Media/Policy Watch
This section is intended to alert readers to substantive news, analysis and opinion from the general media on vaccines, immunization, global; public health and related themes. Media Watch is not intended to be exhaustive, but indicative of themes and issues CVEP is actively tracking. This section will grow from an initial base of newspapers, magazines and blog sources, and is segregated from Journal Watch above which scans the peer-reviewed journal ecology.

We acknowledge the Western/Northern bias in this initial selection of titles and invite suggestions for expanded coverage. We are conservative in our outlook in adding news sources which largely report on primary content we are already covering above. Many electronic media sources have tiered, fee-based subscription models for access. We will provide full-text where content is published without restriction, but most publications require registration and some subscription level.

Al Jazeera
http://america.aljazeera.com/search.html?q=vaccine
Accessed 11 April 2015
California bill to ban childhood vaccine exemptions advances
Senate health committee approves bill to require vaccinations, eliminating exemptions for personal or religious beliefs
April 9, 2015 2:52PM ET
California lawmakers on Wednesday advanced a bill that would require schoolchildren in the state to be vaccinated, amid impassioned pleas from doctors and parents, including the activist Robert Kennedy Jr.
Under the proposal, parents would no longer be able to send unvaccinated children to school with waivers for religious or personal beliefs. Exemptions would be available only for children with health problems.

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Council on Foreign Relations
http://www.cfr.org/
Accessed 11 April 2015
Expert Brief
Global Health Goal Hits and Misses
Laurie Garrett, Senior Fellow for Global Health
April 7, 2015
This year marks the wind down of one hugely ambitious fifteen-year global development plan and the launch of another even more far-reaching one. At the moment, the new United Nations initiative—the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—looks deeply flawed, featuring an encyclopedic wish-list for costly global accomplishments envisioned for the coming fifteen years.
But its predecessor, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), also seemed impossibly aspirational, and only moderately achievable when ratified by the UN General Assembly in 2000. The MDGs, which set eight big goals, will reach their deadline for completion (or failure) this New Year’s Eve…

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Financial Times
http://www.ft.com/home/uk
April 8, 2015
UN envoy upbeat on progress against Ebola
An end to the Ebola epidemic in Liberia and Sierra Leone is…David Nabarro, the UN special envoy on Ebola, says he is “upbeat” about progress but…Liberia appears closest to ending its Ebola nightmare having not recorded a new case…Andrew Ward in London

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The Guardian
http://www.guardiannews.com/
Accessed 11 April 2015
Ebola: media ‘overlooked Africa’s role in combating crisis’
African Union says media downplayed Africans’ willingness and ability to deal with Ebola and focused instead on part played by international agencies
7 April 2015
Africa’s efforts to tackle the Ebola crisis have been largely overlooked even though Africans have taken the lead in providing frontline staff and shown themselves “better placed to fight infectious diseases in their continent than outsiders”, according to the African Union (AU).
Dr Olawale Maiyegun, director of social affairs at the AU commission, said that despite the fact that Africans had proved both willing and able to deal with Ebola, the focus had been on the work of international agencies and those with the greatest media clout.
“Unfortunately, Africans do not have the international voice of CNN, BBC and France 24, therefore much of our work is overlooked in the western media,” he said. “Most of the assistance provided by the international community is in the areas of finance and infrastructure. In the most critical human resources for health, Africans – including the affected countries – have had to take the lead.”…

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Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/home-page?_wsjregion=na,us&_homepage=/home/us
Accessed 11 April 2015
Business
Tekmira Approved to Continue Ebola Treatment Clinical Trials
FDA put trials on hold last year as it awaited additional information
By
Angela Chen
April 10, 2015 9:06 a.m. ET
Health Policy
Squabbles Over Testing Methods Hamper Search for Ebola Vaccine
Researchers at odds over most effective way to trial treatments
Thomas M. Burton
Updated April 9, 2015 4:42 p.m. ET
The Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa created a rare opportunity: New vaccines could be tested, and if they worked, serve as a firewall in future epidemics.
It now appears this chance is slipping away amid public health officials’ squabbles over the right way to test vaccines. As a consequence, there may never be a definitive answer about the vaccines’ effectiveness….

Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Accessed 11 April 2015
California vaccine bill sparks acidic debate, Nazi links
Judy Lin | AP | Health & Science | Apr 10, 2015
A California bill that would sharply limit vaccination waivers after a measles outbreak at Disneyland has generated such an acidic debate that the proposal’s author was under added security this week.