Epilepsy adverse events post vaccination

Infant Vaccine Safety Signals Series

D. Ricke, Epilepsy Adverse Events Post Vaccination. Exploration of Neuroscience 2024;3:508-519 DOI: https://doi.org/10.37349/en.2024.00062

Quoted text and figures are from this article.

Epilepsy is a chronic brain disorder that causes seizures.

Nobody wants their child to develop epilepsy or seizures.

The current medical consensus is that there is no association between immunization and epilepsy except for children with severe myoclonic epilepsy of infancy (Dravet syndrome). “Dravet syndrome can be triggered by immunizations. Children with Dravet syndrome have mutations in sodium voltage-gated channel alpha subunit 1 (SCN1A) gene (70%) (citations 3,4 in article).”

“This retrospective study examines adverse events (AEs) following immunization (AEFIs) in the context of two competing hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1—vaccinations are not associated with or trigger epilepsy AEFIs except for individuals with Dravet syndrome.

Hypothesis 2—one or more vaccine manufacturing contaminants, or possibly in some instances vaccine excipients or components, are associated with triggering epilepsy AEFIs for some vaccinees.

Herein, multiple SAE associations are observed for (1) multiple vaccines for infants and (2) human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines for teenagers and young adults. Statistically different normalized epilepsy AEFIs normalized frequencies from different manufacturers are suggestive of differences resulting from possible manufacturing contaminants (e.g., endotoxins). Predicted manufacturing contaminants (e.g., endotoxins) are consistent with the observed associations with multiple vaccines SAE associations. These observed associations warrant further investigations.”

To learn more about endotoxins associated with vaccines, Geoff Pain, Ph.D. has substantial posts on this topic here on Substack.

Figure 1. Epilepsy adverse events by VAERS vaccine type

Normalized frequencies were computed by dividing the number of reported epilepsy AEFI in VAERS by the total number of all AEFI for each vaccine and multiplying the result by 100,000. There normalized frequencies represent the frequency of epilepsy adverse events for every 100,000 individuals (vaccinees) who have any adverse event. A frequency of 2,000 indicates that 1 in 50 individuals with adverse events will likely experience this adverse event. The elevated normalized frequencies (Figure 1) do not represent background occurrences; these are safety signals.

Figure 2. Epilepsy adverse events by VAERS vaccine name

In Figure 2, note that two vaccines targeting the same set of pathogen(s) have have statistically significant differences in normalized frequencies. The most likely hypothesis that explains these observations is the possibility of manufacturing contaminations; endotoxins are the most likely cause.

“Activation of innate immune responses by Toll-like receptors (TLRs) may play a key role in the etiopathology of epilepsy and convulsive disorders [18]. TLRs are an important family of receptors in the defense against microbes [19]. The TLR4 receptor is activated by lipopolysaccharide (LPS, endotoxin) of Gram-negative bacteria [20]. The bacterial endotoxin lipopolysaccharide enhances seizure susceptibility in mice [21].”

Figure 3. Epilepsy infant adverse events

Figure 3 illustrates that infants less than one year of age are much more susceptible of developing epilepsy following immunization with these vaccines. Delaying immunization until the child for these vaccines would reduce the number of children who develop epilepsy. Alternatively, selecting apparently less contaminated vaccines alternatives (see Figure 2) would be an alternative valid approach to for reducing occurrences of epilepsy in children.

Figure 4. Generalized tonic-clonic seizure, petit mal epilepsy, and status epilepticus adverse events.

Similar safety signals are also observed for other epilepsy types in VAERS (Figure 4).

Figure 5. Infant spasms adverse events.

“Infant spasms or West syndrome is considered a spectrum of disorders named infantile spasm syndrome (ISs) [29]. Infantile spasms have a small prevalence in males [29]; inconsistent with this known gender bias, normalized frequencies for infantile spams reported to VAERS are essentially equivalent for both genders (Figure 5). The vaccines with higher infantile spasms AEFIs overlap with epilepsy AEFIs (Figures 3 and 5) and generalized tonic-clonic seizure, petit mal epilepsy, and status epilepticus (Figures 4 and 5).”

Study recommendations

“The results from this study suggest multiple possible follow-up studies. First, given that epilepsy AEFIs are relatively rare, it is suggested to acquire comparable results to those presented herein by retrospective analysis of other vaccine AEs databases. Second, examining some of the detected safety signals for identified vaccines with elevated AEFI normalized frequencies could be included as part of ongoing or future clinical studies. Third, infants age 0 have higher normalized epilepsy AEFI than infants age 1 for multiple vaccines (Figure 3). Delaying immunization of some of these vaccines for infants aged 0 until slightly older is predicted to lower the epilepsy AEFI occurrences for infants. Fourth, the normalized frequencies presented support the hypothesis that one or more manufacturing contaminants are acting as triggers for epilepsy, generalized tonic-clonic seizure, petit mal epilepsy, status epilepticus, infant spasms, and seizure AEFIs. The most likely manufacturing contaminants for observed associations are endotoxins. Evaluating vaccine lot samples with mass spectrometry (or other quality control techniques) focusing on paired identical vaccines with highly discordant epilepsy AEFIs normalized frequencies (Figure 2) is recommended for quantifying possible manufacturing contaminants. Fifth, developing an animal model for epilepsy AEFIs may be highly informative to understanding the etiology in humans. Understanding the etiology of these AEFIs may lead to procedures to minimize their occurrences.”

Conclusions

“The VAERS database was retrospectively examined for epilepsy and related AEFIs. Normalized frequencies identify associations for these AEFIs for multiple vaccines. These AEFIs may be triggered by possible manufacturing contaminants (e.g., endotoxins) administered within these vaccines. Eliminating or reducing these possible contaminants may reduce the observed associations closer to background population levels.”

This is a free substack.