Nothing can change or undo what happened to this little girl. Nothing can take away a parent's grief. No statistics about "one in a million" can temper the anger directed at the car seat manufacturer. It was a tragedy. A horrible, deadly, and possibly preventable tragedy, and fury and despair are understandable reactions.
But should the parents be trying to persuade others to never use any car seats, ever again?
This is exactly what happened in the heartbreaking case of Lorrin Danielle Kain, a beautiful little girl who passed away in 2009-- except that it wasn't a car seat. It was a vaccine.
After reading everything I could find about Lorrin and her condition, I have a few nagging doubts about whether Lorrin's condition was genuinely a vaccine reaction. At least a few people have pointed out that Lorrin's symptoms actually match Dravet syndrome, a serious form of epilepsy that has not been linked to immunization. But let's assume that Lorrin suffered and died because of vaccines.
That still isn't a good reason not to vaccinate your kids.
Lorrin suffered because of a bad batch, not because vaccines are fundamentally dangerous. According to Lorrin's mother, Lorrin received a dose from a "hot lot"-- a defective batch of vaccines that caused "seizures or worse" in eleven children who received it. As tragic as it is, defective batches happen in absolutely all kinds of products. Consider, for example, that contaminated foods cause 3,000 deaths per year and go nearly unnoticed. Cantaloupe from a farm that had received "superior" health inspection ratings from multiple third parties killed 33 people in 2011, but I didn't hear anyone say that cantaloupe should be banned. We need both food and medicine to survive. Tragedies like this are reason to call for better safety in food and medicine, not to abandon them entirely. |
Not only has the batch been off the market for over two decades, but so has the entire line of inoculations. The DTP vaccine-- the one that caused Lorrin's reaction-- is not available anymore in the United States. Lorrin's mother and her supporters often conflate the DTP vaccine, which Lorrin received, with the Tdap and DTaP vaccines, which are part of the modern immunization schedule. They're not the same thing, and it's dangerous to treat them like they are. Conflating the Lorrin's vaccine with DTaP is like comparing the inactivated polio vaccine-- which can't possibly cause polio infection-- with the live-virus inoculation, which can. It's a completely different shot with completely different risks, and modern medicine has dramatically reduced the risks associated with many immunizations.
So what's different? The D, T, and P stand for diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis. All variations of this class of vaccine-- and there are many-- protect against these three serious illnesses. DTP, which was given until the mid-nineties. contained whole cells of the diseases it protected against, and that meant a relatively large number of side effects, mostly in the form of fevers and local swelling. But DTP is a thing of the past, a chapter in medical history books not far from the smallpox vaccine.
The "a"s in DTaP and Tdap, which are given today, stand for acellular, meaning that they contain just a few proteins from the pertussis bacterium. The use of acellular vaccines is a victory for modern medicine: the American Academy of Pediatrics points out that, today, we protect against 11 diseases by exposing kids to just 130 antigens (proteins from germs). Compare that to a hundred years ago, when a single smallpox vaccine contained 200 antigens altogether. As much as parents fear overwhelming the immune system, kids' bodies actually just need to react to a few little pieces of germs in today's schedule.
As a result of these advancements, today's DTaP shots are even less likely than their predecessors to cause serious adverse events. The advent of acellular vaccines means that kids today have about 90% fewer side effects from DTaP than they did from its predecessor twenty years ago. In other words, the vaccine that your baby would get in 2015 is only one-tenth as dangerous as the vaccine that caused Lorrin's reaction in 1994.
Even if we were still using the DTP vaccine that Lorrin received, the risk of a serious adverse reaction would still be infinitesimally small. The World Health Organization reports that serious adverse reactions occurred in only about 1 in 750,000 children who received the vaccine, when it was available. By comparison, diphtheria had a death rate of about 1 in 5. Untreated tetanus kills 1 in 4-- and with excellent treatment might kill as few as 1 in 9 and cause permanent disability in 1 in 3.
That still isn't a good reason not to vaccinate your kids.
Lorrin suffered because of a bad batch, not because vaccines are fundamentally dangerous. According to Lorrin's mother, Lorrin received a dose from a "hot lot"-- a defective batch of vaccines that caused "seizures or worse" in eleven children who received it. As tragic as it is, defective batches happen in absolutely all kinds of products. Consider, for example, that contaminated foods cause 3,000 deaths per year and go nearly unnoticed. Cantaloupe from a farm that had received "superior" health inspection ratings from multiple third parties killed 33 people in 2011, but I didn't hear anyone say that cantaloupe should be banned. We need both food and medicine to survive. Tragedies like this are reason to call for better safety in food and medicine, not to abandon them entirely. |
Not only has the batch been off the market for over two decades, but so has the entire line of inoculations. The DTP vaccine-- the one that caused Lorrin's reaction-- is not available anymore in the United States. Lorrin's mother and her supporters often conflate the DTP vaccine, which Lorrin received, with the Tdap and DTaP vaccines, which are part of the modern immunization schedule. They're not the same thing, and it's dangerous to treat them like they are. Conflating the Lorrin's vaccine with DTaP is like comparing the inactivated polio vaccine-- which can't possibly cause polio infection-- with the live-virus inoculation, which can. It's a completely different shot with completely different risks, and modern medicine has dramatically reduced the risks associated with many immunizations.
