Disciplinary Action to be Taken Against Medics Who Vaccinated Contraindicated Girl, Who Then Died As a Result
Healthcare and Nutrition Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva yesterday instructed National Drugs Control Authority Chairman Dr. Hemantha Benaragama to take disciplinary action against the medical staff of the Kurunegala Teaching Hospital who had allegedly not done enough to save the life of a school girl at Wariyapola. The victim died at the hospital after rubella vaccination was administered to her on October 12.
Minister de Silva also instructed Dr. Benaragama to submit a report on the death of the 12-year-old girl Ashanti Wasana Prematilaka of the Minuwangetta Maha Vidyalaya who succumbed to complications developed after the rubella vaccination.
Ministry spokesman W.M.D. Wanninayaka said the initial inquiry conducted by the Investigation Division of the Ministry had found there had been negligence on the part of the medical staff who attended to the girl.
“It has been revealed that the Wariyapola MOH failed to check the girl before the vaccination even after the parents had informed him the girl was allergic to injections. They have not given the girl the necessary drugs that had been stored in the Emergency Tray even after the victim had developed Anaphylactic Shock following the vaccination,” Wanninayaka said.
The Minister will take strict disciplinary action against those if found guilty of medical negligence, he said. The suspended school rubella vaccination programme will be resumed after tests carried out on the rubella vaccines being carried out at a prestigious medical laboratory in Canberra, Australia are reported he said
Wanninayaka added suppliers of injections which contained rubber band and pieces of plastic would be blacklisted before a formal inquiry.
Source: Daily Mirror, 26 November 2009.
8 Year Old Boy Dies After MMR and DPT Vaccines, Parents Make Official Complaint That They Were Not Warned of The Dangers of Vaccination
The National Ombudsman, Alex Brenninkmeijer, will
investigate complaints of parents whose 8-year old son is deceased
after being vaccinated with the MMR-called DTP. That made the
ombudsman said Tuesday.
The National Institute for Health and Environment (RIVM), the parents
have not properly informed about the complications that can occur
after a vaccination. “They also complain about the RIVM the link
between the vaccination and the death of their son has been studied
insufficiently independent,” says Brenninkmeijer.
The family Hagoort out on March 9, 2009 Barendrecht had watched their
eight year old son Freek three days after an MMR-DTP vaccination and death.
Meanwhile there is already much attention to the sudden death of
Fletch, so devoted to TV A Day on May 22 this year a report on this
matter. Also there is now a website of the foundation know more about
Fletch.
Source:
http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/5460245/__Onderzoek_naar_dood_8-jarig_jongetje__.html?p=27,1
2 Month Old Baby Dies After Hep B, DPT, oral Polio Vaccines
A two-month-old baby girl died a day after she was administered oral pulse polio drops along with Hepatitis B vaccine and DPT (Diphtheria, Pertussis and Tetanus) vaccine at a health post in Bhandup, on Saturday morning. The family of the infant, Dhrushti Pingle, alleged that the death was caused by the vaccines.
Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s immunization in charge Dr Mangala Gomare confirmed the death but said it could be due to other reasons. “It could be an adverse event following immunization. Right now we cannot comment whether it is related or just a co-incidence. It is true that the baby was healthy before the immunization, however, only after we get the post mortem reports, can we be sure about the cause of death.”
The family alleged that Dhrushti’s death was due to the vaccines. “She was a healthy baby. At 11 pm on Saturday she suddenly started crying while playing and her nose started bleeding too. We rushed her to Rajawadi Hospital around 3 am on Sunday but she died early in the morning,” said Pandurang Patil, Dhrushti’s uncle.
Source: Indian Express, 7th December 2009.
18 Year Old Killed By Gardasil Vaccine
Rhonda Renata is in no doubt about what caused the death of her daughter Jasmine.
The 18-year-old died last September 22 at her family home in Upper Hutt, apparently in her sleep.
Her grieving mother is still waiting for official answers on what happened to Jasmine but she doubts the medical investigations will provide them.
Her own inquiries have led her to cases overseas which she considers similar to Jasmine’s clutch of symptoms before she died.
In the United States, it has been alleged more than 10 deaths are linked to Gardasil.
Several lawsuits have been filed relating to paralysis of teenage girls, one of whom died.
She recalls her last night with Jasmine, which was the day she passed her restricted driver’s licence.
“She was really over the moon that day; she was quite stoked with herself.”
Jasmine picked her mother up from work and they went shopping and ate together before heading home.
“She gave me a hug and a kiss and said, ‘I love you’. I said, ‘Love you too’ and she went to bed.”
The next afternoon, Mrs Renata went to pick up Jasmine from work, but learned she had been absent. She found her dead in bed in her sleep-out.
She describes Jasmine as previously bubbly, happy and healthy.
But this began to change about a month after the first Gardasil dose in September 2008.
She progressively developed pains in various parts of her body, had an episode of her heart racing, weak arms, tingling in her hands and legs, and became tired and irritable.
Jasmine had been having three-monthly injections of the contraceptive Depo-Provera but had not had any difficulties with that or the meningococcal-B vaccine.
