Dr. James Talbot’s letter “Recent studies confirm that vaccines used in Alberta are safe” refers to a recently released University of Calgary study, with regard to febrile seizures resulting from vaccination. Febrile seizures can happen anytime a high fever is present, including from common colds or flus. There appears to be some hereditary factors that can affect an individual’s likelihood to suffer from febrile seizures. Dr. Robert Sears, author of "The Vaccine Book," recommends that children who have experienced this outcome after vaccination, not be administered the same vaccine again.
It concerns me that Dr. Talbot’s reference to the Calgary study omitted important information from that same study. While he suggests that parents who do not want the combined MMRV vaccine can choose to have the vaccines separately, he provides no information from that study as to why parents may want to make that choice. The results of that study showed that young children who received the vaccines separately had less than 0.2 per 1,000 incidents of febrile seizure. For those children who received the MMRV vaccine, the seizure rate went up to 0.352 per 1000.
Denise VanDomselaar, St. Albert
