Tag: Guillain-Barré Syndrome

Did a Top Cancer Scientist Suddenly Die After Getting a Yellow Fever Vaccination?

We are seeing many reports that Professor Martin Gore, an oncologist at London’s Royal Marsden Hospital for more than 35 years, died suddenly after getting a yellow fever vaccine.

Could that be true?

Could someone really die after getting a routine vaccination?

Did a Top Cancer Scientist Suddenly Die After Getting a Yellow Fever Vaccination?

Of course, it could be true.

Although vaccines are very safe, they are not 100% risk free. And tragically, they do very rarely have life-threatening side effects.

To be fair, we don’t know the full story about what happened to Prof Gore, but the media reports do say that he suffered total organ failure shortly after getting his yellow fever vaccine.

What we don’t know is how shortly after getting the vaccine or if there is any evidence for another cause for his having organ failure.

Still, although most side effects are mild, it is reported that the yellow fever vaccine, which has been available for more than 80 years, can rarely cause:

How rarely?

About 1 in 55,000 for severe allergic reactions, 1 in 125,000 for severe nervous system reactions, and 1 in 250,000 for life-threatening severe illness with organ failure.

And the risks are likely higher if you are older than age 60 years, although YEL-AND and YEL-AVD are not reported to happen with booster doses of the yellow fever vaccine.

“People aged ≥60 years may be at increased risk for serious adverse events (serious disease or, very rarely, death) following vaccination, compared with younger persons. This is particularly true if they are receiving their first yellow fever vaccination. Travelers aged ≥60 years should discuss with their healthcare provider the risks and benefits of the vaccine given their travel plans.”

Yellow Fever Frequently Asked Questions

Why would you get the yellow fever vaccine if you were older than aged 60 years and you knew there was a higher risk of severe side effects?

Yellow fever itself is a life threatening disease without a cure and a case fatality rate of up to 50%, and again, YEL-AVD is not common, occurring in about 0.4/100,000 doses.

So you would typically want to get vaccinated if you were traveling to an area where yellow fever was a risk.

“Since January 2018, 10 travel-related cases of yellow fever, including four deaths, have been reported in international travelers returning from Brazil. None of the 10 travelers had received yellow fever vaccination.”

Fatal Yellow Fever in Travelers to Brazil, 2018

In addition to outbreaks, yellow fever is still endemic in forty-seven countries in Africa and Central and South America, leading to 170,000 severe cases and 60,000 deaths in recent years, including some deaths in unvaccinated travelers returning from these areas. Did you read about these deaths in the paper?

Although it is not on the routine immunization schedule, if you are traveling somewhere and yellow fever is a risk, you should get a yellow fever vaccine.

Professor Gore’s death, at age 67, is a tragedy, no matter the cause.

That we are having to talk about it because anti-vaccine folks are using his death to push their idea that vaccines aren’t safe is unconscionable.

More on Yellow Fever Vaccine Deaths

Why Do We Still Vaccinate If Polio Has Been Eliminated?

It’s true, polio has been eliminated in the United States.

Are these folks serious with this anti-vaccine nonsense?
Are these folks serious with this anti-vaccine nonsense?

But that doesn’t mean that we can stop vaccinating kids against polio yet.

Why Do We Still Vaccinate If Polio Has Been Eliminated?

For one thing, the last polio case in the United States was a lot more recent than 40 years ago.

What happened 40 years ago?

That was when we had the last endemic case of polio in the United States, in 1979. After that, in addition to cases of VAPP, there were at least 6 cases of imported paralytic poliomyelitis. In fact, the last case of wild polio in the United States was in 1993, just 26 years ago.

And just ten years ago, in 2009, was the very last case of VAPP, a patient with a long-standing combined immunodeficiency who was probably infected in the late 1990s, even though she didn’t develop paralysis until years later.

But still, why couldn’t we stop vaccinating against polio in the United States, even though polio isn’t eradicated yet? After all, we stopped using the smallpox vaccine in 1972, before smallpox was declared eradicated (1980).

While that is true, smallpox isn’t as contagious as polio and there hadn’t been a case of smallpox in the United States for over 30 years when we stopped using the vaccine.

Until wild polio is eradicated and the oral polio vaccine isn’t used anymore (OPV switch), we must continue to vaccinate against polio to prevent new outbreaks.

That is the polio eradication and endgame strategic plan.

Over the next few years, the world will hopefully switch to using just the injectable form of the polio vaccines, which eliminates the risk of VAPP.

But if we are so close, why not just stop vaccinating in those parts of the world that don’t have polio?

Because we are so close to eradicating polio.

Why take the risk of polio spreading from one of the remaining endemic countries, paralyzing kids, and putting eradication efforts further behind?

