Issue 1,577: July 7, 2021
Top Stories
- "Use of mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine after Reports of Myocarditis among Vaccine Recipients: Update from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices—United States, June 2021" published in MMWR Early Release
- Introducing the next chapter in IAC’s leadership: Kelly L. Moore, MD, MPH
- CDC offers resources to help get the word out about catching children up on routine vaccinations
- CDC and WhatsApp, a multiplatform messaging app, launch “Mi Chat Sobre Vacunas COVID” to help Spanish-speaking communities find information about vaccine locations and get answers to frequently asked questions
- Order IAC’s free, CDC-supported “Me Vacuné Contra el COVID-19” buttons and stickers to encourage vaccination in Latinx communities. Also available in English.
- HHS’s COVID-19 Community Corps adds COVID-19 toolkits for LGBTQ+ community, people with disabilities, and faith-based leaders (also available in Spanish) to its library of resources
- American Pharmacists Association offers “Vaccine Confident” program to foster communication and understanding about COVID-19 vaccines
- Voices for Vaccines releases new podcast on vaccines and health equity with health equity expert Nate Chomilo, MD, FAAP
- Johns Hopkins' campaign, "Get the Facts about the Vax," helps people make informed decisions about COVID-19 vaccine
- IAC Spotlight! These updated IAC educational materials and web pages were released during May and June
- Don’t let your colleagues be the last to know. Urge them to subscribe to IAC Express for free.
- IAC experts called on by news media
- Not-to-miss immunization articles in the news
IAC Handouts
Featured Resources
Journal Articles and Newsletters
Immunization PSAs from the Archive
Top Stories
“Use of mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine after Reports of Myocarditis among Vaccine Recipients: Update from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices—United States, June 2021” published in MMWR Early Release
CDC published Use of mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine after Reports of Myocarditis among Vaccine Recipients: Update from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices—United States, June 2021 in the July 6 issue of MMWR Early Release. A portion of the summary appears below.
An elevated risk for myocarditis among mRNA COVID-19 vaccinees has been observed, particularly in males aged 12–29 years....
...On June 23, 2021, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices concluded that the benefits of COVID-19 vaccination to individual persons and at the population level clearly outweighed the risks of myocarditis after vaccination....
...Continued use of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in all recommended age groups will prevent morbidity and mortality from COVID-19 that far exceed the number of cases of myocarditis expected. Information regarding the risk for myocarditis with mRNA COVID-19 vaccines should be disseminated to providers to share with vaccine recipients.
Access the MMWR Early Release article in HTML format or in PDF format.
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Introducing the next chapter in IAC’s leadership: Kelly L. Moore, MD, MPH
On July 1, 2021, IAC founder and executive director Deborah L. Wexler, MD, turned over the leadership of IAC to Kelly L. Moore, MD, MPH. We welcome Kelly to the helm of IAC in our IAC Express Special Edition article, Introducing the Next Chapter in IAC's Immunization Leadership.
Joining Kelly are six new board members of diverse and distinguished backgrounds: Carolyn W. Schott (chair), Clement Lewin (treasurer), Kathryn M. Edwards, Elisa Greene, Patricia B. Hairston, and Jamie Swift. Learn more about our new directors at the Board of Directors web page.
CDC offers resources to help get the word out about catching children up on routine vaccinations
The pandemic disrupted routine well-child visits, leading to a decline in routine childhood vaccines. Fall is right around the corner and many children returning to schools, camps, playdates, and daycares are behind on their vaccines. The CDC offers resources to help catch children up on missed routine childhood vaccines. Resources include:
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CDC and WhatsApp, a multiplatform messaging app, launch “Mi Chat Sobre Vacunas COVID” to help Spanish-speaking communities find information about vaccine locations and get answers to frequently asked questions
The CDC and WhatsApp, a multiplatform messaging app, launched Mi Chat Sobre Vacunas COVID to increase vaccination rates among Latinx Americans. Users can message (833) 636-1122 from their app and receive information about nearby vaccination locations, arrange a free ride to get vaccinated, and get answers to frequently asked questions from the CDC helpline.
