News of Interest for Moms June 26, 2009

News to know:

Pertussis risk much higher among unvaccinated children
Research reveals that children whose parents refused the pertussis vaccine were 23 times likelier to contract the disease than were immunized children.

One in 10 pertussis cases, also know as whooping cough, was due to vaccine refusal, according to the study, which was published in the June issue of Pediatrics.

"These findings stress the need to further understand why parents refuse immunizations and to develop strategies for conveying the risks and benefits of immunizations to parents more effectively," researchers concluded.

Few sexually active teens in US get HIV test
Only 22 percent of sexually active high school students are tested for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

The CDC also reported that nearly half the HIV-positive U.S. adolescents and young adults are unaware of their infection.

The CDC analyzed data from a 2007 survey of students in grades 9-12 (ages 14-18). While people aged 12 to 24 represented 4.4 percent of the estimated 1.1 million people in the UW infected with HIV, they represented 10 percent of the estimated 232,700 people living with the virus without knowing it.