vaccinations

Vaccination Is Not Linked to Increase Mortality Risk

A recent study found that there is no increase in the risk of all-cause mortality among children who were fully vaccinated compared with those who were undervaccinated.

For their study, the researchers examined vaccination patterns for the first 18 months of life among 312,388 children enrolled in the Vaccine Safety Datalink. They calculated mortality rates among children with different immunization patterns and compared the incidence rate ratios (IRR) of vaccinated children with undervaccinated children.
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Overall, 199,661 (64%) children were vaccinated according to the schedule and 112,727 (36%) children had parents who delayed at least 1 vaccine dose or refused at least 1 vaccine dose.

A total of 18 deaths occurred during follow-up. Eleven deaths were among children who followed the scheduled (2.28 person per 100,000 person-years) and 7 deaths were among children who were undervaccinated (2.57 persons per 100,000 person-years).

When excluding deaths with unknown causes, the mortality rates between vaccinated and undervaccinated children were not significantly different (IRR 1.29, 95% CI= 0.33-4.99). This finding was similar when unknown causes of death were included in analysis (IRR 0.84, 95% CI = 0.32–2.99)

“Although there were few deaths, our results do not indicate a difference in risk of all-cause mortality among fully vaccinated versus undervaccinated children,” the researchers concluded. “Our findings support the safety of the currently recommended immunization schedule with regard to all-cause mortality.”

—Melissa Weiss

Reference:

McCarthy NL, Sukumaran L, Newcomer S, et al. Patterns of childhood immunization and all-cause mortality. Vaccines. 2017;35(48): 6643-6648. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2017.10.034.