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.

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New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/
Accessed 23 April 2016
China’s Vaccine Scandal Threatens Public Faith in Immunizations
…Now, the country’s immunization program faces a backlash of public distrust that critics say has been magnified by the government’s ingrained secrecy.

Song Zhendong, like many parents here, said he was reluctant to risk further vaccinations for his 10-month-old son.

“If he can avoid them in the future, we will not get them,” said Mr. Song, a businessman. “Why didn’t we learn about this sooner? If there’s a problem with vaccines for our kids, we should be told as soon as the police knew. Aren’t our children the future of the nation?”

The faulty vaccines have become the latest lightning rod for widespread, often visceral distrust of China’s medical system, and a rebuff to what many Chinese critics see as President Xi Jinping’s bulldozing, top-down rule….
April 19, 2016 – By CHRIS BUCKLEY –

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TIME
http://time.com/
Accessed 23 April 2016
China Has Begun Cracking Down on Parents Protesting Substandard Vaccines
Charlie Campbell / Beijing
April 21, 2016
Hundreds were allegedly detained for intending to join a demonstration in Beijing on Tuesday
Angry parents who congregated at Beijing’s National Health and Family Planning Commission on Tuesday to protest last month’s vaccine scandal have complained of intimidation and arbitrary arrest by security officials.

Almost 70 of the more than 1,000 who gathered also filed lawsuits to Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court to demand retribution for the scandal, which involved $90 million of improperly stored and expired vaccines being distributed across the country over four years. Protesters claim this caused hundreds of children to fall ill with a range of debilitating conditions.
“Our children have suffered varying degrees of harm and disability as a result of immunization injections,” the lawsuit reads, according to Radio Free Asia (RFA). “Some have even lost the ability to live independently.”…

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Think Tanks et al

CSIS Center for Strategic and International Studies
http://csis.org/press/browse/all/all/press_release
Accessed 23 April 2016
CSIS Releases Documentary Film: “Ebola in America: Epidemic of Fear”
Press Release
Apr 22, 2016
WASHINGTON April 22, 2016 – The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) today released ” Ebola in America: Epidemic of Fear ” a feature-length documentary film that tells the story of the 2014