Hepatitis B results from a virus transmitted through blood or bodily fluids from someone who is infected. The virus can result in a serious liver infection that could lead to liver cancer or permanent liver scarring called cirrhosis. A vaccine to protect against hepatitis B is typically administered in three doses during the first year of life. General side effects are mild, including soreness at the injection site, headache and swelling; however, concerns have been raised that the vaccine may cause or trigger sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), multiple sclerosis (MS) or chronic fatigue syndrome.
SIDS
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome is when a seemingly healthy baby under age 1 goes to sleep at night and dies in his sleep without warning. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 4,500 U.S. infants die from SIDS each year.
Vaccines, especially hepatitis B, were a suspected culprit because some children died shortly after receiving the hepatitis B vaccine. In 2003, the Institute of Medicine released a report on immunization safety and concluded that none of the vaccines given during infancy caused SIDS. The committee examined individual vaccines as well as vaccine combinations to look for a correlation and found none.
Jane Zuckerman, researcher for the Academic Centre for Travel Medicine and Vaccines and World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Reference, wrote in a 2006 report that more than 1,000 million doses of hepatitis B vaccine are administered in more than 150 countries and says there is no evidence of an association between the vaccine and SIDS and other diseases such as multiple sclerosis and chronic fatigue syndrome.
Multiple Sclerosis
MS is a degenerative chronic inflammatory disorder of the spinal chord and brain. The patient suffers from varying degrees of inactivity and the cause is unknown.
Researchers during the mid-1990s thought the hepatitis B vaccine could play a part in MS after mass vaccination in France, where several patients developed MS symptoms post-vaccination. After the vaccine program concluded, French scientists found no direct correlation between the patients who received the vaccine and developed MS versus those exhibiting the same symptoms but didn't receive the vaccine. Researchers said that the general populace who developed MS and the vaccinated group had the same rate of developing the disease and concluded the vaccine had no impact on whether subjects developed the disease.
Several studies have been conducted on the correlation since the mid-1990s. A 2008 study by Canadian researcher Yann Mikaeloff, MD, PhD, looked at MS cases and the timing of the hepatitis B vaccine. Mikaeloff and his team evaluated hundreds of questionnaires and concluded that there was no relation between the vaccine and the confirmed development of MS.
However, Miguel A. Hernán, MD, DrPH, from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts, said there is a correlation between the hepatitis B vaccine and MS. He stated in 2004 that after analyzing hundreds of MS cases, he believes that the hepatitis B vaccine was to blame.
The World Health Organization says that there is no link between the hepatitis B vaccine and MS.
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Chronic fatigue syndrome is an illness characterized by a sudden onset of headache, body pains and muscle weakness. Doctors examined the correlation between CFS and the timing of the hepatitis B vaccine to determine if the vaccine caused the illness.
Canadian physician Dr. Byron Hyde believes that the vaccine has a direct effect on creating CFS. He says that his research on a number of Gulf War soldiers who were stricken with CFS after being vaccinated alarmed him and that colleagues called him with reports of hundreds of patients who were sickened shortly after receiving the hepatitis B vaccine.
The World Health Organization Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety contradicts Dr. Hyde's claims and says that there are no grounds to support this assertion. The committee evaluated the cases in Canada but found no conclusive evidence.
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