Source: nzherald.co.nz, by Martin Johnston, 9 January 2010.
Parents of Baby Killed By DPT Vaccine Create Riot Outside Police Station (Good For Them!)
Following the death of a two-and-half-month old newly born child after he was allegedly administered the wrong DPT (Diphtheria Tetanus
Pertussis) vaccine by an ANM at the PHC in Bidhnoo, relatives of the deceased created ruckus outside Bidhnoo police station here on Thursday.
They demanded the officials at the Bidhnoo police station to register an FIR against the ANM, Reena Pandey, who had allegedly administered the vaccine.
The victim, Chotu, son of Shyam Sunder Shukla, a resident of Bidhnoo, Madarsa later died in the night. As the death news reached the village, locals gathered in front of the Bidhnoo police station on Thursday morning and demanded immediate arrest of the ANM, Reena Pandey. The police officials, however, requested the protesters to maintain peace and assured them of prompt action in the case.
“Relatives of the victim have submitted a written complaint against the accused. The ANM has not yet been arrested. The body of the victim has been sent for an autopsy,” said a police official at the Bidhnoo police station. The police said they are now awaiting the post-mortem examination report for further investigation.
The chief medical officer Dr Ashok Mishra said: “A team that was sent to the village conducted a probe, in this regard and discovered that the child was suffering from pneumonia.” We will then also investigate the matter, added another senior district health official while talking to TOI.
Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kanpur/Relatives-create-ruckus-over-death-of-baby-/articleshow/5421271.cms
2 Year Old Dies After Polio Drops
A two-year-old boy died soon after polio drops were administered to him at a polio immunisation camp at a school here as part of a state-wide immunisation drive, the District Collector said today.
The boy, Vijai, had been admitted to hospital on January 3 for wheezing and was subsequently treated and discharged. He was given polio drops yesterday at the camp and went about playing, but soon developed wheezing problems again and died, District Collector Sugandh told reporters.
Immediately after his death, the polio immunisation camp at the school was stopped and samples of the batch sent for examination. The expiry date was checked and was found to be within the time limit, she said.
Source: Press Trust of India, 11 January 2010.
Five Deaths in Sri Lanka and They’ve Suspended Pentavalent Vaccine
Two months after being introduced nationwide, the health ministry has alerted all hospitals to immediately stop vaccinating infants with the pentavalent vaccine, because it may have side effects.
The circular, which was sent on October 23, states, “… the use of pentavalent vaccine should be stopped immediately due to some side effects. All adverse events following on immunisation (AEFI) must be strengthened, reported and investigated.”
The ministry’s media spokesperson, Kado Zangpo, said that, while the investigation is on, health centres will continue to immunise infants the way it was done before the introduction of pentavalent vaccine. “We have asked the world health organisation to come and do the investigations,” said the spokesperson.
Pentavalent vaccine was introduced to protect infants against pneumonia, one of the leading causes of death in children under 15 years in Bhutan, and meningitis. It’s a combination of vaccines against diphtheria, whooping cough (pertussis), tetanus, hepatitis-B and the haemophilus influenza type B (Hib) germ.
Details regarding the side effects are, however, sketchy. The ministry will be briefing the press with more details today at 2:00 pm, said health officials.
Doctors say that no vaccine is free of side effects and that they change when vaccines are combined. Vaccines generally cause pain in the place of injection, swelling, redness, irritability and fever. Some are serious like allergies and can be fatal, say doctors.
Bhutan received a total of 30,200 pentavalent vaccines from the global alliance for vaccine initiative (GAVI), which can vaccinate 1,100 babies. In a year, about 13,600 newborns are immunised across the country.
All unused vaccines will be collected by the ministry’s cold van, according to the circular. But, while some district hospitals have collected their unused stock of pentavalent vaccines, in some, the collection is still on.
Pemagatshel, for example, which received 300 doses, has a leftover of 180 ready to be returned. But, Trashigang, one of the largest districts, is still collecting vaccines from health units in the far-flung areas.
Last year in April, Sri Lanka withdrew the pentavalent vaccine as a precautionary measure, following five reports of fatal AEFIs and 20 reports of non-fatal AEFIs. However, the report of the WHO expert panel that reviewed the data found no evidence of a relationship between the pentavalent vaccine and any of the five deaths reported. The vaccine remains on the list of WHO prequalified vaccines and Sri Lanka resumed the vaccination from this year.
This is the first time, a vaccine has been stopped in Bhutan since the extended program for immunisation (EPI) was launched in 1979.
Side effects of pentavalent vaccine
Non-fatal AEFIs, described as hypotonic hypo responsive episode (HHE), are a recognised adverse reaction to such vaccines. HHE is characterised by sudden onset of reduced muscle tone, hypo responsiveness and pallor or cyanosis, a condition in which the skin becomes bluish because of a lack of oxygen in the blood.
Studies have shown that HHE lasts for a short period and has no long-term consequences for the child. In Sri Lanka, a “hyper-response” was observed in a number of children, who were given the vaccination.
