and on The Future of Vaccine Safety.
- PKIDs is a parent group whose highest priority is to seek the best care for their own children and to prevent other children from being harmed by infectious diseases. PKIDs is funded by parents, individuals, foundations and corporations, including unrestricted grants from pharmaceutical companies. PKIDs is a member of the Allied Vaccine Group.
- State-by-state
mandates on
vaccine-preventable diseases can now be readily found on a new
online resource offered by the Immunization
Action Coalition (IAC). Included is information compiled
by IAC on state mandates for hepatitis B and varicella
prevention. The web page also links to information on state
mandates for DTP, MMR, polio, and Hib vaccination, reprinted
from "State Immunization Requirements 1998-1999" by
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This
information will be updated when CDC revises its publication.
- Vaccination
Sites: Francophone is a French vaccine page (with no
English version available). It is a quite thorough listing of
all such sites based on a MeSH search.
- Vaccinations is a French language page from the Institut Mère-Enfant in Rennes, France.
- Vaccine Research Fact Sheets and Brochures is a page from the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases website that lists reports and press releases on vaccines dating back to 1995. It's a resource of value to each of The Vaccine Page's target audiences.
- Vaccine
Safety Forum is a report of two forums on vaccine safety issues, one held in 1995, the
other in 1996. The report was reviewed by a group other than the authors, according to
procedures approved by a Report Review Committee of members of the National Academy of
Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine. For those
interested in vaccine safety, the report remains relevant today.
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