# 4889
Last April we began hearing reports of an unexpected number of adverse side effects among young children in Australia who had received CSL Ltd.’s Fluvax seasonal flu vaccine.
The total number of reports were small (several hundred) out of tens of thousands of shots given, but significantly higher than normal.
Most of the side effects were related to fever, with some children experiencing febrile convulsions. Others experienced nausea and vomiting, or injection site inflammation (see Australia Investigating Adverse Vaccine Reactions).
Of most concern was the death of a 2 year old girl named Ashley, who died the day after receiving the shot (see Australian Vaccine Investigation Widens).
Obviously a suspicious timeline, but as we’ve seen many times in the past, correlation doesn’t always imply causation.
In June the Coroner investigating the case announced that autopsy results had failed to establish a cause of death (see Australian Coroner: No Link To Vaccine In Childs Death).
To be absolutely fair, saying `they’ve found no evidence to link the death to the vaccine’ isn’t quite the same as saying they have `proof that the vaccine didn’t cause the death’.
But that sort of definitive proof is often impossible to come by, particularly when no cause of death can be established.
Fast forward to today, and the Coroner has closed the investigation, with essentially no new developments.
The coroner stated that while a link between her death and the vaccine cannot `absolutely be excluded’ that he found nothing to causally connect Ashley’s death to the flu vaccine.
Which, judging from the Australian newspaper headlines this morning, isn’t being taken as particularly reassuring.
While technically accurate, this isn’t the headline I would have chosen. But then, it isn’t my job to sell newspapers.
With the investigation at a close, we will probably never know the true cause of Ashley’s tragic death.
While it can’t be stated with 100% certainty that the vaccine didn’t in some way contribute to Ashley’s death, absolutely no link to the vaccine has been established.
Which would seem to me to be pretty good news and the real story here.
Unfortunately, inconclusive answers and headlines like the one above help to foster the public’s anxieties over the safety of vaccines.
And it doesn’t seem to matter how many positive reports we get about the overall safety and overwhelming benefits of vaccination.
All it takes is one sensational story like this to undermine them.