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Order IAC’s free, CDC-supported “Me Vacuné Contra el COVID-19” buttons and stickers to encourage vaccination in Latinx communities. Also available in English.
Public health departments, nonprofit organizations, and all clinics that provide vaccination services in communities experiencing health disparities or vaccine hesitancy can order IAC’s FREE I Got My COVID-19 Vaccine buttons and stickers, provided with support from CDC. Spanish-language buttons and stickers are cheerful, highly visible tools to help you communicate the importance of COVID-19 vaccination in Latinx communities. Access this order form to request the FREE buttons and stickers in Spanish and English for your outreach efforts.
Buttons and stickers remain available for sale to those not eligible for the CDC-funded supplies.
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HHS’s COVID-19 Community Corps adds COVID-19 toolkits for LGBTQ+ community, people with disabilities, and faith-based leaders (also available in Spanish) to its library of resources
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) national campaign We Can Do This aims to increase uptake of COVID-19 vaccines while reinforcing basic prevention measures such as mask-wearing and social distancing. Through a nationwide network of trusted messengers and consistent, fact-based messaging, the campaign helps people make informed decisions about their health and COVID-19. The effort is driven by communication science and provides tailored information for at-risk groups.
"We Can Do This" recently added toolkits for LGBTQ+ Community, People with Disabilities, Faith-Based Leaders, and Faith-Based Leaders – Spanish under the Resources and Toolkits tab on wecandothis.hhs.gov.
HHS invites you to join the COVID-19 Community Corps. As a member, you’ll receive timely, accurate information to share with your family, friends, and neighbors. By encouraging them to get vaccinated, you’ll help protect them and allow all of us to safely gather again. As a Corps member, you’ll get resources to help you build vaccine confidence in your community.
Join the COVID-19 Community Corps at no cost.
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American Pharmacists Association offers “Vaccine Confident” program to foster communication and understanding about COVID-19 vaccines
The American Pharmacists Association (APhA) is collaborating with the CDC on Vaccine Confident, a multifaceted project that leverages pharmacists’ accessibility and trusting relationships with patients to promote confidence in the COVID-19 vaccines. Resources available include:
- A broad array of practice resources to keep pharmacists informed about COVID-19 vaccine developments and help pharmacists engage patients who have questions. These include fact sheets, toolkits, playbooks, and other resources.
- Continuing pharmacy education (CPE) programs covering core topics a pharmacist needs to know about this fast-changing disease
- Public-oriented materials with science-based, unbiased information about the vaccines in multiple languages, including vaccine development, administration, effectiveness, side effects, and benefits
- Dozens of short videos for social media, showing pharmacists discussing why they got vaccinated, why they recommend COVID-19 vaccines to their patients, and how they respond to their patients’ questions and concerns
- A series of success stories as pharmacists discuss vaccine issues with their patients
APhA conducts national surveys regularly to monitor vaccine confidence trends among pharmacists and pharmacy team members. Recently, 92% of the respondents said they planned to be or have been vaccinated and 98% said they were comfortable addressing vaccine concerns.
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Voices for Vaccines releases new podcast on vaccines and health equity with health equity expert Nate Chomilo, MD, FAAP
Voices for Vaccines (VFV) has posted a new entry in its Vax Talk podcast series: What Is Health Equity, and What Does It Have to Do with Vaccines? A description from their web page appears below.
With the pandemic bringing a bright spotlight on vaccine hesitancy, people are under the impression that confidence varies by race and background. Why would that be, and how is it related to health equity? And what is health equity anyhow?
We invited University of Minnesota School of Medicine professor and health equity expert Dr. Nate Chomilo to our podcast to ask him all the questions about health equity we could think of and to drill down about vaccine equity, as well.
Voices for Vaccines is a national organization of parents and others who are dedicated to raising the level of the voices of immunization supporters. VFV invites everyone who values vaccines to become a member, use VFV tools in their own community, and sign up for VFV’s free newsletter. Please spread the word to your friends and colleagues to join VFV!
