UPI Investigates: The vaccine conflict

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By Mark Benjamin

Investigations Editor

Published 7/21/2003 10:42 PM

WASHINGTON, July 20 (UPI) -- The screaming started four hours after 8-month-old Chaise Irons received a vaccination against rotavirus, recommended in June 1998 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for every infant to prevent serious diarrhea.

Within a day he was vomiting and eliminating blood. Doctors performed emergency surgery, saving him by repairing his intestines, which were folding in on one another. A doctor later figured out the vaccine caused Chaise's problem.

In October 1999, after 15 reports of such incidents, the CDC withdrew its recommendation for the vaccination -- not because of the problem, the agency claims, but because bad publicity might give vaccines in general a bad name.

But a four-month investigation by United Press International found a pattern of serious problems linked to vaccines recommended by the CDC -- and a web of close ties between the agency and the companies that make vaccines.

Critics say those ties are an unholy alliance in a war against disease where vaccine side effects have damaged, hurt or killed people, mostly children.

"The CDC is a disgrace. It is a corrupt organization," said Stephen A. Sheller, a Philadelphia attorney who has sued vaccine makers for what he says were bad vaccines. "The drug companies have them on their payroll."

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Since the mid-1980s the agency has doubled the number of vaccines children get, up to nearly 40 doses before age 2. The CDC also tracks possible side effects, along with the Food and Drug Administration. This puts the agency in the awkward position of evaluating the safety of its own recommendations.

Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., who has been investigating vaccines for four years, said conflicts at the CDC are a problem, particularly on the vaccine advisory panel. He believes vaccines triggered his grandson's autism.

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