Q. “What do you think of the new vaccine against rotavirus diarrhea?”
A. I am more than happy to go against the recommendation of the American Academy of Pediatric and any other official body: This is a very new vaccine. In spite of “the largest vaccine testing ever” I would still like to see this vaccine in use for a few years before recommending it.
This is a vaccine against a very nasty viral diarrhea which kills hundreds of thousands of children in the Third World.
While there are some dozens of reported fatalities from rotavirus in the U.S. each year, I do not recommend this vaccine to anyone. I have far too strong a recollection of the last time we tried this and ended up with fatal cases of intestinal obstruction in some infants who had received the old rotavirus vaccine. Let’s wait at least a year or two and see.