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Johns Hopkins' campaign, "Get the Facts about the Vax," helps people make informed decisions about COVID-19 vaccine
Johns Hopkins Center for Communications Programs' campaign Get the Facts about the Vax offers easily digestible and trustworthy information on the COVID-19 vaccines. The campaign materials are publicly accessible, providing accurate and research-driven information that can help people make an informed decision about getting vaccinated.
To learn more about the "Get the Facts about the Vax" campaign and to access the campaign toolkit materials, visit www.vaxfacts.jhu.edu.
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IAC Spotlight! These updated IAC educational materials and web pages were released during May and June
IAC Express regularly provides readers with information about IAC’s new and updated educational materials for healthcare professionals and handouts for patients. All IAC materials are free to distribute.
In case you missed them during recent weeks, these helpful materials were announced:
IAC’s Updated Materials for Clinicians
Updated COVID-19 Web Pages
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Don’t let your colleagues be the last to know. Urge them to subscribe to IAC Express for free.
Dive into summer with hot-off-the-press, weekly immunization information at your fingertips! IAC Express, the free weekly e-newsletter produced by the Immunization Action Coalition (IAC), succinctly summarizes the week’s important immunization developments, including new and updated vaccine recommendations from CDC and the latest vaccine decisions by FDA. IAC Express also contains newly posted Vaccine Information Statements and their translations, and immunization education materials from IAC, CDC, AAP, and others. Subscribers learn about online and in-person educational opportunities, many offering free continuing education credit.
We appreciate you as a subscriber! Encourage your co-workers to subscribe to IAC Express so they get everything that matters to vaccinators in their own inbox.
IAC experts called on by news media
Journalists seek out IAC experts to help explain vaccines to the public and policy makers. Our goal is to help the media understand and communicate the complex work vaccinators do. Here is a recent citation:
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Not-to-miss immunization articles in the news
These recent articles convey the potential risks of vaccine-preventable diseases and the importance of vaccination.
IAC Handouts
IAC updates "Notification of Vaccination Letter Template"
IAC recently revised its Notification of Vaccination Letter Template. Revisions include the addition of COVID-19, MenQuadfi, and Vaxelis vaccines and the removal of Zostavax.
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IAC updates both the child and adult versions of 2-page reference table, “Guide to Contraindications and Precautions to Commonly Used Vaccines”
IAC recently revised Guide to Contraindications and Precautions to Commonly Used Vaccines as well as Guide to Contraindications and Precautions to Commonly Used Vaccines in Adults to highlight a link to find contraindications and precautions for COVID-19 vaccines and to remove references to zoster vaccine live (ZVL) from the table.
 
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Featured Resources
United States Pharmacopeia releases updated version of its “COVID-19 Vaccine Handling Toolkit” with operational considerations for healthcare personnel
In June, the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) released version 4.0 of its COVID-19 Vaccine Handling Toolkit. The revisions include:
- Extended storage time for undiluted, thawed Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine vials
- Considerations for maximizing doses withdrawn from larger-size Moderna vials
- Revised beyond-use date information (12 hours after vial puncture) for the Moderna vaccine
The toolkit also includes updated Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech guides to help safely and consistently maximize doses withdrawn from a vial and to address operational efficiency gaps in handling COVID-19 vaccines.
You can complete the form for immediate access to the toolkit and supporting resources.
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NFID’s “Keep Up the Rates” campaign is expanding to address coadministration of COVID-19 vaccines with other vaccines, as well as health equity
The National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID) launched a national campaign, Keep Up the Rates, to encourage all individuals to receive recommended vaccines that may have been delayed during the pandemic. The multimedia campaign engages national experts and leading public health organizations to reach populations most at risk of delaying vaccination or experiencing complications from vaccine-preventable diseases.
The focus of the campaign is now expanding to address the coadministration of COVID-19 vaccines with other vaccines, as well as health equity and disparities in health outcomes.
