PhD Thesis - ResearchSpace@Auckland - The University of Auckland

convulsions or encephalopathy were directly related to vaccination’. 71 The trials also
concluded that ‘it was possible by vaccination to produce a high degree of protection
against the disease’, in contrast to some earlier trials in Britain which had found there
was little difference in the incidence or severity of pertussis between the immunised
and unimmunised. 72 There had been a wide variation in effectiveness of the vaccines
used which was due to differences in potency. 73 Additionally it was found that the use
of a ‘British standard vaccine …will produce substantial protection against the
disease’. 74
Just as the MRC was giving the pertussis vaccine the green light, J. M. Berg of the
Fountain Hospital, London, published an article in the British Medical Journal in
1957 which raised new concerns over the serious side-effects that the vaccine could
induce. 75 He demonstrated that the pertussis vaccine was responsible, whether on its
own or combined with other vaccines, for the ‘reported neurological sequalae’ in a
number of cases. 76 Nevertheless, he still felt pertussis immunisation was justified as
the risks of the disease outweighed the risks of immunisation. On the point of
contraindications, Berg believed that ‘any suggestion of a neurological reaction to a
pertussis inoculation should be an absolute contraindication to further inoculation’. 77
Berg’s article was closely followed by another from J. Strom of the Hospital of
Infectious Diseases in Stockholm, who took Berg’s argument further by questioning
whether ‘universal vaccination against pertussis is always justified, especially in view
of the increasingly mild nature of the disease and of its very small mortality’ when the
vaccine could induce serious ‘neurological complications’. 78 Strom had found that one
in 17,000 children in Sweden suffered from encephalitis after receiving the vaccine
and questioned its use as the effects of the disease in Sweden were milder than those
71
Medical Research Council (MRC), ‘Vaccination against Whooping Cough. Relation between
protection in children and results of laboratory tests’, British Medical Journal (BMJ), 25 August 1956,
p.457.
72
MRC, ‘Vaccination against Whooping Cough’, BMJ, 18 April 1959, p.1000.
73
A. B. Christie, Infectious Diseases. Epidemiology and Clinical Practice, London, 1980, p.676.
74
MRC, ‘Vaccination against Whooping-Cough’, BMJ, 18 April 1959, p.1000.
75
MRC, ‘Vaccination against Whooping Cough’, BMJ, 25 August 1956, p.461.
J. M. Berg, ‘Neurological Complications of Pertussis Immunization’, BMJ, 24 July 1958, pp.25-27.
76
ibid., p.25.
77
ibid., p.26.
78
J. Strom, ‘Is Universal Vaccination against pertussis always justified?’, BMJ, 22 October 1960,
p.1186.
71