Back to News

By Herb Newborg

CDC Confirms H1N1 Adverse Events Are Nearly Double Seasonal Flu Vaccine Reactions
There have been 3,783 reports to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) from those who have received the H1N1 vaccine.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has announced that there have been 3,783 reports to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) from those who have received the H1N1 vaccine.

This is nearly double the rate of adverse reactions reported by those that received a seasonal flu shot.

The agency determined there have been 82 adverse event reports for every 1 million doses administered compared to only 47 adverse event reports per 1 million doses of seasonal flu vaccine administered. Yet, the CDC says that VAERS is unable to establish a cause-and-effect relationship between the reports and the vaccine.

In a conference call with reporters, CDC director Thomas Frieden, MD, MPH, called the results reassuring, albeit preliminary. Citing increasing vaccine supplies and waning overall disease activity, Frieden said "this really is a great window of opportunity" to get vaccinated. The focus, he said, should remain on the priority groups.

What? Waning disease activity means a “great opportunity” to get vaccinated. Perhaps in the wacky world of the CDC vaccine promotion, this makes sense.

He said that although H1N1 activity appears to be declining -- 25 states are reporting widespread activity this week versus 32 last week – “there's no way of knowing what will happen for the rest of the flu season.”

A separate analysis of the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD), a large, population-based database, did not show any increases in adverse events among 438,376 people who received the H1N1 vaccine.

"No substantial differences between H1N1 and seasonal influenza vaccines were noted in the proportion or types of serious adverse events reported," researchers wrote in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

However, in an accompanying note, the MMWR editors listed some limitations of the VAERS analysis, including the fact that the system is subject to under-reporting because it relies on voluntary reports and it cannot establish causal relationships.

Some of the findings from the VAERS analysis:

• There were 13 deaths reported following vaccination with H1N1 vaccine. In nine, there were significant underlying illnesses. One death resulted from a car crash. The other three are still being reviewed.
• There were 10 reports of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) and two possible cases.
• There were 11 reports of anaphylaxis with another eight possible cases of anaphylaxis.

In addition, they wrote, the VSD analysis did not include enough administered doses to identify small increased risks for rare adverse events like GBS.

While the CDC is optimistic about the level of death and disability thus far reported after H1N1 vaccination, it is important to note that the 12 deaths, 10 (possibly 12) cases of GBS and 11 (possibly 19) cases of anaphylaxis represent only 43 of the 213 serious adverse events reported.

Still under review are another 173 serious adverse events, including neurologic or muscular conditions, pneumonia or influenza-like illness, respiratory or ear, nose, and throat conditions, allergic conditions aside from anaphylaxis, pregnancy complications, gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, and psychiatric symptoms, and other noninfectious or infectious symptoms.

Notably absent from the list is any mention of the documented cases of Dystonia and other paralysis which have been widely reported in the main stream media.