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Journal Articles and Newsletters
“Safety of Vaccines Used for Routine Immunization in the United States: An Updated Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis” published in Vaccine
In the June 23 issue, Vaccine published Safety of Vaccines Used for Routine Immunization in the United States: An Updated Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. A portion of the abstract appears below.
...Our objective was to conduct a systematic review of the safety of vaccines recommended for children, adults, and pregnant women in the United States....
...For children, SoE [strength of evidence] was high for no increased risk of autism following measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. SoE was high for increased risk of febrile seizures with MMR. There was no evidence of increased risk of intussusception with rotavirus vaccine at the latest follow-up (moderate SoE), nor of diabetes (high SoE). There was no evidence of increased risk or insufficient evidence for key adverse events for newer vaccines such as 9-valent human papillomavirus and meningococcal B vaccines. For adults, there was no evidence of increased risk (varied SoE) or insufficient evidence for key adverse events for the new adjuvanted inactivated influenza vaccine and recombinant adjuvanted zoster vaccine. We found no evidence of increased risk (varied SoE) for key adverse events among pregnant women following tetanus, diphtheria, and acellular pertussis vaccine, including stillbirth (moderate SoE).
...Across a large body of research we found few associations of vaccines and serious key adverse events; however, rare events are challenging to study. Any adverse events should be weighed against the protective benefits that vaccines provide.
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Journal retracts article over “distorted conclusions” about COVID-19 vaccine safety
On July 2, the editors of the journal Vaccines retracted an article published on June 24 titled “The Safety of COVID-19 Vaccinations—We Should Rethink the Policy.” A portion of the editors’ comments appear below.
...Serious concerns were brought to the attention of the publisher regarding misinterpretation of data, leading to incorrect and distorted conclusions.
The article was evaluated by the Editor-in-Chief with the support of several Editorial Board Members. They found that the article contained several errors that fundamentally affect the interpretation of the findings.
These include, but are not limited to:
The data from the Lareb report (https://www.lareb.nl/coronameldingen) in The Netherlands were used to calculate the number of severe and fatal side effects per 100,000 vaccinations. Unfortunately, in the manuscript by Harald Walach et al. these data were incorrectly interpreted which led to erroneous conclusions. The data was presented as being causally related to adverse events by the authors. This is inaccurate. In The Netherlands, healthcare professionals and patients are invited to report suspicions of adverse events that may be associated with vaccination. For this type of reporting a causal relation between the event and the vaccine is not needed, therefore a reported event that occurred after vaccination is not necessarily attributable to vaccination. Thus, reporting of a death following vaccination does not imply that this is a vaccine-related event. There are several other inaccuracies in the paper by Harald Walach et al. one of which is that fatal cases were certified by medical specialists. It should be known that even this false claim does not imply causation, which the authors imply. Further, the authors have called the events ‘effects’ and ‘reactions’ when this is not established, and until causality is established they are ‘events’ that may or may not be caused by exposure to a vaccine. It does not matter what statistics one may apply, this is incorrect and misleading.
The authors were asked to respond to the claims, but were not able to do so satisfactorily. The authors were notified of the retraction and did not agree.
Note that Vaccines is published by MDPI, based in Basel, Switzerland. This is a different publication than the journal Vaccine published by Elsevier, the multinational publishing house.
Immunization PSAs from the Archive
In this engaging 2009 PSA from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, families of all shapes and sizes can become unraveled from the flu
In this 2009 engaging public service announcement (PSA) from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, families of all shapes and sizes become unraveled when the flu strikes. This PSA is part of a collection curated by vaccine expert William L. Atkinson, MD, MPH, which spans a period of more than 50 years.
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Editorial Information
Editor-in-Chief
Kelly L. Moore, MD, MPH
Managing Editor
John Grabenstein, RPh, PhD
Associate Editor
Sharon Humiston, MD, MPH
Writer/Publication Coordinator
Taryn Chapman, MS
Courtnay Londo, MA
Style and Copy Editor
Marian Deegan, JD
Web Edition Manager
Sheila M. Franey, MA
Contributing Writer
Laurel H. Wood, MPA
Technical Reviewer
Robin VanOss
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