No Link between Flu Vaccine and Paralyzing Disorder

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/02/flu-vaccine-guillain-barre/

"Any speculation drawing an ongoing link between flu vaccination and the risk of a rare, paralyzing neuromuscular disorder has been dashed by a huge study. An analysis of side effects recorded among nearly 90 million people in China who were vaccinated during the 2009–2010 flu season found that only 11 people subsequently were diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rate no greater than what normally appears in the population. The study appears online February 2 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

In 1976, a strain of swine flu showed up in the United States, prompting the manufacture and delivery more than 40 million doses of vaccine against it. The epidemic ultimately never materialized, but studies noted that hundreds of cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome were reported after the vaccination campaign. The vaccine was withdrawn. In 2003, an Institute of Medicine review found that the evidence pointed to an association between the 1976 swine flu vaccine and the syndrome.

IOM found no clear evidence of such a link with subsequent flu vaccines, but some concerns have lingered vis-à-vis flu vaccination.

These fears intensified in 2009 when another swine flu emerged, this time known as the H1N1 flu, and a vaccine was made for it. After mass vaccinations, physician Yu Wang and colleagues at the Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Beijing collected data on all adverse effects reported by the 89.6 million people in China who received the flu vaccine in 2009 and 2010. The researchers found an exceptionally low rate of Guillain-Barré syndrome among those who had been vaccinated — less than the background rate in the population."

Rather interesting. An immense study group like this, has anything similar ever been done?

It looks like a decent study, but the breathless proclamations of the OP can be found nowhere in the study.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1008553

One type of flu vaccine (swine flu), manufactured by 10 different Chinese manufacturers, proved to be very safe (if we can believe the Chinese CDC).

The study group was not immense. It was 91 million. That's about the same number of Americans who were vaccinated for the swine flu in 2009.

he became paralyzed right after his flu shot and it took him a year of intense physical therapy to be able to play guitar again. This happened in 2000 or 2001.

:hi:

Hmmmmmmm.

Hmmmmmmmmm.