Did Flu Shot Cause 9-Year-Old to Go Blind, Become Paralyzed?
Eight hours after 9-year-old Breanna Browning received the flu shot at school, she began “profusely vomiting,” according to her mother, Brenda Faulk.
By Oct. 17, two days after her vaccination, the Crystal Beach, Texas, fourth-grader “was paralyzed from the waist down, blind, and seemed like she had a seizure,” Faulk told ABC News, speaking out about how they believe it was the flu shot that caused her shocking sickness. “[Prior to the vaccination,] she was perfectly healthy. No symptoms, no sickness.” Browning’s stepfather, Johnny Alexander, added, “We know in our hearts this was the flu vaccine that made her ill.”
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Breanna Browning pre-illness. (Photo: CNN)
Today Breanna remains in the pediatric intensive care unit at Houston Medical Center’s Texas Children’s Hospital, according to her aunt, Yvette Ferrell, who revealed on Wednesday that Breanna has been diagnosed with acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM), a condition associated with inflammation of the brain and spinal cord. “ADEM has attacked two areas of her spinal cord, brain, and neurological system,” Ferrell explained on the family’s GoFundMe page. “This has left Breanna paralyzed from the waist down, poor vision/blindness, [and] incontinence. … [It requires] Breanna to be in a very extensive rehabilitation therapy. Doctors say her recovery could take up to one year.”
But whether the flu vaccine caused Breanna’s ADEM isn’t certain. The rate of postvaccination ADEM associated with the flu shot is reportedly about one per 10 million doses, found a study in Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics.
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“ADEM is extremely rare after flu vaccination,” Judy Schaechter, MD, chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine, tells Yahoo Parenting. “ADEM more commonly occurs with infections. And if it does occur with vaccination, supportive care usually leads to a good outcome.”
Schaechter adds, “Everything in medicine — and everything in life — involves some risk. We try to minimize that risk as much as possible, especially when it comes to our children, but the key is to minimize risk and maximize protection. Influenza vaccination benefits outweigh risks. Thousands of people die from the flu each year. The benefits of protecting oneself, one’s family, loved ones, and community against the flu, pneumonia, and even death are far greater than the side effects and risks of vaccination. It is the flu we need to fear.”
Indeed, 411 Pediatrics’ Ari Brown, MD, tells Yahoo Parenting that “more than 30,000 people die every year from flu.” And while “there are potential side effects to the vaccine, they’re extremely rare.” No vaccine, she adds, “is 100 percent effective or risk-free.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended since 2010 that “everyone six months of age and older should get a flu vaccine every season.”
“The generally accepted position is that vaccines are safe,” Renee Gentry, a Washington, D.C.-based vaccine-injury attorney and president of the Vaccine Injury Petitioners Bar Association, tells Yahoo Parenting. “But they are manmade pharmaceuticals, not magic, and people can have reactions to them. Injuries are rare, but they happen.” Exhibit A: As of October, there have been 802 petitions filed with the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program in 2015 alone.
“There’s a dramatic push to increase the number of people who get vaccinations, even advertising flu shots in summer,” explains Gentry. “And with that huge push and the number of people getting flu shots, we may see these types of cases increasing at the same time.” In fact, according to Gentry, “The courts are seeing a 20 percent increase in [injury] cases resulting from vaccines filed every year.”
(Top photo: CNN)
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