Friday April 23, 2010

AVN Media Release - Saturday 24th April 2010

Do WA parents know that their children were part of a vaccine study? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Australian Vaccination Network (AVN), Australia's national vaccination and health safety watchdog, would like to ask if the parents of Western Australia whose children were vaccinated against seasonal flu - with such devastating effect - are aware that their children were part of a study funded by the vaccine manufacturers CSL Pty Ltd and Sanofi Pasteur? (1a,1b)

This study, run via the Telethon Institute and initiated in 2008 at a cost of $1.2 million, was put together to pre-emptively determine if flu vaccines were effective in children.

"One has to wonder about the ethics involved when children are offered a new vaccine which has never been used in this age group before as part of a study funded by the vaccine's manufacturers and parents aren't even told. Especially when the State Government has pushed so hard to get parents to agree to this vaccine - even sending personal letters out to families with children in this age range using information from the Medicare database." says Meryl Dorey, media spokesperson for the AVN.

Unanswered questions:

Yesterday, the AVN submitted a series of questions to West Australia's Health Minister and Shadow Health Minister. Though the Shadow Minister has responded to say that he has submitted our questions to the Department of Health, we have not received any response from the Minister's office. Below are the questions we feel need to be answered.

1- Is the AH1N1 portion of these vaccines recycled from the unused doses of last year's swine flu shots.? If so, considering that those shots are now at or past their use-by date, could this be the cause of the current problem?

2- Is this vaccine being administered from multi-dose or single dose vials? If we are using multi-dose vials, why was that decision made since the risk of cross-infection and also the risk from the mercury-based preservative, thiomersal, are unnecessary in a non-emergency situation?

3- Is the vaccine used in WA the same vaccine being used across Australia and if so, are these sorts of reactions being reported in other locations?

4- Were all of these vaccines administered in a particular clinic setting or were they distributed across WA?

5- Can the government release the Lot and Batch numbers of the vaccines associated with this cluster of reactions so that others can be made aware that it might be a hot lot?

6- Has there been a higher-than normal rate of reactions reported in adults and adolescents who are receiving seasonal flu vaccines this year?

7- Did the 45 children who reacted to these shots over the last couple of days receive any other vaccines at the same time as their seasonal flu shots?

8- Is the West Australian government aware of the published results of a recent 40-year retrospective study conducted by the Cochrane Collaboration into the effectiveness of influenza vaccines in children? The results are displayed in the following graphs:

Dr Thomas Jefferson who is a worldwide expert on influenza vaccines and who worked on this retrospective study, reported in the British Medical Journal that, "In children under 2 years inactivated vaccines had the same field efficacy as placebo,8 and in healthy people under 65 vaccination did not affect hospital stay, time off work, or death from influenza and its complications." (2)

"While there may be hundreds and even thousands of children and adults who have already reacted to this year's seasonal flu vaccine (The Perth Now (3) forum has had almost 300 comments posted regarding this issue - the majority of those from people whose children have had reactions), it is essential that the government immediately put together a task-force to investigate how the decision was made to use this vaccine, what independent research was available to show that it was either safe or effective and what role - if any - the vaccine manufacturers played in introducing this vaccine to the childhood schedule." Ms Dorey stated.

1. a) Government of Western Australia, Department of Health, Media Release 15th February 2008, Free vaccines to help fight child influenza. b) Government of Western Australia, Director of the Department of Health, 2008, Dr. Paul Van Buynder. (2) BMJ 2006;333:912-915 (28 October), doi:10.1136/bmj.38995.531701.80 (3) http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/was-free-influenza-vaccination-program-has-been-suspended-for-children-under-five/story-e6frg12c-1225857140885