Ellen....

Saw your post on Conch-l. Many travel companies/organizations don't want
to get too involved in vaccination recommendations because of various
liability situations that can arise.

This is the advice that we give to all Rainforest and Reef
participants/group leaders:

"See your doctor, local health department or campus health clinic for
RECOMMENDED IMMUNIZATIONS for each host country. The Center for Disease
Control’s Traveler’s Hotline can be reached by phone at 877-394-8747.
The CDC also has a toll-free fax-back service at 888-232-3228. Up to
date information can be found on the Internet at http://www.cdc.gov."

I have found county health clinics most reliable. Some of the hospital
related clinics can be quite expensive.

With all due respect to the State Dept. They send out and post a variety
of messages about travel to all parts of the world. It might just be an
update and then they get into travel advisories and the most serious
being a travel warning. In most cases I have found them to be quite
conservative, often adding needless worry for destinations, that are in
fact quite safe, especially when compared to many, many places in the
US. At other times, they are very accurate. I am on their listserv and
last week they sent out a travel warning explaining why Americans should
defer all travel to Afghanistan, until further notice. It went into some
detail describing why this might not be the ideal vacation destination
at the present.
--
Sincerely,

Mike Nolan


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