FATAL diseases are threatening a comeback among American children as insurers fail to meet the costs of immunisation.
Half the doctors who responded to a survey by of the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor said they had delayed purchasing new vaccines against childhood diseases like meningitis. Twenty per cent of family doctors said they were considering halting vaccinations of privately insured children.
The combined cost of recommended vaccines trebled between 2000 and 2008, to $1500 per child, and health insurance schemes now seldom cover the full cost (Pediatrics, ). 鈥淭he market does not seem to be responding well to the immunisation needs of our country,鈥� says Stephen Berman of the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Aurora.
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鈥淚nsurance schemes now seldom cover the full cost of recommended vaccines鈥�
In the UK, measles is becoming more common among children whose parents shunned the MMR vaccine following now discredited claims that it causes autism. Last years total of 990 cases in England and Wales had already been surpassed by the end of October, when 1049 cases had been recorded for 2008.
