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.”
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.
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.
Consider a five-year-old in Maryland who recently came down with symptoms of AFM.
Was he recently vaccinated?
Nope. It had been some time since his four-year-old vaccines. Almost a year. And he had not gotten a flu vaccine yet.
What he did have were worsening symptoms about two weeks after he had seemed to get over a cold, something he has in common with most other kids with AFM.
“To try to pin a tragic yet uncommon neurological condition caused by enteroviruses on vaccines is dangerous and puts more kids at risk.”
Scott Krugman, MD
As with this case, the CDC reports no correlation with vaccines in the cases that they have investigated.
And remember, some of these kids have been unvaccinated!
That makes you wonder why some folks actually think that vaccines are associated with AFM, doesn’t it?
Why Do Some People Think That Vaccines Cause AFM?
That’s right, as you are likely suspecting, the usual suspects are pushing anti-vaccine propaganda and promoting the idea to scare parents away from vaccinating and protecting their kids.
“…there are many other reasons to suspect vaccine-related mechanisms of causation for AFM in the U.S., a primary one being that the scientific literature has documented paralysis as an adverse reaction to vaccination for decades!”
The Non-Polio Illness That “Looks Just Like Polio” by Lyn Redwood, RN, MSN, President, Children’s Health Defense
If any of these kids had recently gotten the oral polio vaccine, then sure, an adverse reaction to the vaccination would be at the top of the list of possible causes. After all, we know that VAPP can occur after OPV, but that vaccine hasn’t been used in the United States since 2000, when we switched to IPV.
Why do these folks think that they have it all figured out?
Vaccines are not causing AFM because of needle puncture wounds or tonsillectomies.
The AFM outbreaks happen at the beginning of the school year, when kids are all getting their shots, right?
Nope. They happen during the summer and early fall, peaking in August. And despite what some folks think, most parents don’t wait until the end of summer, just before school starts, to vaccinate their kids. Plus, most kids don’t even need vaccines before the start of the school year. Kids typically only get vaccines before starting kindergarten and middle school.
If it was flu shots, the peak would be in October and November, when most kids get their flu shots and we would continue to see cases through December and January.
Many anti-vaccine websites and Facebook groups are pushing the idea that vaccines cause AFM.
Of course, there is absolutely no evidence that flu vaccines, or any other vaccines, cause AFM.
What about the journal article that Brandy Vaughan posts as evidence?
“By reviewing vaccine-associated inflammatory diseases of the central nervous system, this study describes the current knowledge on whether the safety signal was coincidental, as in the case of multiple sclerosis with several vaccines, or truly reflected a causal link, as in narcolepsy with cataplexy following pandemic H1N1 influenza virus vaccination.”
Vaccine-associated inflammatory diseases of the central nervous system: from signals to causation
Even if you just read the abstract, as many folks do, you get a good idea where they are going with the article. It talks about how the claims of an association between multiple sclerosis and vaccines were proven to be purely coincidental.
“…there are many other reasons to suspect vaccine-related mechanisms of causation for AFM in the U.S., a primary one being that the scientific literature has documented paralysis as an adverse reaction to vaccination for decades!”
The Non-Polio Illness That “Looks Just Like Polio” by Lyn Redwood, RN, MSN, President, Children’s Health Defense
But isn’t acute flaccid myelitis listed as a possible side affect in the package inserts for our vaccines?
Uh, TRANSVERSE myelitis and ACUTE DISSEMINATED ENCEPHALOmyelitis are not the same as acute flaccid myelitis.
While it should be clear that AFM isn’t the same as ADEM and TM, it is very important to understand that even when those other conditions are listed in a package insert, it is in the section that is marked “without regard to causality.”
This isn’t evidence that vaccines cause AFM!
But didn’t the BMJ publish a study about Vaccines and the U.S. Mystery of Acute Flaccid Myelitis?
BMJ seems to allow anyone to publish responses to their articles online…
Nope. What they did is let someone publish what is essentially an online letter to the editor. And anti-vaccine folks are spreading it around like it is an actual BMJ study…
It’s no coincidence that anti-vaccine folks are trying so hard to associate the outbreaks of AFM with vaccines. What better way to scare folks and make them think that vaccines are dangerous?
AFM is all that anti-vaccine folks are talking about these days…
How are ‘we’ working on a vaccine for AFM if we don’t even know what causes AFM???
