Can meningitis immunization affect asthma?
Dear WDDTY:
Concerning the case study of the little girl who developed asthma after the MMR vaccine (WDDTY vol 5 no 7), I practise Traditional Chinese Medicine and have been treating a little boy of 20 months with acupuncture for mild asthma. He had never been hospitalized and had had nine months at a stretch with no evidence of asthma at all.
For five months from the start of acupuncture treatment he had vitually no wheezing. Suddenly he became very ill with asthma and spent three days in hospital. During this time his mother said he became hyperactive (he is usually a very quiet child, who reacts with only mild annoyance to my needle) and was chasing around the hospital ward "like a madman".
Searching around for any possible cause of this episode, I found out that he had been given an immunization against meningitis seven days previously. Is this the vital clue?
It worries me very much that such incidents may go unreported because no connection is made between such episodes. Have any other children made similar responses? Ruth Clarke, Toash Clinic, Olney, Buckinghamshire......
WDDTY replies: Dr Michel Odent's surprise finding in a study of breastfed children that immunized
children have six times the incidence of asthma (WDDTY vol 5 no 6) appears to support your clinical observations.