Should we stop vaccinating kids because anti-vaccine folks are pushing misinformation about DDT, renamed diseases, or vaccine induced diseases?

Of course not!

Vaccines are safe, effective, and necessary.

Let’s continue the work and eradicate polio, once and for all!

And for the record – we don’t pump “kids full of polio” when we give them a polio vaccine. The polio shot is an inactivated vaccine, so doesn’t contain live polio virus.

More on Why Do We Still Vaccinate If Polio Has Been Eliminated?

What Are the Side Effects of the Flu Vaccine?

Like other vaccines, flu vaccines can have side effects.

Fortunately, most of those side effects are mild.

What Are the Side Effects of the Flu Vaccine?

Not surprisingly, a lot of things that get blamed as being caused by flu vaccines are not actually side effects.

Did you actually get the flu in the days or weeks after your flu vaccine?

That’s not a side effect of your flu vaccine. Neither the inactivated flu shot, nor the attenuated FluMist can actually cause a flu infection.

Did you get a little sore at the site where you got your flu shot?

That’s a common side effect to getting a flu shot.

So is having some redness and swelling at the site, all of which begin soon after getting the shot and go away in a few days. You can also get a headache, fever, nausea, and muscle aches or signs and symptoms of an allergic reaction.

Do you have a runny nose or a cough? Side effects of the nasal spray flu vaccine can include a few days of runny nose, wheezing, headache, vomiting, muscle aches, fever, sore throat and cough.

Again, a bad cough and cold after a flu shot isn’t a side effect of the vaccine though.

Remember, correlation does not imply causation.

If you found out you were pregnant shortly after getting a flu shot, you wouldn’t think they were associated, would you?

What about narcolepsy?

“An increased risk of narcolepsy was found following vaccination with Pandemrix, a monovalent 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccine that was used in several European countries during the H1N1 influenza pandemic.”

Narcolepsy Following Pandemrix Influenza Vaccination in Europe

Although the focus has been on the Pandemrix flu vaccine as a trigger for narcolepsy in some countries (the vaccine wasn’t used in the United States), interestingly, several countries that weren’t using the vaccine also saw a spike in narcolepsy cases as the 2009 H1N1 pandemic hit.

Doctors and pharmacies rarely give away flu shots for free. They might not charge a copay sometimes because they are getting paid by your insurance company!
Doctors and pharmacies rarely give away flu shots for free. They might not charge a copay sometimes because they are getting paid by your insurance company!

What about all of the reports of severe reactions and deaths after getting a flu shot that you might hear about? In addition to vaccine injury stories, those reports are to VAERS and typically are not causally related to getting a vaccine.

Why are there so many reports to VAERS and the NVICP about flu vaccines? Since 2006, over 1.6 trillion doses of flu vaccine have been distributed in the United States, which equals about the total of all other vaccines we use.

What Are the Side Effects of This Year’s Flu Shot

Even when folks understand that flu vaccines don’t typically cause serious side effects, the question always comes up whether or not this year’s flu shot is causing more side effects than usual.

That’s actually not unreasonable, even when you consider that the biggest change in most flu vaccines from year to year is the strain of flu viruses they include, and not any of the other ingredients.

In addition to the Pandemrix flu vaccine, in 2010, the use of one brand of flu vaccines in Australia was suspended because they were causing more side effects (fever and febrile seizures) in young children than expected.

“The studies flesh out preliminary findings from CSL in June 2012, which said that the manufacturing process retained more virus component than that of other manufacturers and that the 2010 virus components triggered an excessive immune response in some young kids.”

CSL studies shed light on 2010 flu vaccine seizures

So are there any more side effects this year?

No, there is no evidence of increased side effects from this year’s flu vaccines

More on Flu Vaccine Side Effects

Autoimmunity as a Contraindication to Getting Vaccinated

Can your kids get vaccinated if they have an autoimmune disease?

Can your kids get vaccinated if you or another family member have an autoimmune disease?

Folks shouldn't be using 23andMe DNA testing to justify their not wanting to vaccinate their kids.
Folks shouldn’t be using 23andMe DNA testing to justify their not wanting to vaccinate their kids.

Can your kids get vaccinated if you did one of those 23andMe genetic risk type tests?

“Risks associated with use of the 23andMe GHR tests include false positive findings, which can occur when a person receives a result indicating incorrectly that he or she has a certain genetic variant, and false negative findings that can occur when a user receives a result indicating incorrectly that he or she does not have a certain genetic variant. Results obtained from the tests should not be used for diagnosis or to inform treatment decisions. Users should consult a health care professional with questions or concerns about results.”

FDA allows marketing of first direct-to-consumer tests that provide genetic risk information for certain conditions

Not surprisingly, in almost all cases, the answer is yes.

