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Five-in-one vaccine led to child deaths in Sri Lanka - BMJ

July 29, 2010  03:01 pm

The pentavalent or the five-in-one vaccine that has been recommended in India by the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization actually killed children in Sri Lanka and Bhutan, warns an article in the latest issue of the British Medical Journal (BMJ).

 

The report by a group, including paediatricians, professors, health activists and a former Indian health secretary, cautions against the introduction of the five-in-one vaccine that combines antigens against five diseases - diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus (DPT), hepatitis B and Haemophilus Influenzae type B (HIB) - in a single shot.

“Our article describes how the World Health Organisation (WHO), in an elaborate cover-up, changed its own criteria for classifying adverse effects to say the vaccine was not responsible for the deaths in Sri Lanka,” Jacob Puliyel, head of paediatrics at St Stephen’s Hospital in Delhi and key author, told IANS.

Former union health secretary K.B. Saxena, professors of community health in Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi Debabar Banerji, Imrana Qadeer and Ritu Priya, co-conveners of All India Drug Action Network Mira Shiva and Gopal Dabade and former adviser in finance ministry N.J. Kurian are the other authors of the report.

The authors point out that the pentavalent vaccine was withdrawn in Sri Lanka in April 2008 after 25 serious adverse reactions that included five deaths and Bhutan stopped its use within two months of introduction in July 2009 after eight deaths.

Bhutan has so far resisted pressure from WHO to restart immunisation but Sri Lanka reintroduced the vaccine this year after a WHO expert panel, which investigated the events, declared that the vaccine was ‘unlikely’ to have caused the deaths.

The panel, however, could not conclusively attribute the deaths to any other cause.
However, Puliyel and co-authors who obtained the full report of the investigation say the WHO panel in Sri Lanka did not follow the standard protocol of the UN agency for classification of adverse events following immunisation but instead used its own method.

 

 
The authors point out that the Sri Lankan deaths would have been classified as ‘very likely’ or ‘probably’ related to the vaccine, had the standard WHO classification been employed.

Changing its own criteria for classifying adverse effects following vaccination is “an elaborate cover up” by WHO to remove any connection between pentavalent vaccine and the deaths in Sri Lanka, alleges Puliyel.

The authors also ask the wider question whether this new classification of adverse events adopted for Sri Lanka should be allowed to replace the standard WHO classification.

If so, deaths occurring following any vaccination will almost always be blamed on something else and not the vaccine and “lives may thus be put at risk,” they say.
The article also questions the need for HIB vaccine in the country, saying WHO’s own  studies have shown that the incidence of the disease in India is lower than projected  and studies elsewhere in Asia show that the vaccine does not significantly reduce the burden of disease compared with placebo.

Another letter published in the same journal notes that there have also been three deaths in Pakistan -- one child who died within half an hour of receiving the pentavalent vaccine and two others who passed away within 14 hours of the administration.
“In no case was the vaccine blamed and no alternate cause of death was found for any of the deaths,” says its author S.K. Mittal, chairman of paediatrics department at Pushpanjali Crossway Hospital in Ghaziabad, near Delhi.

Mittal says that although Pakistan reintroduced the vaccine on assurance from WHO that the deaths were not related to it, “the large cluster of ‘sudden deaths’ in Asia, following immunisation with pentavalent vaccine needs to be investigated dispassionately before more lives are lost”.

^IANS

Viewer Comments

July 29, 2010  03:09 pm

the government should realize one thing. our children are not lab mice, and Sri Lanka should not be WHO´s testing grounds. stop this killer vaccine immediately.

padmika

July 29, 2010  03:41 pm

Government is not worried about people dyeing of vaccine, they are only worried about their pockets getting filled up.

Kamalanath

July 29, 2010  03:56 pm

It´s really sad to hear that we are used for testings.

manura

July 29, 2010  04:22 pm

Many WHO experts are corrupt. They will do any thing for money. Many occasions WHO experts were bribed by drug manufacturers to promote their product. This is a multi-million business. They were bribed by vaccine manufacturers to declare human Swine Flu as an epidemic. By that drug companies were managed to sell millions of vaccines and earn millions.

Selvem

July 29, 2010  04:27 pm

Hon.Nimal Siripala, I think you being the Assemble President of the WHO should stand up & say a few words on this issue. After all these are the lovely children of your fellow countrymen that are being killed by your prestige body as "LAB RATS"!!!!

Vishan Alvis

July 29, 2010  04:45 pm

I think GoSL need to do more study before anything administered to our children. Having said that this BMJ report does not give any percentage or any idea about "Children deaths". Children death happened due to various reasons. In fact not administering vaccine too will lead to deaths. How many percentage deaths due to this. Was it 2% and now 1%? or elase was it 1% and now 4%. As parent we need fool proof medicine to our children. No percentage is acceptable. But we must be careful about BMJ report which are coming from europe. These europian reports (although with Indian authors)will cast doubt about Asian drugs not becuase of safety becuase of commercial reasons that Europe drugs gradully go out of market since they are expensive and they make hell of a big profit. GoSL should look into all aspect of this report. We can not risk lives of our children.

Chrishanthi Gunathileka

July 29, 2010  05:28 pm

The Medicine business is a multy national concern, involve tests & experiments in third world countries where politicians accept kickbacks to exploit our children with substandard medicine.

M.H.Sheriff

July 29, 2010  06:41 pm

No matter who recommend it, all these vaccines and drugs have to be tested domestically too before it is distributed to kids.

Dilan

July 29, 2010  11:20 pm

The government should take immediate steps to take legal actions against this crime.

Ruwan

July 30, 2010  12:17 am

These all-in-one vaccines are meeting increasing resistance in Western countries since they were found to be connected with autism. Now the drug companies are targeting the developing world. But with the level of nutrition available to our children, they don´t develop autism, they just die.

Dhanushka Sandahewa

July 30, 2010  05:25 am

Who ever did this study has been collected data from a mouchary not from real sources. Sri Lanka is in the top in amoung the child health. If 1 died out of 5 there shoud be many child death funeral around the country in many days. This is a simply a bulshit like the news from free media journalist

Lalith

July 30, 2010  08:10 am

@ Lalith : are you willing to take your child to the peadiatrician (if you are blessed with any) & tell the doctor to administer this viral. After all "bul****" will never be used in our country...isn´t it? Good luck if you got the guts!!

Vishan Alvis

July 31, 2010  03:03 pm

It is true that sometimes people in developing countries being used as ´lab rats´. Anyway that autism story (with MMR vaccine) mentioned by Mr. Dhanushka is not a true one. Although that research article was published in lancet medical journal, later revealed that that doctor who did the study has deliberately changed the data to get a positive result. Then the lancet withdrew the article and that doctor migrated out of the country.

Rangana

August 1, 2010  06:07 am

I think we all should read this article critically before coming to a final conclusion. (I didn´t have an opprtunity to read it yet).

Mahesh