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Saturday, March 29, 2003Altogether, federal health experts are investigating at least 18 cases of possible cardiac reactions, including three fatal heart attacks in recently immunized military personnel and civilian health care workers. But William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, said the heart attack death of a 55-year-old National Guardsman was more likely related to the man's high cholesterol and smoking than the vaccination. "That is very noteworthy in this case," Winkenwerder said in an interview. The evidence at this point, "indicates smallpox vaccination was not likely to be the cause of his death." More than 350,000 Defense Department employees have been inoculated since December. That qualifying statement has been made with every announcement of a heart attack in vaccine recipients, and yet the hype goes on and on. In the mind of the media and the public, and apparently in some health departments, there is a link between the vaccine and heart disease: Illinois and New York suspended immunizations entirely, as did some individual hospitals such as Dartmouth Medical Center in New Hampshire. Other states, such as Florida, postponed inoculations until they could update volunteers on new safety measures relating to heart risks. At the CDC offices in Atlanta, staffers were fielding nervous phone calls from people who had been vaccinated and worried they may be at risk for heart failure, said Dixie Snyder, associate director for science at CDC. The CDC really needs to be much more careful in their approach to releasing their figures. It's one thing to collect information on every illness, no matter how remote the chances are that it's related to the vaccine, for purposes of epidemiological analysis, it's another thing to make press releases detailing each of those outcomes. They wouldn't be doing this for tetanus or influenza immunizations, yet I'm sure many more people die of heart attacks within a few weeks of getting immunized for those diseases than have died of heart attacks after smallpox vaccination. posted by Sydney on 3/29/2003 11:44:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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