Vaccines are Safe
By Julie Steenhuysen
The team developed a guide to help paediatricians quickly identify children with allergic reactions to vaccines and safely immunise them.
"We cannot reiterate enough that the vaccines used today are extremely safe, but in a handful of children certain vaccine ingredients can trigger serious allergic reactions," said Dr Robert Wood of Johns Hopkins Children's Centre in Baltimore, whose research appears in the journal Pediatrics.
Many of these children can still be vaccinated for other diseases, he said.
The research comes amid recent outbreaks of measles, mumps and whooping cough in the United States, all of which can be prevented by vaccines.
Wood said that while very rare, occurring in the US at a rate of about one to two per one million vaccinations, many paediatricians were likely to encounter allergic reactions in children.
This was simply because of the large volume of vaccines given, and they needed to know how to proceed, he said.
"There is very little in the way of current recommendations, which is one of the reasons we felt this was an important project to take on," Wood said in a telephone interview.
He said a true vaccine reaction would come on quickly, with 99 percent occurring within the first two hours of the shot.
The most common signs of a reaction are hives, swelling, nasal congestion, difficulty breathing and occasionally vomiting.
Children who have already had an allergic reaction or were at high risk should be tested by an allergist for reactions to the more common vaccine ingredients that trigger an allergic response.
These include egg proteins, which are present in flu vaccines, or gelatin, which is used in several vaccines.
Wood said in many cases there were alternative vaccines that did not include these allergens.
"If a child had a reaction to the DPT (diphtheria tetanus pertussis) vaccine and was found to have an allergy to gelatin, it would be fairly simple to give them an an alternative product," Wood said.
"If it were someone with a very severe gelatin reaction to the MMR (measles mumps rubella) or varicella (chickenpox) vaccines, you would have a more difficult dilemma about whether you would vaccine them or not," he said.
The team developed a guide to help paediatricians quickly identify children with allergic reactions to vaccines and safely immunise them.
"We cannot reiterate enough that the vaccines used today are extremely safe, but in a handful of children certain vaccine ingredients can trigger serious allergic reactions," said Dr Robert Wood of Johns Hopkins Children's Centre in Baltimore, whose research appears in the journal Pediatrics.
Many of these children can still be vaccinated for other diseases, he said.
The research comes amid recent outbreaks of measles, mumps and whooping cough in the United States, all of which can be prevented by vaccines.
Wood said that while very rare, occurring in the US at a rate of about one to two per one million vaccinations, many paediatricians were likely to encounter allergic reactions in children.
This was simply because of the large volume of vaccines given, and they needed to know how to proceed, he said.
"There is very little in the way of current recommendations, which is one of the reasons we felt this was an important project to take on," Wood said in a telephone interview.
He said a true vaccine reaction would come on quickly, with 99 percent occurring within the first two hours of the shot.
The most common signs of a reaction are hives, swelling, nasal congestion, difficulty breathing and occasionally vomiting.
Children who have already had an allergic reaction or were at high risk should be tested by an allergist for reactions to the more common vaccine ingredients that trigger an allergic response.
These include egg proteins, which are present in flu vaccines, or gelatin, which is used in several vaccines.
Wood said in many cases there were alternative vaccines that did not include these allergens.
"If a child had a reaction to the DPT (diphtheria tetanus pertussis) vaccine and was found to have an allergy to gelatin, it would be fairly simple to give them an an alternative product," Wood said.
"If it were someone with a very severe gelatin reaction to the MMR (measles mumps rubella) or varicella (chickenpox) vaccines, you would have a more difficult dilemma about whether you would vaccine them or not," he said.
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