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Vaccine Increases Infections

The May 23, 2003 daily news section of The Scientist reports that Prevnar, a vaccine marketed to prevent pneumococcal infections in children, increases the number of other infections babies get. According to the researchers, no other vaccine in history has demonstrated this effect.

Dr. Ron Dagan is director of the Pediatric Infectious Disease Unit at Soroka University Medical Center in Beer-Sheva, Israel. He says because Prevnar allows an increase in other infections, it may become useless in the future. Other researchers feel future vaccines that target specific strains of microbes may also create the same effect.

The problem lies rooted in the fact that while Prevnar does indeed reduce the bacterial infections it is designed to work against, it reduces competition among the surviving bacteria and allows other infections to take hold. Other studies have shown that in children taking Prevnar, ear infections by bacteria that the drug doesn’t target more than doubled, from 16% to 37%.

Commentary: The Prevnar vaccine has similar problems that antibiotics do. Antibiotics leave surviving bacteria that become more and more antibiotic-resistant. Prevnar eliminates bacterial competition, thereby allowing surviving bacteria to proliferate. In either case, people are inclined to suffer more dangerous infections that become more virulent over time.

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