Return to Abstract Index
Title
Neurological complications of immunization.
AuthorFenichel GM
Source
Ann Neurol,
12:
2, 1982 Aug,
119-28
AbstractVaccines prepared from whole, killed organisms (pertussis and possibly influenza) may cause neurological
allergic reactions producing encephalopathy. These reactions are characterized by acute, monophasic
demyelinative processes and occur with no greater frequency than 1 per 100,000 vaccine recipients; onset
is within 4 days of immunization, and recovery is usually complete. No evidence suggests that these
vaccines produce an insidious, progressive encephalopathy. Only with the swine influenza program of 1976
has Guillain-Barré syndrome appeared to follow immunization. Vaccines prepared from live-attenuated
viruses (measles, mumps, rubella, and trivalent oral poliovirus) can cause symptomatic viral infection
of the nervous system, including measles encephalitis, which occurs in 1 of 1,000,000 vaccine recipients;
rubella neuritis, in less than 1 of 10,000 recipients; and paralytic poliomyelitis, in 1 of 3,000,000
vaccine recipients or their close contacts. A cause-and-effect relationship between immunization and
brachial plexus neuritis, acute transverse myelitis, and cranial neuropathies has been suggested but
never proved.