Source: Kuensel Online, 28 October 2009, by Sonam Pelden.
Shipley family believes fits were triggered by measles jab
Tragic mum Tracy Swatton could have died from a fatal fit brought on by a ‘one-in-20 million’ reaction to a jab she had when she was four, her family believe.
The 37-year-old was found on the bedroom floor by her husband Tom when he came home from work.
Her sudden death has left her family distraught.
Her mum, Jean Green, of Briggate, Shipley, said her “happy go lucky daughter” had been blighted by epilepsy ever since she had a measles jab.
Despite medical research finding no statistical connections between measles jabs and epilepsy, the family are convinced her jab triggered it.
Former Telegraph & Argus columnist Dr Tom Smith said it would have been such a rare reaction that the chances of it happening would have been one in 20 million.
The fact that her symptoms began six days after the jab meant it could be a possibility, he said, even though the onset year of childhood epilepsy is four.
Typically any reaction to the measles vaccine, usually a fine rash and slight fever, happens six days to the hour of it being given.
“The chances of it triggering epilepsy are so small, that it must be about one in 20 million,” said Dr Smith.
Mrs Green said: “Tracy was perfectly healthy until five or six days after the jab when she started flickering her eyes and the fits followed. We’ve always blamed the jab for it. Even the doctors advised her not to let her sons have measles jabs.”
Doctors put her on medication after the epilepsy was diagnosed but the fits continued throughout her life – in 2005 she was hospitalised when she had 197 fits in a week.
More recently her fits had decreased to two a week, said Mrs Green.
“Only the day before she died we’d been laughing and joking together. She hadn’t been feeling too good for a few days and had been to see her doctor. When her husband Tom went to work that morning she’d taken her tablets and gone back to bed but when he came home he found her on the floor.”
Source: The Telegraph and Argus, by Kathie Griffiths, 1st February 2010.
Two Babies a Year Die From Vaccines in the UK
TWO children a year die after routine vaccinations, research has shown.
In some cases the Government has awarded parents up to £100,000 under its Vaccine Damage Payment Act 1979. In others, post mortem examinations concluded that the injection was the most likely cause of death.
The figures, compiled by vaccine damage support group Jabs, come in the wake of last month’s decision by the General Medical Council that Dr Andrew Wakefield, who sparked the MMR controversy, acted “dishonestly and irresponsibly”. The research also found that it has become more difficult to get compensation for vaccine damage despite no drop in the number of children being affected.
There were 970 payments made between 1979 and 1994, about 65 a year, to parents of damaged children.
Since then there have been only 28 payments, approximately two successful claims a year. Critics say this is because the criteria for making a claim have become so strict. Peter Fletcher, former chief scientific officer for the Department of Health, is demanding an overhaul of the payment system.
He said: “We need to point out in easy language that vaccines have always had a level of adverse effects.
“However, it is hard to meet the standard of proof to win compensation and awards have been miserly.”
Julie Roberts, 40, whose daughter Stacey died after an MMR jab, said: “The Government should take responsibility. It has never given proper warnings of the risk and still doesn’t despite the evidence.”
Source: The Express, 7 February 2010
VAN UK’S Comment: The 2 deaths a year are only the number of cases that win compensation, which is almost impossible to do and the number of reported reactions is about 10% of the actual figure so the death rate will be much higher.
77 Babies out of 2871 Die in BCG Vaccine Trial, Which is then Stopped. No Charges Brought Against Researchers
Objective To determine whether BCG revaccination at 19 months of age reduces overall child mortality.
Design Randomised trial, with follow-up to age 5.
Setting A health project in Bissau, Guinea-Bissau, which maintains a health and demographic surveillance system in an urban area with 90 000 inhabitants.
Participants 2871 children aged 19 months to 5 years with low or no reactivity to tuberculin and who were not severely sick on the day of enrolment.
Intervention BCG vaccination or no vaccination (control).
Main outcome measure Hazard ratios for mortality.
Results 77 children died during follow-up. Compared with controls, the BCG revaccinated children had a hazard ratio of 1.20 (95% confidence interval 0.77 to 1.89). Two hundred and fifty children were admitted to hospital for the first time between enrolment and the end of the study, with an incidence rate ratio for BCG revaccinated children versus controls of 1.04 (0.81 to 1.33). The trial was stopped prematurely because of a cluster of deaths in the BCG arm of the study. This increase in mortality occurred at a time when many children had received missing vaccinations or vitamin A or iron supplementation; the hazard ratio for BCG revaccinated children compared with controls was 2.69 (1.05 to 6.88) in the period after these campaigns. Throughout the trial, the effect of BCG revaccination on mortality was significantly different (P=0.006) in children who had received diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP) booster vaccination before enrolment (hazard ratio 0.36, 0.13 to 0.99) and children who had not received the booster before enrolment (1.78, 1.04 to 3.04).
Conclusions There was no overall beneficial effect of being revaccinated with BCG. The effect of BCG revaccination on mortality might depend on other health interventions.
Source: BMJ 2010;340:c671
