Three months ago, Luke Maguire and Louise McKever, a couple living in the United Kingdom, shared the video of your baby suffering from seizures as a result, they believe, of Vaccination with Bexsero, the meningitis B vaccine.
The video was seen by about 2 million people, and it is still shared on the networks next to anti-vaccine slogans, because it certainly impresses to see a baby suffering from seizures. The doubt is: Does it really happen because of vaccines?
The story of little Bobby
The couple's son, Bobby, currently has more than a year of life. As the parents explain, already after the first vaccines at eight weeks (pentavalent vaccine, Prevenar, rotavirus and Bexsero) the child suffered spasms, fever, hypotonia and there were times when he did not respond.
At 12 weeks, according to the calendar, he was re-administered the pentavalent vaccine, that of meningitis C and that of rotavirus. Then, in week 16 of life he received the pentavalent vaccine, the Prevenar and the Bexsero vaccine, and there the symptoms began to be more violent.
Bobby began to suffer seizures like the ones you see in the video, stop breathing, becoming bluish and, obviously, very scary to his parents, who called for emergencies to ask for help. In the next ten days he suffered an average of four to seven similar attacks every day.
Now the child is receiving medication to control his seizures, and thanks to the treatments he no longer suffers them, unless he is ill or very sleepy. His father decided to share his story so that parents value the decision to administer the meningitis B vaccine before it is given at eight weeks of age (in September 2015, the United Kingdom included the Bexsero vaccine in the health system for be administered at two months, at four and a third dose at 12 months, for all babies).
But is it because of the vaccine?
Could be. But it is not the only one that was put at 8 and 16 weeks. On both dates Bexsero and Prevenar vaccines were repeated. It could be one, it could be the other, it could be both and it could be none.
The technical sheet of the Prevenar vaccine, which includes possible side effects, says the following:
With the concomitant administration of Prevenar 13 and Infanrix hexa, there was an increase in the rates of notification of seizures (with or without fever) and episodes of hypotonic hyporesponse (EHH). Antipyretic treatment should be initiated according to local treatment guidelines in children with seizure disorders or with a history of febrile seizures and in all children receiving Prevenar 13 simultaneously with whole-cell anti-pertussis vaccines.
The analysis of the post-marketing notification rates suggests a potential increase in the risk of seizures, with or without fever, and of hypotonic hippocampal episodes, when comparing the groups that reported the use of Prevenar 13 with Infanrix hexa with those who reported the use of Prevent 13 only.
And in the section on side effects it specifies that, although rarely, seizures can occur.
For its part, the technical sheet of the Bexsero vaccine, Said this:
Nervous system disorders
Very common: tendency to sleep, unusual crying, headache
Uncommon: seizures (including febrile seizures)
Frequency not known: hypotonic-hyporesponsive episode
Given these data, as I say, it can be either vaccine, although the story seems to agree more with what the technical sheet of the Prevenar says than with what the Bexsero says (which only refers to episodes of seizures, theoretically specific).
So, vaccines are not harmless?
No. They never have been. Childhood vaccines are very safe globally, but they are "medications" and, as such, have possible side effects. The most common are mild: fever, malaise, pain in the puncture area, etc., and last for a short time (two or three days at most). The less common, can become serious.
Why are they administered then? Because vaccines help control viruses and bacteria that, if not controlled, are potentially more harmful than vaccines. That is, if we stopped vaccinating all children now, diseases would return, some in the form of outbreaks and epidemics, which many children would overcome, but many others would not. Outbreaks and epidemics with all that entails: income, medications, sequelae, family leave, etc.
And I do not say with this that we should not know the possible side effects, or that we must deny them. If we are sharing this video and this story is precisely so that fathers and mothers know that vaccines can cause unwanted effects.
Bobby has been testing and analyzing for months, looking for a possible cause for his seizures. They could be vaccines, or it could be a genetic disorder whose symptoms have accelerated when they were put in: something that would have happened equally, but that with vaccines has happened before. Or I might not have any relationship, and I would be suffering from these seizures without being vaccinated. For now it is not known, but parents should be clear that Every medicine and vaccine has its benefits and risks.
