Vaccine Disasters
Vaccines
[These are some they admitted to. The smallpox vaccine could be called a disaster of some magnitude, just by itself, not to mention the mostly vaccine disease called Spanish Flu, and the infamous Swine flu vaccine.]
See: Vaccination mistakes Withdrawn vaccines Hot lots Contaminants Vaccine production/manufacturing Vaccine storage
Swine
flu vaccine
[Media 1998] "133 Children Contract Tuberculosis in Southern Kazakhstan
(from vaccine)"
Diphtheria vaccines
[See
Diptheria]:
1."In
1919, at Dallas, Texas, U.S.A., ten children were killed and sixty
others made seriously ill by toxin-antitoxin which had passed the tests of
the New York State Health Department. The Mulford Company, at Philadelphia, the
manufacturers, paid damages in every case.
2. In 1924, twenty-five children in Bridgewater and twenty in
Concord, U.S.A., were
poisoned by toxin-antitoxin. Many had high fevers, and their arms turned black and swelled
to two or three times their normal size.
3. In 1924 (September) of 40 children immunised with toxin-antitoxin in a home for
infants at Baden, near Vienna, six died and a number suffered from skin necroses of
various sizes at the site of the injection.....
4. In 1928, the Lancet of February 4th (p. 249), refers to "a more recent
Russian disaster " (Bull. Hygiene, August 1927, p. 667) in which " 14
children received toxin in place of anatoxin (i.e., toxoid); eight of them died within two
weeks, four of polyneuritis within a month and two recovered after symptoms of general
intoxication."
5. In 1927 also there were five deaths in immunised children in
China, thirty-seven
others being made seriously ill.
6. In 1928, at Bundaberg, Australia, twelve children out of seventeen who were
inoculated with toxin-antitoxin died, the five others being critically ill for some time.
The material had been issued and declared safe by the Public Health Department of
Queensland.....
7. In 1930, at Medellin, Columbia, South America, forty-eight children were inoculated,
with the result that many were taken ill during the same night, one died the following
afternoon, fourteen others within sixty hours and two more within six weeks—a total
of sixteen deaths. ......
8. In 1932, at Charolles, in France, 172 children were immunised with anatoxin
(toxoid). All were taken ill soon afterwards, developing local abscesses with abundant
suppuration, necessitating surgical intervention in several cases. In one case the child
died. The parents of the children demanded an official enquiry, but no explanation of the
tragedy has so far been forthcoming.........
9. In the province of Chiavari over 80 inoculated children were gravely affected, some
being paralysed in arms and legs, others having their sight injured. One child died. In
Venice and Rovigo severe symptoms, including paralysis, supervened and death occurred in
ten cases."--Beddow
Bayley (1939
Book: The Schick Inoculation Against Diphtheria)
St Louis, Mo, 1901
"In Oct 1901, 20 children became ill with tetanus and 14 died after
injection with diptheria antiserum." p63
Italy, 1933
"In April 1933, several hundred infants and children in the provinces of
Rovigo and Venezia became severly ill after injection with what was believed to be an
anatoxin. Over 30..died."
Baden 1924
On sept 10th...children were given 2000 units of diptheria antitoxin
Kyoto, Japan, 1948
"A toxic batch of alum-precipitated toxoid (APT) was responsible for illness
in over 600 infants and children and for no fewer than 68 deaths." p38
The Lubeck disaster, 1930
"Between 10 December 1929 and 30 April 1930, 251 of 412 infants born in the old
Hanseatic town of Lubeck received three doses of BCG vaccine by the mouth during the first
ten days of life. Of these 251, 72 died of tuberculosis, most of them in two to five
months and all but one before the end of the first year. In addition, 135 suffered from
clinical tuberculosis but eventually recovered; and 44 became tuberculin-positive but
remained well. "---Sir Graham Wilson (Hazards of Immunisation p66)
The Cutter incident, 1955 [
"On June 23rd, 1955 the American Public Health Service announced that there
had been 149 confirmed cases of poliomyelitis among the vaccinated, with six deaths, and
149 cases among the contacts of children given the Salk vaccine, with six deaths."--M. BEDDOW BAYLY, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.
In 1954 Eddy was fifty-one years old. Born in a mining town in West Virginia,
she got a Ph.D. in 1927 from the University of Cincinnati and came to Washington
during the Great Depression to work at the Hygienic Laboratory, as she continued
to call it. Her job from then until she retired in 1973 was the safety testing
of vaccines.
In 1954 the rush was on. Her lab had gotten samples of the inactivated polio
vaccine to certify on a "due-yesterday" basis. "This was a product that had
never been made before and they were going to use it right away,” she recalled.
She and her staff worked around the clock. "We had eighteen monkeys. We
inoculated these eighteen monkeys with each vaccine that came in. And we started
getting paralyzed monkeys." She reported to her superiors that the lots were
Cutter's, and sent pictures of the paralyzed monkeys along as well. "They were
going to be injecting this thing into children."
William Sebrell, the director of the NIH, stopped by the animal house where
they were working, not to thank her for blowing the whistle but to
ask if she and her co-workers wanted their children immunized with the
vaccine, as it was in short supply. "I thanked him but said that my children had
escaped polio so far and that I preferred to wait until the testing program was
over before having them immunized," said Eddy. "Everyone there turned down the
offer."
She heard nothing more about her report and never got the photographs back.
"They went ahead and released the vaccine anyway, a lot of it. The monkeys they
just disregarded."
[Book extract. The Health Century] Dr. Bernice E. Eddy, whose lab tests
found that the Cutter vaccine had been improperly inactivated.
Typhoid vaccine: Colombia, S. Carolina, 1916
"In this incident a number of persons injected with a particular batch
of typhoid vaccine suffered from unusually severe reactions caused by contamination of the
vaccine with Staphylococcus aureus. Four of the cases, all in children under five
years of age, proved fatal, and many of the others suffered from local abscess
formation."---Sir Graham Wilson (Hazards of Immunisation p75)
Plague vaccine: The Mulkowal incident, 1902
"In this incident, whuch occured in India..19 persons injected with plague
vaccine contracted tetanus 5-6 days later and all died withing 7-10 days of their
injection."
Contamination of convalescent measles serum with staphylococci, 1948
"Olin and Lithander (1948) describe an incident in which 3 children injected
intramuscularly at the same time with convalescent measles serum...became ill within 6-8
hrs...two died 14-18 hours after the injection."
Smallpox