DPT Vaccine

The DPT vaccine is one of the many immunizations given to infants. It is one of the first ones since administration of it prevents diphtheria, pertussus, and tetanus, which are associated with high death rates and complications in children. I found this article about DPT to be very interesting compared to other articles which come out and directly accuse vaccines of causing autism. This article, on the other hand, showed controversies with the vaccine regarding side effects but never mentions the word autism. Instead, it names a few minor and more common symptoms followed by the more serious side effects. Common symptoms include a headache, fever, and flu-like symptoms, while extreme symptoms include hyperactivity, convulsions, seizures, and mental retardation. I found the choice of words to be very interesting for this website since many other websites do claim that there is a link between DPT and autism. To see why this website was different, I looked around and realized that this was a lawyer’s website. Many lawyers know that they do not have a cause when claiming autism is a side effect. Instead, they can use one of these rare side effects instead. If it can be proven that the DPT vaccine caused one of the extreme symptoms, monetary compensation could be rewarded. This is due to the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP) that was created by the government.

I think that having compensation for children who were negatively affected is great, and it shows that unlike many people claim, the government is not trying to hide that there are rare problems with the vaccines given, in this case DPT.

Sources: http://www.monheit.com/dpt_vaccines/problem.shtml, http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-dpt-vaccine.htm, http://www.monheit.com/dpt_vaccines/you_do.shtml