Autoimmunity as a Contraindication to Getting Vaccinated

That doesn’t mean that there aren’t some true medical reasons that kids shouldn’t be vaccinated.

“Contraindications (conditions in a recipient that increases the risk for a serious adverse reaction) and precautions to vaccination are conditions under which vaccines should not be administered. Because the majority of contraindications and precautions are temporary, vaccinations often can be administered later when the condition leading to a contraindication or precaution no longer exists. A vaccine should not be administered when a contraindication is present; for example, MMR vaccine should not be administered to severely immunocompromised persons. However, certain conditions are commonly misperceived as contraindications (i.e., are not valid reasons to defer vaccination).”

Vaccine Recommendations and Guidelines of the ACIP

Which autoimmune diseases are listed as contraindications to get vaccinated?

None.

Which autoimmune diseases are listed as precautions to get vaccinated?

There are just a few, including Guillain-Barré syndrome (DTaP, Tdap, and flu vaccines) and thrombocytopenic purpura (MMR), but they typically don’t mean that you can’t still get vaccinated. And the general precaution to avoid getting a vaccine during “moderate or severe acute illness with or without fever” would apply to a time when you are acutely sick with your autoimmune disease, but you would get vaccinated once your symptoms were under better control.

Other things about autoimmune diseases are simply misperceived as being contraindications or precautions to getting vaccinated. Or they are pushed as anti-vaccine propaganda to scare you away from getting vaccinated and protected or to help you get a fake medical exemption.

“…vaccines are able to prevent some infections in MS patients known to accelerate the progression of the disease and increase the risk of relapses.”

Mailand et al on Vaccines and multiple sclerosis: a systemic review

For example, not only do vaccines not cause multiple sclerosis, they are recommended because they can prevent vaccine-preventable diseases that can make the disease worse for many people.

And flu shots and other vaccines are highly recommended for kids with diabetes, as they are at high risk for flu complications.

Vaccines are safe and necessary, even, and sometimes especially, if you have an autoimmune disease.

And having a predisposition for an autoimmune disease, either because of your child’s family history, or because of the results of some genetic testing kit you ordered on the internet, certainly isn’t a reason to skip or delay your child’s vaccines and leave them unprotected. You’re not avoiding any of the triggers that can cause autoimmune disease and simply increase the risk that they will get a vaccine-preventable disease and get others sick.

More on Autoimmunity as a Contraindication to Getting Vaccinated

I’m Not Anti-Vaccine, I Just Don’t Believe in Flu Shots

Do you know any of these folks?

“I’m not anti-vaccine, I just don’t believe in flu shots.”

They likely get all other available vaccines for themselves and their kids, but for some reason, they skip the flu shot each year.

I’m Not Anti-Vaccine, I Just Don’t Believe in Flu Shots

Are they just anti-flu vaccine? Is that a thing?

Gloria Copeland told her followers that they didn’t need flu vaccinations because Jesus already “redeemed us from the curse of the flu.”
Gloria Copeland told her followers that they didn’t need flu vaccinations because Jesus already “redeemed us from the curse of the flu.”

Why don’t they “believe” in flu shots?

Typical answers you might get, if you ask, include:

  • I never get the flu – since about 5 to 20% of people get the flu each year, it is certainly possible that you never get the flu, especially if you aren’t around many other people that could spread the flu virus to you. But unless you live and work in a bubble, there is a good chance that you will eventually be exposed to someone with the flu, might catch the flu yourself, and will spread it to someone else.
  • I only get sick when I get a flu shot – flu shots are inactivated and can’t actually give you the flu. Even the live virus nasal mist flu vaccine won’t cause you to have the flu. While flu vaccines can cause mild flu side effects, if you get sick after after a flu shot, it could be that you have another respiratory virus, your flu vaccine didn’t have time to work, or that it wasn’t effective.
  • I don’t need a flu shot – you do, if you want to reduce  your chances of getting the flu and having serious complications from a flu infection, which can affect anyone.
  • I got a flu shot last year – you need a flu vaccine each year
  • Flu vaccines don’t work – flu vaccines aren’t perfect, but they can reduce your risk of catching the flu and avoiding serious complications, even if you do get sick.
  • Flu shots are too expensive – most insurance plans cover the costs of flu vaccines, but  if you don’t have insurance, it is sometimes possible to find free flu shots at a local health clinic, or you could get a flu shot for $24 at Walmart with a GoodRx coupon.
  • I don’t have time to get a flu shot – do you have time to get sick with the flu? Many doctors now offer regular flu clinics that make it convenient to just come in and get a flu vaccine or if that isn’t possible, you can likely get a flu vaccine at a nearby pharmacy.
  • Someone on the Internet told me to never get a flu shot because they are poison – if you are avoiding a flu vaccine because you are worried about thimerosal, miscarriages, that they contain a vaginal spermicide, or other misinformation, then you likely aren’t just anti-flu vaccine…
  • Gloria Copeland told me I didn’t need one – Jesus didn’t give us a flu shot and doesn’t want you to die with the flu, or measles.

