Pertussis vaccine syndrome

DPT shots kill at least two to four people a year, according to the Institute of Medicine study and perhaps as many as 900 a year- including a great number misclassified as victims of sudden infant death syndrome- according to the independent National Vaccine Information Center. James Cherry MD, a physician and professor of pediatrics at the University of California at Los Angeles is a widely recognized pertussis expert who has been a leader on advisory committees that help frame immunization policy for the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control. Back in 1979, at a symposium he said, All physicians are aware that pertussis vaccine occasionally produces severe reactions and that these may be associated with permanent sequellae [complications caused by the vaccine] or even death. ... 

A follow-up study has been carried out in 105 children with collapse (a hypotonic-hyporesponsive episode or a shock-like syndrome) after their first immunization with DTwP -I- IPV vaccine (11). Information about subsequent immunizations, health, and development in 101 of the children was supplied by child health-care units. The parents of one child refused further immunization, 16 children completed their schedule with the combination diphtheria -I- tetanus -I- poliomyelitis vaccine (DT-IPV), and the other 84 children received further pertussis vaccine (DTP-IPV), totalling 236 doses 74 children received the complete series of three additional doses. None of the children had recurrent collapse, and other adverse events were only minor. About half were given paracetamol prophylactically for the first subsequent dose most of them did not take it for further doses. The authors suggested that it is unnecessary to withhold further doses of pertussis vaccine in a child with collapse after a previons dose. It has been suggested that the threat of natural pertussis in non-immunized children should be taken much more into account than the fear of developing a collapse reaction (12). In another study (13) in the USA, one of the 14 children not completely immunized becanse of a hypotonic-hyporesponsive episode after a previons dose later developed natural pertussis, which lasted for 3 months and was transmitted to both her parents. 

In the early 1980s there were concerns about the safety of whole cell pertussis vaccines in particular, it was claimed by some that the vaccine was associated with sudden infant death syndrome and encephalopathy [21 ]. Immunization rates fell, and many vaccines were withdrawn from the market. However, epidemiological studies have consistently failed to identify an association. It has been recently argued that such reactions may have occurred in metaboli-cally vulnerable children, specifically those with defects in fatty acid oxidation, in whom the combination of anorexia and fever due to the vaccine may have resulted... 

Tetanus, reduced diphtheria, acellular pertussis Tdap 0.5 mL Intramuscular History of Guillain-Barre syndrome Systemic neurologic reaction from previous vaccine... 

The diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus (DPT) vaccine, which has prevented more than 95% morbidity from these diseases, has been linked with convulsions, encephalitis, and sudden infant death syndrome. ... 

Adverse effects on the nervous system that have at least temporally been associated with rubella vaccination include myehtis, myeloradiculitis (SEDA-2, 268) (SEDA-20, 292), meningomyelitis (SEDA-10,291), ence-phahtis (SEDA-5, 308), peripheral neuropathy (SEDA-12, 284), facial or peripheral paresthesia (SEDA-11, 295) (SEDA-12, 284), and carpal tunnel syndrome (SEDA-12, 284). In many of these cases the causal relation was doubtful. The authors of the report of the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC (1991) entitled Adverse Effects of Pertussis and Rubella Vaccines (38) considered that there was insufficient evidence to indicate either the presence or absence of a causal relation between RA 27/3 rubella vaccine and radiculoneuritis and other neuropathies. 

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