Are Childhood Vaccines Safe?

The Report of the Vaccine Safety Committee

of the US Institute of Medicine

"Adverse Events Associated with Childhood Vaccines: Evidence bearing on Causuality"

Synopis by Jan Roberts

The Vaccine Safety Committee of the US Institute of Medicine, consisting of 13 eminent professors, concluded in 1994 a lengthy investigation into childhood vaccines by publishing a two volumne report - that seemed to promptly sink into obscurity - perhaps because it's findings were so critical. The Report could scarcely have been more authorative. So, for the benefit of parents here is a synopsis of some of its findings.

 

P16. "The evidence favors acceptance of a causual relationship between:

P.17 "The evidence establishes a causual relationship between:

The Committee also concluded that in about two thirds of the reported suspected cases(p16) " the evidence is inadequate to accept or reject a causual relationship (p12) between

The Committe went on to comment on the lack of controlled studies of adverse reactions and to say "the risk of developing these conditions because of vaccination would seem (their emphasis) to be low." They finally called for "increased surveillance of reports of demyelinating disease and arthritis following hepatitis B vaccination, better follow-up of reports of death and other serious adverse events following vaccination, increased use of large databases (currently used only on a small scale) to supplement passive survelliance reporting sytems and disease registries".

As for safety: "The Commitee encountered many gaps and limitations in knowledge bearing directly and indirectly on the safety of vaccines. These include inadequate understanding of the biologic mechanisms underlying adverse events following natural infection or immunization, insufficient or inconsistent information from case studies and case series, inadequate size or length of follow-up of many population-based epidemiologic studies, and limited capacity of existing surveillance systems of vaccine injuray to provide persuasive evidence of causation.... Clearly, if resarch capacity and accomplishment in these areas are not improved, future reviews of vaccine safety will be similarly handicapped." p 317

They were critical of the safety criteria employed in testing all the commen childhood vaccines.


RISK FACTORS

Even when the Committee found that there was a causual relationship between cases of disease and vaccination, this did not mean that the risk was necessarily high. In most cases they were low - but the Committee totally failed to address the question of viral contamination of vaccines - in particular the established contamination of the polio vaccine with monkey viruses that are now implicated in many thousands of disease cases.


The Committee's Reports on Specific Childhood Vaccines.

Measles and Mumps Vaccines - click here.

The others below are dealt with in the Report - and we hope to later cover them here.

Rubella Vaccine

Pertussis Vaccine

Diptheria and Tetanus - click here.

Polio Vaccines - click here.

Hepatis B Vaccines

Flu type Vaccines

 

 

 

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