"Protecting the health and informed consent rights of children since 1982."

Contact: Barbara Loe Fisher
703-938-0342

For Immediate Release
August 30, 2001


NATIONAL VACCINE INFORMATION CENTER CALLS FOR FULL PUBLIC DISCLOSURE OF CDC VACCINE STUDY DATA

Characterizing the CDC study on DPT and MMR vaccine-induced brain seizures published in today's New England Journal of Medicine as "methodologically flawed" and the conclusions "dangerous and irresponsible," the National Vaccine Information Center is calling for the CDC to immediately release the study data for independent scientific and public review.

The study found "significantly elevated risks of febrile seizures after
receipt of DPT vaccine or MMR vaccine" within 24 hours to 14 days after vaccination. The conclusion of the authors, however, was that "these risks do not appear to be associated with any long term adverse consequences" even though at least 25 children who had seizures in the study were later diagnosed with learning or developmental disabilities, including ADHD, speech and language disorders.

NVIC president Barbara Loe Fisher said, "The bottom line is that children who get DPT and MMR vaccines are more likely to suffer brain seizures. And if these children are re-vaccinated, they can end up brain damaged or dead.   For CDC officials to try to suggest that brain seizures after vaccination or for any other reason do not cause permanent brain damage contradicts the evidence in more than 100 years of medical literature; the landmark prospective, case-controlled National Childhood Encephalopathy Study conducted in Britain; the historic 1991 and 1994 reports by the Institute of Medicine on vaccine adverse events; the 1998 study by public health officials confirming that measles and MMR vaccine is associated with permanent neurological damage, including seizures; and the nearly 15 years of awards made to vaccine injured children under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986," said Barbara Loe Fisher, NVIC co-founder and president.

The National Vaccine Information Center points out that the study
conclusions are misleading because they are based on comparing the neurodevelopmental health of children who had febrile seizures after vaccination with those who had febrile seizures for other reasons rather than looking at the neurodevelopmental health of children without a history of seizures or vaccination. NVIC is questioning the use of the closed CDC-operated Vaccine Safety Datalink database as a valid means of drawing scientific conclusions about vaccine risks.

"The Vaccine Safety Datalink project is a closed database operated by the CDC in collaboration with HMO's. CDC officials have steadfastly refused to make the raw data from the database available to independent researchers or the public for independent analysis. The test of good science is reproducibility and validation. The extraordinary claims of this study cannot be reproduced and, therefore, cannot be trusted," said Fisher.

The National Vaccine Information Center is a non-profit educational organization founded by parents of vaccine-injured children in 1982.