Children's Vaccines: Research on the Risks for Children and Possible Neurological Consequences

Overview of Vaccine Information   ' Introduction to Children's Vaccines How Could Vaccines Cause Damage? Early Studies on Vaccine Risks and Complications The DPT Vaccine DPT Vaccine and Brain Damage DPT Vaccine and Autism DPT and Vaccine-Induced Neuropathies Diagnosis of Post-Vaccinal CNS Pathology Vaccine-Induced Demyelination Auto-Immunity, Vaccines and Autism Database of Vaccine Injury Children's Vaccines and Mercury Origins of the Mercury / Vaccine Controversy Mercury Neurotoxicity in Children Thimerosal and Neurotoxicity Is There a Link Between Exposure to Mercury and Autism? Ethylmercury and the DPT Vaccine Testing for Mercury Toxicity in Children The MMR Vaccine MMR Vaccine and Autism MMR Vaccine and Other Complications Other Vaccination Concerns Concern About Vaccine Adjuvants Immunological Consequence of Vaccines Vaccination During Pregnancy and Risks for Autism The Rubeola (Measles) Vaccine The Rubeola Vaccine, Measles and Autism The Risks of Not Vaccinating Children for Measles Conflict of Interest and Vaccine Development The Hepatitis B Vaccine Hepatitis B Vaccine: The Risks Hepatitis B: The Disease Available Data on the Safety of Hepatitis B Vaccines Information on Other Vaccines Polio Vaccine Pneumococcal Pneumonia Vaccine Hemophilus Meningitis Vaccine Appendix 1: Schedule for Routine Immunizations Appendix 2: Standards for Pediatric Immunization Practices Appendix 3: Decline of Number of Vaccine-Preventable Cases over Time Appendix 4: Childhood Immunizations The Burden of Suffering Description of Preventive Measures Evidence of Effectiveness Children's Vaccines & Public Policy Considerations Recommendations of Other Groups Rationale Statement Recommendations of the American College of Preventive Medicine

See Also Our New Section:   →    Mercury in Children's Vaccines Children's Vaccines and Autism

Introduction to Children's Vaccines

The question of vaccine-related damage provokes tremendous controversy. Conventional opinion holds that vaccines are good, and that those who question vaccination are bad. Two potentially conflicting values operate in this controversy — first, the desire to eliminate disease, and, second, the desire of parents to protect their children from damage. Children's vaccines pose risk. Diseases pose risk. How do we balance the risks from disease with the risk from vaccines? Unfortunately, few studies of the long term risks of vaccines exist. Parents are struggling to make hard decisions in a medical climate of antagonism for even questioning routine and extensive vaccination. Public health laws propose enforced vaccination. Where does the answer lie?

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How Could Vaccines Cause Damage?

No vaccine is perfectly safe. An adverse event can be said to be caused by a vaccine (i.e., a true reaction) if it is associated with a specific laboratory finding and a specific clinical syndrome or both. Alternatively, a clinical or epidemiological study is needed to find out whether the rate of a given syndrome in vaccinated individuals exceeds that expected among unvaccinated controls.

Immune panels and other laboratory tests, medical histories, and the supporting medical literature support a causal association, with increased risks among those children who are sick or have recently been sick. Anecdotal reports, such as those suggesting the onset of autism after MMR vaccine, are important in pointing toward possible relationships, which further investigative work can clarify.

Vaccination may damage children in several ways. Live or attenuated virus vaccination can actually produce the infection that the vaccine is supposed to prevent. For example, live polio should never be administered to a child who comes in contact with an HIV patient, for the attenuated virus can "leap" to the HIV patient and produce polio. Reports exist of normal parents who have developed polio from the viral vaccine given to their children.

A second mechanism of damage comes from neurotoxic materials found sometimes in vaccines. Thimerosal is the most widely discussed, since it contains mercury. The amount is small. Each vaccine is equivalent to the amount of mercury found in a 6 oz. Can of tuna fish. Nevertheless, some argue that even these levels may be important in a vulnerable child.

The third, and probably the most important theory of vaccine damage, relates to allergic reactions and the development of an auto-immune response, stimulated by the vaccine and its adjuvant. Vaccines always contain adjuvants, which are substances known to amplify the body's response to the vaccine. These adjuvants are known to sometimes cause allergic and auto-immune responses on their own.

We refer interested readers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) web sites for estimates of disease prevented by vaccines. On-going debate rages over the benefits of vaccine for protection of the public and for prevention of the disease, versus the risk to individuals who receive the vaccine for vaccine-related complications. The question of whether or not a society can force its members to undergo individual risks (complications of vaccination) for the greater public good (disease prevention) is an important part of this question. The Center for Disease Control (as its name implies) represents one answer to these questions, while the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) champions the rights of individual families to refuse vaccines. The NVIC makes a very important, sometimes neglected point:

"Vaccination is a medical procedure which carries a risk of injury or death. As a parent, it is your responsibility to become educated about the benefits and risks of vaccines in order to make the most informed, responsible vaccination decisions."

A similar statement can be made about any medical procedure. There area also possible, but unproven links between MMR vaccine and juvenile diabetes multiple vaccines and autism, and OPV and Gulf War syndrome. Time and further research will tell if these proposed relationships are real

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Early Studies on Vaccine Risks and Complications

The history of studies on the risks of vaccines began in 1922 when a smallpox vaccination program caused an outbreak of encephalitis, with a secondary result of Guillain-Barre Syndrome, an ascending paralysis ending in death. The polio virus produces a breakdown of the myelin sheath, called poliomyelitis, which results in paralysis. Encephalitis, whether caused through disease or as a result of vaccination, can cause demyelination of the nerves. For more information, see The Mechanism of Encephalitic Damage from Vaccines. General paralysis is rare in regions where no organized vaccination of the population exists. It is impossible to deny a connection between vaccination and the encephalitis which sometimes follows it. [Reference: Wise RP, Kiminyo KP, Salive ME. Hair Loss After Routine Immunizations. J Am Med Assoc 1997; 278: 1176-8.]

In 1935, Thomas Rivers discovered "experimental allergic encephalomyelitis," or (EAE). Until then, it was assumed that encephalitis was caused by a viral or bacterial infection of the nervous system. Rivers was able to produce brain inflammation in laboratory monkeys by injecting them repeatedly with extracts of sterile normal rabbit brain and spinal cord material which made it apparent that encephalitis was an allergic reaction. EAE can explain the association of allergies and autoimmune states with encephalitis.

In 1947, Isaac Karlin suggested that stuttering was caused by "delay in the myelinization of the cortical areas in the brain concerned with speech." In 1988, Dietrich and others, using MRI imaging of the brains of infants and children from four days old to 36 months of age, found that those who were developmentally delayed had immature patterns of myelination.

In 1953 it was realized that some children's diseases - measles in particular - showed an increased propensity to attack the central nervous system. This indicated a growing allergic reaction in the population to both the diseases and the vaccinations for the diseases.

In 1978, British researcher, Roger Bannister, observed that the demyelinating diseases were getting more serious "because of some abnormal process of sensitization of the nervous system."

Some investigators believe that this increased sensitization of the population is being enhanced by vaccination programs.

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