Vaccinating children against hepatitis B at birth can significantly reduce liver cancer in older children, a new study in Taiwan has found.
Hepatitis B vaccination at birth became standard policy in Taiwan in 1984. For the 20-year follow-up study, scientists at the National Taiwan University Hospital collected data on nearly 2,000 children and young people given diagnoses of early-stage liver cancer.
Among children ages 6 to 19, there were only 64 cases in the vaccinated group, compared with 444 in the unvaccinated group.
Of the few that developed cancer despite vaccination, researchers found that many were not given enough vaccine doses. The study appeared last week in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
In the United States, children began being routinely vaccinated against hepatitis B at birth in 1991. In this country, it is most often transmitted by infected mothers, or by sex, intravenous drug use or blood transfusion, and only about 5,000 Americans die each year of cirrhosis or liver cancer caused by it. Some parents object to vaccination of their infants, saying it implies they will eventually engage in behavior they consider sinful.
But the disease is also transmitted by close contact in families, and carriers often have no symptoms. In Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and the Pacific, about one million people a year die of it, making it, by some estimates, the world’s 10th-leading cause of death.
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You can also find the study that was done HERE.
It is definitely exciting to see that there is increased coverage on the true outcomes of the hepatitis B vaccine and the importance for newborns to be vaccinated within 12 hours of birth to prevent hepatitis B infection and subsequent risk of liver cancer or liver failure.
Amy