Population Mixing, Childhood Leukemia, Viruses and Vaccines
There's good epidemiological evidence that population mixing is responsible for several clusters of childhood leukemia (acute lymphocytic leukemia, or ALL). Some have hypothesized that viruses are to blame but there hasn't been much evidence to support that hypothesis; at least not until now.
In the current Journal of Pediatrics you'll find "Associations Between Vaccination and Childhood Cancers in Texas Regions" which compares the risk of ALL to vaccination rates in different public health regions. With all the caveats that must go along with hypotheses generated by statistical analysis it is nevertheless quite intriguing to see that children vaccinated against a wide range of viruses had a large and consistent reduction in their risk of ALL; so much so that it leading the researchers to conclude that "[s]ome common childhood vaccines appear to be protective against ALL at the population level."
Be sure to also note that 4 doses of diptheria-tetanus-pertussis, 3 doses of polio, 1 dose of measles-mumps-rubella, 3 doses of H. influenza, type B, 3 doses of hepatitis B and one dose of Varicella, the 4-3-1-3-3 vaccine regimen claimed by some anti-vaccine activists to be capable of "overloading young immune systems" and thereby (some-unstated-how) causing autism, produced a 38% decrease in the risk of a child developing leukemia.
Hopefully the anti-vaccine crowd is paying attention. The list of harms to children for which they may be made to answer is apparently growing.