So what's different? The D, T, and P stand for diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis. All variations of this class of vaccine-- and there are many-- protect against these three serious illnesses. DTP, which was given until the mid-nineties. contained whole cells of the diseases it protected against, and that meant a relatively large number of side effects, mostly in the form of fevers and local swelling. But DTP is a thing of the past, a chapter in medical history books not far from the smallpox vaccine.
The "a"s in DTaP and Tdap, which are given today, stand for acellular, meaning that they contain just a few proteins from the pertussis bacterium. The use of acellular vaccines is a victory for modern medicine: the American Academy of Pediatrics points out that, today, we protect against 11 diseases by exposing kids to just 130 antigens (proteins from germs). Compare that to a hundred years ago, when a single smallpox vaccine contained 200 antigens altogether. As much as parents fear overwhelming the immune system, kids' bodies actually just need to react to a few little pieces of germs in today's schedule.
As a result of these advancements, today's DTaP shots are even less likely than their predecessors to cause serious adverse events. The advent of acellular vaccines means that kids today have about 90% fewer side effects from DTaP than they did from its predecessor twenty years ago. In other words, the vaccine that your baby would get in 2015 is only one-tenth as dangerous as the vaccine that caused Lorrin's reaction in 1994.
Even if we were still using the DTP vaccine that Lorrin received, the risk of a serious adverse reaction would still be infinitesimally small. The World Health Organization reports that serious adverse reactions occurred in only about 1 in 750,000 children who received the vaccine, when it was available. By comparison, diphtheria had a death rate of about 1 in 5. Untreated tetanus kills 1 in 4-- and with excellent treatment might kill as few as 1 in 9 and cause permanent disability in 1 in 3.
In developing countries where most moms are unvaccinated and can't pass tetanus immunity to their newborns, tetanus still accounts for nearly 1 in 5 newborn deaths. Pertussis (also known as whooping cough) is the most mild of the three infections, but is still pretty serious: it kills 1 in 50 babies who contract it and lands 2 out of 3 in the hospital. Even when we still relied on the modern DTaP vaccine's whole-cell predecessor, it was still very much worth the risk.
Lorrin's mother found comfort by aligning herself with the anti-vaccine movement and its claims that vaccines cause autism. The anti-vax website Age of Autism regularly features information about Lorrin and her family, and Lorrin's image and story are promoted on autism-related websites and social media pages as evidence of the link between autism and vaccines. This doesn't make much sense to me. Lorrin did not have autism-- it was never, ever part of her diagnosis. She may have developed an adverse reaction to a vaccine, but "I believe the MMR vaccine causes autism because Lorrin Kain developed brain damage from DTP," makes about as much sense as, "I believe that aspirin causes cancer because I heard of someone who died from a penicillin allergy." It is neither the same substance nor the same condition. The people exploiting Lorrin's death to promote their agenda are helping no one.
Statistics don't do much to quell grief. I could never look Lorrin's mother in the eye and tell her, "Your daughter's death was worth it because vaccines save lives."
But I could also never say, "Your child's death was worth it because a defective batch of DTP vaccines hurt someone 21 years ago," to the mothers of Callie Van Tornhout, Brie Romaguera, Brady Alcaide, Landon Dube, or any of the other thousands upon thousands of children who die because of diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis. I can not justify the abandonment of an entire class of live-saving preventative medications because a tiny number of people have suffered from adverse reactions.
Lorrin's family will always have my deepest sympathies. I believe that no parent should ever lose a child. It is not a pain that I would wish on my worst enemies, and I consider myself lucky every day that my children are healthy and happy. It is because of that-- because of my desire to see children live and thrive-- that I am a vaccine advocate. We can't let extraordinarily rare accidents lead us to abandon a miracle of modern medicine that saves so many new and innocent lives.
But I could also never say, "Your child's death was worth it because a defective batch of DTP vaccines hurt someone 21 years ago," to the mothers of Callie Van Tornhout, Brie Romaguera, Brady Alcaide, Landon Dube, or any of the other thousands upon thousands of children who die because of diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis. I can not justify the abandonment of an entire class of live-saving preventative medications because a tiny number of people have suffered from adverse reactions.
Lorrin's family will always have my deepest sympathies. I believe that no parent should ever lose a child. It is not a pain that I would wish on my worst enemies, and I consider myself lucky every day that my children are healthy and happy. It is because of that-- because of my desire to see children live and thrive-- that I am a vaccine advocate. We can't let extraordinarily rare accidents lead us to abandon a miracle of modern medicine that saves so many new and innocent lives.
Very awesome post! This needed to be sorted out as I have witnessed a lot of AV people treat the DTP vaccine and the DTaP vaccine as though they are one in the same but they are not.
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