Now why would anyone think that an ocular palsy could be caused by vaccines?
There is no real evidence that a cranial nerve six palsy, which causes strabismus or esotropia, is a common vaccine injury, even though Dr. Bob focused on it recently.
Is Ocular Palsy a Vaccine Injury?
What is Dr. Bob’s evidence?
A vaccine injury story from a vaccine hesitant mom who was giving her child one vaccine at a time and who became cross-eyed five days after getting the MMR vaccine.
“It is an absolutely, 100% well known vaccine reaction to live virus vaccines as you eventually discovered, it’s called ocular palsy.”
Bob Sears
Is that true?
Not exactly.
It is true that there are a handful of case reports of toddlers developing a cranial nerve six palsy after a live virus vaccine, but that doesn’t make it an “absolutely, 100% well-known vaccine reaction.”
Why not?
The story Dr. Bob tells could be published as a case report. But that wouldn’t be proof that it was caused by the MMR vaccine, as other causes weren’t ruled out, and it is easy to overlook that the child had just had a double ear infection.
“Benign isolated 6th nerve palsy of childhood is rare, and recurrences are rarer. By definition, it is not due to a threatening cause, such as an underlying intracranial lesion, and recovery is expected. This condition typically occurs following viral illnesses, infections, and immunization involving attenuated live vaccinations. In general, prognosis for benign recurrent 6th nerve palsy is excellent, and majority of patients recover full muscle function.”
Gonçalves et al on Benign Recurrent Sixth Nerve Palsy in a Child
Could the child that Dr. Bob talks about have had a viral infection causing their sixth nerve palsy?
Sure. The child even had a double ear infection the previous month.
Considering that in most of the case reports, the children developed symptoms later, between 7 or 21 days to as late as 6 weeks to 6 months after their vaccine, then the previous ear infection starts to look like a more likely cause, not the MMR vaccine.
“A previously healthy four-year-old girl was presented to our emergency room with complaints of binocular horizontal diplopia of sudden onset and strabismus.”
Gonçalves et al on Benign Recurrent Sixth Nerve Palsy in a Child
What’s different about the four-year-old girl discussed above and the child Dr. Bob talks about?
“One week prior to the event, the child had a history of fever and productive cough, and she was under treatment with amoxicillin. There was no history of live attenuated vaccine administration in the previous days.”
Gonçalves et al on Benign Recurrent Sixth Nerve Palsy in a Child
This child wasn’t recently vaccinated.
There are also case reports of children developing recurrent 6th nerve palsy without any obvious trigger – no immunization and no recent infection.
And cases from the 1950s and 60s and earlier, before we had an MMR vaccine.
“This syndrome is not a new entity, and experienced clinicians recall cases in which the combination of only fever and VI nerve palsy cautioned them against other diagnostic measures. Sir Charles Symonds, in a discussion recorded in the proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, makes reference to his observations of patients in whom VI nerve palsy followed febrile illness and was of no consequence. In the same discussion he also mentions instances in which VI nerve palsy followed otitis media, and yet there was no pain and little constitutional disturbance. The palsy he considered to be the result of an aseptic thrombosis of the inferior petrosal sinus, adjacent to the VI nerve as it passes through Dorello’s canal.”
Knox et al on Benign VI Nerve Palsies in Children
Also consider that if a live attenuated vaccine is causing such a vaccine injury, then wouldn’t you expect kids with natural measles infections to develop these 6th nerve palsies at equal, or more likely, greater rates.
What about those case reports from the 1950s and 60s and earlier? No, those early case reports weren’t about kids with measles.
The bottom line is that if you want to consider this type of ocular palsy a vaccine injury, you should also explore the possibility that it was caused by an infection or by chance. And the only folks who would say 100% that these incidents are a vaccine injury, when there is just as much, if not more, evidence saying they aren’t, are those who think that everything is a vaccine injury
More on Medical Exemptions
- VAXOPEDIA – Measles Outbreaks
- VAXOPEDIA – How Is California’s New Vaccine Law Working?
- VAXOPEDIA – Do Vaccine Mandates Force Parents to Vaccinate Their Kids?
- VAXOPEDIA – Vaccine Injuries vs Coincidences
- VAXOPEDIA – Is It a Vaccine Reaction?
- VAXOPEDIA – Explaining the Correlation of Autism After Vaccines
- VAXOPEDIA – Abuse of Vaccine Exemptions
- VAXOPEDIA – Parents Who Regret Not Vaccinating Their Kids
- VAXOPEDIA – Correlation and Causation
- VAXOPEDIA – Diagnosing Vaccine Injuries
- VAXOPEDIA – Who Is at Risk If You Don’t Vaccinate Your Kids?
- VAXOPEDIA – Ask 8 Questions Before You Skip a Vaccine
- VAXOPEDIA – 50 Ways to Get Educated About Vaccines
- VAXOPEDIA – Anti-Vaccine Points Refuted A Thousand Times
- ACIP – Contraindications and Precautions
- CDC – Who Should NOT Get Vaccinated with these Vaccines
- Case Report – Isolated abducens nerve palsy following neonatal hepatitis B vaccination
- Case Report – Benign recurrent abducens (6th) nerve palsy in two children
- Study – Benign Recurrent Sixth Nerve Palsy in a Child
- Study – Benign VI Nerve Palsies in Children