Does vaccination cause disease?].

W Zingg

Medizinische Klinik, Universitätskinderklinik Zürich, Zürich. walter.zingg@kispi.unizh.ch

Therapeutische Umschau. Revue thérapeutique 2005 Oct

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Not many inventions in medical history have influenced our society as much as vaccination. The concept is old and simple. When Edward Jenner published his work on cowpox, "variolation" was quite common. In this procedure, pus of patients with mild smallpox was transferred to healthy individuals. Meanwhile smallpox has been eradicated worldwide. Diseases such as poliomyelitis, diphtheria or tetanus almost disappeared in industrialized countries. The same happened with epiglottitis and meningitis due to Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) after vaccination against Hib was introduced in Switzerland in 1990. This success was possible because of routine vaccination. Immunization is a save procedure and adverse events are much lower than complications in the natural course of the prevented diseases. However vaccinations were accused to cause diseases themselves such as asthma, multiple sclerosis, diabetes mellitus, chronic arthritis or autism. Hitherto no large cohort study or case-control-study was able to proof responsibility of vaccines in any of these diseases. Public media are eager to publish early data from surveillance reports or case reports which are descriptive and never a principle of cause and effect. In large controlled trials there was no proof that vaccination causes asthma, hepatitis-B-vaccination causes multiple sclerosis or macrophagic myofasciitis, Hib-vaccination causes diabetes mellitus, rubella-vaccination causes chronic arthritis, measles-mumps-rubella-vaccination causes gait disturbance or thiomersal causes autism. These results are rarely published in newspapers or television. Thus, many caring parents are left with negative ideas about immunization. Looking for the best for their children they withhold vaccination and give way to resurgence of preventable diseases in our communities. This must be prevented. There is more evidence than expected that vaccination is safe and this can and must be told to parents.