Reuters (12.03.07) - Monday, December 17, 2007

Lead author Dr. Yann Mikaeloff - of Hopital Bicetre, Le Kremlin Bicetre - and colleagues noted that most previous studies have found no link between HBV vaccine and MS in children. One study, however, used a slightly longer follow-up period than the others and suggested a significant association. In addition, many of the earlier studies were also cited as having methodological problems. The concerns this generated precipitated a drop in vaccine rates in many countries.

Researchers in the current study assessed 143 children who developed MS before age 16, with a first episode occurring between 1994 and 2003. Each patient was matched to MS-free control participants (average number: eight) from the general French population who were the same age and sex and from the same geographic location.

In the three years before the onset of MS, roughly 32 percent of children in both groups - the 143 children with MS and the 1,122 control subjects without MS - had undergone vaccination against HBV. The researchers found that HBV vaccination within the three-year period was not associated with an increased risk of a first MS episode. "The rate was also not increased for hepatitis B vaccination within six months of the index date or at any time since birth or as a function of the number of injections or the brand of hepatitis B vaccine," the authors wrote.

"We have published [this study] both because of the rigor of the research and because of the need to reassure a public that is increasingly wary of vaccination," said an accompanying editorial by Dr. Frederick P. Rivara and Dr. Dimitri A. Christakis.

The report, "Hepatitis B Vaccination and the Risk of Childhood-Onset Multiple Sclerosis," and the editorial, "The March of Science," were published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine (2007;161(12):1176-1182, 1214-1215).
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