Lorrin Danielle Kain: A Reason Not to Vaccinate?

In 1994, a car seat manufacturer produced a small lot of defective car seats. A six-week-old baby was seriously injured as a result and suffered from traumatic brain injury that led to long-term disability, and, fifteen years later, death. The little girl and her family were compensated by the company and the car seat was recalled.

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. 

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. 

My Daughter's Epilepsy Was My Wake-Up Call

This is a guest post by Nicole Lynn, an amazing mom whose daughter's seizures convinced her of the importance of modern medicine.

I am the proud mommy of a 3-year-old who was born with a midwife, breastfed for two years, carried in a wrap, fed homemade baby food, shared a bed with me and is fully up to date on her immunizations. I am also a doula and a strong advocate for natural childbirth, natural parenting and holistic health. I am writing this because I feel compelled to share that I am all of these things as well as pro-vaccine and there was a time where I did not know that it was okay to be both.

My daughter was not a planned pregnancy and so I did not have a lot of time to research parenting prior to becoming a parent. I went about educating myself the best that I knew how but much of my information came from the people around me who were well-meaning but sometimes misinformed. I have always favored natural and holistic medicine when caring for myself so when it came to caring for my daughter I thought I would make the same choice for her. I had a network of people around me who were very supportive of me and very supportive of holistic child-rearing. When the question of vaccines came up, it was unanimous — vaccines are poison from pharmaceutical companies that will cause irreparable neurological damage to my child. Of course I did not want that. Of course I wanted the best thing for my baby. Of course, I also did not want the people close to me to judge me. So we decided not to vaccinate.

Because of complications with my home birth we ended up in the hospital.  I was berated by doctors for my decisions on vaccines and essentially accused of child abuse. This did not help change my mind. Rather, it filled me with defiant rage as I exercised my rights to make decisions on behalf of my child with a rebellious conviction. I was no longer just protecting my child, I was also protecting my freedom of speech and fighting back against mega-corporations and the government.

The one aspect I was not thinking about was the most important one — the health and safety of my baby.

With my baby at home, I did everything as absolutely perfectly as possible to a neurotic degree. Consistently, the motivation for this remained a fear of judgment from other people, especially other moms, ESPECIALLY other “crunchy” moms. I was consumed by a need for perfection and acceptance.

My baby grew a lot, with big blue eyes and rolls of breast milk-induced baby fat. She never got sick, she ate perfectly, she reached all her milestones early, she was a healthy, happy baby. Then one day when she was 6 months old, in the middle of eating organic, steamed carrots, she stopped breathing. Just like that. I was not there, my husband thought she had choked and tried to dislodge a stuck carrot but there was nothing in her throat. She was simply not breathing and her body was completely rigid.

 She resumed breathing a few minutes later and started crying. I came home immediately and he explained what happened. As he was explaining it, it happened again.

 I called a nurse and she said to keep an eye on the baby and call back if it happens again. Not surprisingly, we didn’t sleep at all that night. The next day it happened again, but her body started twitching and I finally realized what I was watching was a seizure. I called the doctor again and they scheduled a series of neurological exams. Every test came back negative and over an agonizing five days the seizures became longer and more frequent. I took her to the emergency room, to her regular doctor, to the neurologist— they continues ordering more tests, the tests kept coming back negative and they kept sending us home. My husband and I slept in shifts, a couple hours at a time, he went to work exhausted, I felt like I was losing my mind. I cried hysterically every time I opened my mouth. I experienced a feeling of fear and helplessness like I had never known. Something was seriously wrong and there was nothing I could do and it seemed like nobody would listen to me. I became afraid that there would be a time where her face would turn blue and it would stay blue and she would never start breathing again.

On the fifth day, I filmed two seizures with my phone. I brought her to the emergency room again after a particularly bad one and I showed anyone who would hold still long enough to look the videos of her seizing. She was finally admitted to the children’s hospital and we spent a week there while they ran a lot of tests and experimented with many different medications on my precious, organic, toxin-free baby. We were extremely fortunate in that they found an effective medication quickly and she has had only 4 minor seizures in the 2 and a half years since diagnosis.

How is this related to vaccines? It’s not. My daughter’s neurological problems are completely independent and unrelated to vaccines. However, the experience woke me up.

When making the decision not to vaccinate, I never once imagined how it would feel to spend sleepless nights in a chair at the children’s hospital while my child suffered, while I didn’t know if everything would be okay. I began to imagine how it would feel to be sleeping in that same chair while my child suffered from something I could have prevented.

I realized that no amount of breast milk and organic mashed kale was going to protect her from illness and disease. I realized that nothing within my power could do anything to protect her from everything — but I wanted to make sure I did everything that was within my power. Not to protect myself, not to protect what other people thought of my mothering skills, not to protect an idea of what I thought child-rearing should be, but to protect her: my baby, whose life and wellbeing was solely my responsibility. I started to take that responsibility a lot more realistically, I did a lot more research, and I chose to vaccinate.

I also started to lighten up. I let her have moderate amounts of white sugar on occasion.  She even watches television sometimes. She is fine, the world hasn’t ended. And it’s a lot more fun than being so neurotic. 

People have asked me if I considered changing her diet to prevent the seizures, or weaning her off of the medication myself and switching to homeopathic remedies. No. I do not consider this. I have never considered this. Not even for a second. I take my child’s life seriously and I stick with what works. 

Amidst this heightened debate, I am happy that my child is vaccinated.  I am not angry at you for not vaccinating your child. I am grateful that we live in a society where we are all able to make our own choices about our families’ health.  I write this now because my perspective has changed and I am grateful to have had an open enough mind to make that possible. I am writing this to say that it’s okay to change your mind and it’s okay to make decisions independently from the people around you and I hope that whatever parenting choice anyone is making on behalf of their child, that the choice is being made for the child.