Study finds many adults skip vaccinations

WASHINGTON — Vaccines aren't just for kids, but far too few grownups are rolling up their sleeves, disappointed federal health officials reported Wednesday.

The numbers of newly vaccinated are surprisingly low, considering how much public attention a trio of new shots — which protect against shingles, whooping cough and cervical cancer — received in recent years.

Yet many seem to have missed, or forgotten, the news: A survey by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases found that aside from the flu, most adults have trouble even naming diseases that they could prevent with a simple inoculation.

"We really need to get beyond the mentality that vaccines are for kids. Vaccines are for everybody," said Dr. Anne Schuchat of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who called the new data sobering. "We obviously have a lot more work to do."

The new CDC report found:

• Only about 2 percent of Americans 60 and older got a vaccine against shingles in its first year of sales.

There are more than 1 million new cases a year, an excruciating rite of aging that causes a blistering skin rash. Up to 200,000 of them develop a complication, severe nerve pain that can last for months or even years. Anyone who ever had chickenpox is at risk, especially once they hit their 60s, because the chickenpox virus hibernates for decades in nerve cells until erupting again.

"Many people describe the shingles pain as the worst pain they've ever endured," said Dr. Michael Oxman of the University of California, San Diego.

The shingles vaccine, Merck & Co.'s Zostavax, isn't perfect, but it cuts in half the risk of shingles — and those who still get it have a much milder case.

• About 2 percent of adults ages 18 to 64 got a booster shot against whooping cough in the two years since it hit the market.

The cough so strong it can break a rib is making a big comeback, because the vaccine given to babies and toddlers starts wearing off by adolescence. Older patients usually recover, but whooping cough can cause weeks of misery. Worse, those people can easily spread the illness to not-yet-vaccinated infants, who can die from the bacterial infection, also called pertussis.

The pertussis booster was added to another long-recommended shot, a booster against tetanus and diphtheria that adults should get every 10 years. The new triple combo is called "Tdap." Sanofi-Aventis's Adacel brand is for ages 11 to 64. There also is a version for 10- to 18-year-olds, GlaxoSmithKline's Boostrix.