[india-drug] Hep B vaccine and missing women

["gopal dabade" <dabade_pal@yahoo.com>]

Hep B vaccine and missing women 
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Dear all,                                           

	WISH YOU ALL HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The government of India through its health minister has announced that from the beginning of the year 2006 all new born children will be vaccinated with
hepatitis B vaccine. Several independent groups have criticized this policy decision of the government mostly on the grounds that it is not cost effective.

But there seems to be another new dimension that both the government and independent groups have totally missed. And this has been outlined in a PhD thesis from Harvard titled ?Hepatitis B and the case of missing women? by Emily Oster dated 23rd August 2005 that has been done (and accepted) on India's missing girls. It is based on papers that say that hepatitis B
carriers have sex ratio of 2:1 boys:girls. With 4% carriers in India having 2:1 boys, the adverse sex ratio in India is partly explained (Present Sex ratio is about 1000 boys to 927 girls). Further the references used in this thesis are still more interesting. Apparently it is known for a long time
that carriers have more boys. Those who are hepatitis B immune have more girls. If 100% of the population is immunized we can expect 700 boys to 1000 girls. The data is all published and available in peer reviewed literature at URL http://www.cid.harvard.edu/cidwp/grad/007.htm  

One wonders if the policy makers are aware of this particular implication of the universal immunisation programme with hepatitis B vaccine. As the Harvard thesis says a part of the fact that we have 'too many boys' is the reason that 4% of the population are hepatitis B carriers. Carriers of hepatitis B have 2 boys for 1 girl. This 4% carrier rate having more boys
is enough to distort our sex ratio. The literature suggests that had we 4% immune population then it would do the reverse ? that is we will have more girls than boys. That is acceptable. Now imagine if 100% were immune (by universal immunisation with hepatitis B vaccination). Then we will have far far too many girls!! WE WILL PERHAPS END UP AGAIN BY DISTORTING SEX RATIO BUT THE OTHER WAY!! Do the Government and Public understand this side of the consequence of universal immunization with hepatitis B vaccine?

We intent to take this to media and would request for your inputs and help. 
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Dr Jacob Puliyel   puliyel@gmail.com
&
Dr Gopal Dabade drdabade@gmail.com 
Drug Action Forum ? Karnataka,
57, Tejaswinagar,
Dharwad 580 002, INDIA
Telephone 0836-2461722



		
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