MMR Vaccine Recalled After Two Deaths in Samoa.

[Ranb]

https://www.radionz.co.nz/internati...49/samoa-recalls-mmr-vaccine-after-two-deaths

Samoa's health officials have issued an immediate recall of a vaccination for rubella, measles and mumps, after two babies died just hours after being vaccinated.

He says the infants were the first to get the MMR vaccine and testing is now underway to see if it was responsible for the deaths, "so now immediate action to recall all [of them] - we've ceased and sent out a directive to stop and cease all vaccinations of the children with the MMR."

Even if it is shown that these deaths were not a result of the vaccines, nuts like those at Natural News will go all ape **** over this.

Ranb

 

[JoeMorgue]

Oh this is gonna be the anti-vaxxer "See! See" from now until the walls fall.

 

[pipelineaudio]

I expect to see rioting here any second now. Maybe it'll give a chance for the reason based community to finally get our damn telescopes finished on the big island while all these idiots are distracted

 

[The Norseman]

Overall healthy babies dying within *hours* of supposedly getting an MMR vaccine? I find that hard to believe. If there were any allergic reactions, sure, they'd show up within minutes or a few hours but if that were the case, the babies were showing signs of anaphylaxis so why didn't the docs/nurses do anything about it? The article is way short on info.

I have very limited knowledge of medical things but I'm still very suspicious that the vaccines were at fault here.

 

[CORed]

If it's really the case that the first two children vaccinated died shortly after, either there is something seriously wrong with the vaccine or it's a bizarre coincidence of incredibly low probability.

Unfortunately, in either case, it's going to be fodder for anti-vaxers. If it's determined that there isn't anything wrong, they will be claiming it's a cover-up. If there is something wrong with the vaccine, they will say we told you so.

 

[crescent]

Some vaccines need to be refrigerated. I wonder if this was one of them, maybe the cooling failed at some point the samples degraded and became contaminated?

 

[CORed]

Overall healthy babies dying within *hours* of supposedly getting an MMR vaccine? I find that hard to believe. If there were any allergic reactions, sure, they'd show up within minutes or a few hours but if that were the case, the babies were showing signs of anaphylaxis so why didn't the docs/nurses do anything about it? The article is way short on info.

I have very limited knowledge of medical things but I'm still very suspicious that the vaccines were at fault here.

It could be entirely a coincidence, but I think it could be some kind of contamination. IOW, a major screw-up by the vaccine manufacturer.

 

[blutoski]

It could be entirely a coincidence, but I think it could be some kind of contamination. IOW, a major screw-up by the vaccine manufacturer.

I'm worried about post-manufacture tampering/adulteration by a third party to implicate MMR as dangerous. Hopefully examination of the dosage bottles will shed light.

 

[The Greater Fool]

Any investigation that fails to result in "MMR Vaccine is the one and only cause of these deaths, and it was intended to work this way" will be decried as a cover-up of the aforementioned truth.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Some vaccines need to be refrigerated. I wonder if this was one of them, maybe the cooling failed at some point the samples degraded and became contaminated?

No, if not refrigerated, the vaccine virus dies, it doesn't become toxic.

As for contaminated, it's more likely the saline the freeze dried virus is mixed with that was an issue.

But without more information, we can't say.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Any investigation that fails to result in "MMR Vaccine is the one and only cause of these deaths, and it was intended to work this way" will be decried as a cover-up of the aforementioned truth.

I'm afraid I don't see anyway around that regardless.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

According to this article: Babies died within minutes of receiving vaccineThat suggest something else happened.

These are listed as possible issues here:

There are two main reasons why something like this might happen.

Medical error, where the vaccine is prepared for injection incorrectly and the wrong substance is injected.
Contamination of the vaccine due to leaving it at room temperature for a long period of time.

Number 2 on that list is just not likely to cause death within minutes of an injection. Number 1 OTOH, is high on the list of suspicion. Lots of meds are in the same size and shape vials as the saline diluent. Someone grabbed the wrong diluent, maybe potassium meant to go into an IV bag or something.

Other possible med errors: atropine 1 cc vial
epinephrine 1 cc vial meant to go into an IV bag

Both of those could cause instant death in a toddler.

 

[The Norseman]

According to this article: Babies died within minutes of receiving vaccineThat suggest something else happened.

