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In reply to the discussion: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Twisted Anti-Vaxx History [View all]pnwmom
(108,980 posts)But they still are.
Sorry to hear about your grandson! One of my sisters died the day after the old DPT vaccine. Eventually, they had some court cases where children with undiagnosed mitochondrial disorder were determined to have been severely injured by the vaccine. The claim by the vaccine's supporters was that that didn't matter -- it was "only" these children that had a problem. Well, since they couldn't identify who those children were ahead of time, it was everyone's problem.
Eventually, my niece was diagnosed with a condition most likely caused by a mitochondrial disorder. Fortunately, she'd never had the vaccine because three of her cousins had had bad reactions (very high fevers or seizures) and we knew the cause of my sister's death -- so three different pediatricians in three cities decided to halt the DPT for the cousins in my family. In retrospect, this probably explains why my sister died. (Mitochondrial disease tends to run through the female line.)
Fortunately, because of the work of vaccine safety orgs, and Congress, and even people like RFK Jr, there was pressure to develop a safer DPT vaccine. I was the first guinea pig in my family to have it -- no problem. And since then all my children had it (to provide protection for a new granddaughter). No problem -- even for the son who had had seizures with the older kind.
So there has been some progress, but now it's time to get Thimerosol out of the flu vaccines, too -- at least for pregnant women.
I hope your grandson is okay.