Stop making excuses, none of which hold water.

Get your flu vaccine, preferably before flu season starts and you start seeing flu activity in your area.

More on Being Anti-Flu Vaccine

Is AFM a Form of Transverse Myelitis?

Acute Flaccid Myelitis (AFM) is a form of acute flaccid paralysis.

“AFM can be difficult to diagnose because it shares many of the same symptoms as other neurologic diseases, like transverse myelitis and Guillain-Barre syndrome. With the help of testing and examinations, doctors can distinguish between AFM and other neurologic conditions.”

About Acute Flaccid Myelitis

AFM is not transverse myelitis, Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS), or Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis (ADEM) though, although anti-vaccine folks are trying hard to make a connection.

Is AFM a Form of Transverse Myelitis?

AFM is similar to transverse myelitis, in that they both affect a person’s spinal cord, but a big difference is that TM results from “an immune-mediated inflammatory attack of a person’s spinal cord.”

“This report and others indicate that AFM represents a unique subset of acute flaccid paralysis distinct from GBS and transverse myelitis. GBS typically presents with an ascending paralysis and can be associated with facial paralysis and sensory symptoms. Children with transverse myelitis have weakness and prominent sensory loss, often manifest as a spinal sensory level. By contrast, the majority of children with AFM have focal, poliomyelitis-like spinal cord paralysis with minimal or no sensory symptoms.”

Recognition and Management of Acute Flaccid Myelitis in Children

And AFM has different symptoms from both TM and GBS.

So why try to connect AFM with TM, GBS, and ADEM? Because they think that vaccines cause TM, GBS, and ADEM.

They don’t. Just like vaccines don’t cause AFM.

There is no proof in package inserts that vaccines cause AFM.
There is no proof in package inserts that vaccines cause AFM.

But can’t you find some of these things listed in the package insert for some vaccines?

Yes, but when mentioned in a vaccine’s package insert, like for autism, SIDS, or meningitis, it is in the section where it is clear that it is “without regard to causality.”

AFM is not transverse myelitis and neither are caused by vaccines.

We will hopefully learn what is causing the latest cases of AFM soon.

More on AFM and Transverse Myelitis

Three Reasons to Skip a Flu Shot This Year

We sometimes hear that folks are going to skip their yearly flu vaccine because they don’t believe in flu shots, they never get sick, or they think that flu shots don’t work or are dangerous.

Some nurses and doctors are refusing to get a flu shot and have to wear masks at work.
Some nurses and doctors are refusing to get a flu shot and have to wear masks at work.

Of course, none of those are good reasons.

Three Reasons to Skip a Flu Shot This Year

Flu vaccines are safe and have many benefits, even if they aren’t any where near 100% effective.

So are there any legitimate reasons to skip a flu shot?

Of course.

In fact, three very good reasons to skip a flu shot include:

  1. being younger than 6 months of age
  2. having a severe allergic reaction (e.g., anaphylaxis) after a previous dose of flu vaccine or to any component of the flu vaccine
  3. and, uh…

Actually, although folks might have many of bad excuses, there are only two good reasons to skip a flu shot…

So, infants who aren’t old enough to be vaccinated yet, and anyone who has had a life-threatening reaction to a previous dose.

Additional precautions, but not true contraindications, do including having had Guillain-Barré syndrome <6 weeks after a previous dose of influenza vaccine and having a moderate or severe acute illness with or without fever when you are planning to get vaccinated.

What about egg allergies?

Even if you have had a severe reaction to eggs, you can still get a flu shot. Just get it get it in an inpatient or outpatient medical setting (such as a hospital, clinic, health department, or physician’s office), so that you can be supervised by a health care provider who is able to recognize and manage severe allergic reactions.

Bad Reasons to Skip a Flu Shot

Are you scared of shots? Flumist is back.

Are you skipping the flu shot because you never get sick? How lucky do you feel this year? Don’t continue to gamble that you won’t get the flu. Increase your chances of staying well by getting a flu shot, the best way to avoid the flu.

There aren’t any natural alternatives that work better, no matter how hard you want to believe that going to a chiropractor, using essential oils, or homeopathic remedies might be helpful.

The flu vaccine doesn’t weaken your immune system.

There are no hidden or harmful ingredients in flu vaccines.

The flu vaccine is not going to give you the flu.

And the flu is definitely not a mild disease! There were 176 pediatric flu deaths last flu season, and as in most years, most were unvaccinated.

Don’t wait. Get your flu shot.

More on Flu Vaccine Contraindications