These are listed as possible issues here: Number 2 on that list is just not likely to cause death within minutes of an injection. Number 1 OTOH, is high on the list of suspicion. Lots of meds are in the same size and shape vials as the saline diluent. Someone grabbed the wrong diluent, maybe potassium meant to go into an IV bag or something.

Other possible med errors: atropine 1 cc vial
epinephrine 1 cc vial meant to go into an IV bag

Both of those could cause instant death in a toddler.

The original article stated "within hours" and not "within minutes" which changes the whole dynamic.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The original article stated "within hours" and not "within minutes" which changes the whole dynamic.

And like all news stories, gawd knows where the truth is.

Within hours only suggests a different med error. Contaminants tend to be some organism like pseudomonas or aspergillus. Those would take a day or more to cause death.

 

[cullennz]

Seems pretty likely they grabbed the wrong bottle instead of the diluent. Another drug mixed in instead and she is night night nurse for a kiddie

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Seems pretty likely they grabbed the wrong bottle instead of the diluent. Another drug mixed in instead and she is night night nurse for a kiddie

It's not always the nurse that is the root cause. Where on the shelf diluent is kept, what's sitting next to the vials you want that look like the vial you need, stuff like that is often the root problem.

 

[dann]

Vaccines are risky - especially if not handled with care:

Syria 2014: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/17/syrian-children-die-contaminated-measles-vaccine
Sudan 2017: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/heal...les-vaccine-kills-15-kids-south-sudan-n767516

But not nearly as risky as the diseases they protect us from: http://www.pnas.org/content/114/16/4031

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

You misstate the issue as do the two links. It wasn't the vaccine in either case.

Guardian:

saboteurs linked to Assad regime may be responsible

NBC News:

people as young as 12 years old administering the vaccines, South Sudan's government announced Friday.

The United Nations said the children died of "severe sepsis/toxicity" from the contaminated vaccine, and the health ministry blamed the deaths on human error. One syringe was used for all the children during the four-day campaign, and the vaccine was stored without refrigeration the entire time.

 

[dann]

Come on, SkeptiGinger, you should know better than that! And you should stress the may in your quotation from The Guardian!

This article is from just a couple of days later:

The manufacturer, who has not been identified, shipped the vaccine in powder form with a diluent to a hub in Syria where it was stored and then sent to Deir al-Zor and Idlib provinces for the campaign to vaccinate tens of thousands of children that began on Monday, WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said.
“In the hub apparently, (from) what we know so far, the diluent was kept ... together in the same refrigerator with a muscle relaxant. The relaxant is called Atracurium. This got mixed in some cases instead of the diluent with the vaccine powder,” Lindmeier told a news briefing in Geneva.
Pointing to human error, he said: “So the ones who packed it obviously put the wrong ampoules with the vaccine powder into the package. Then it gets shipped in the vaccine carriers to the facility, there it gets unpacked, mixed and then it has to be used within 6 hours.
“So both at the packing and at the unpacking there had to be gross negligence,” Lindmeier said.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...E1B020140919?feedType=RSS&feedName=healthNews (Reuters, Sep. 19, 2014

That the contamination might have been deliberate is described in the following way:

... a slight (!) possibility (!) that it’s not only (!) human error, but an intent.

And this is The Lancet a few months later:

Confusing drug packaging contributes to death of 15 children (The Lancet, Nov. 2014)

What I wrote was:

Vaccines are risky - especially if not handled with care:

Both stories confirm what I said. In both cases the vaccine wasn't handled properly, so I don't see why you try to confuse the issue. Do you really want to tell people that vaccines aren't risky and shouldn't be handled with care? Or do you think that letting 12-year-olds administer vaccines is the proper procedure?!

 

[dann]

PS
Just to make absolutely sure that you get the point. This is a fairly recent case from Scandinavia:

Sweden affirms swine flu vaccine narcolepsy link (The Local, Mar. 26, 2013)
Narcolepsy Following Pandemrix Influenza Vaccination in Europe (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2015/2017)
Pandmix (Wikipedia)

The Americans were lucky that they didn't get these shots, as were the Danes.

I already stressed that even though vaccines are risky business - when Pasteur created the successful vaccine against rabies, "as many as one of every two hundred who used it became paralyzed and died" (Paul A. Off's Vaccinated - One Man's Quest to Defeat the World's Deadliest Diseases)) - they're "not nearly as risky as the diseases they protect us from."