Giving Babies Tylenol May Blunt Vaccines’ Effects
Via WMTW (10/15/09):
Giving babies Tylenol to prevent fever when they get childhood vaccinations may backfire and make the shots a little less effective, surprising new research suggests.
It is the first major study to tie reduced immunity to the use of fever-lowering medicines. Although the effect was small and the vast majority of kids still got enough protection from vaccines, the results make “a compelling case” against routinely giving Tylenol right after vaccination, say doctors from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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The research was sponsored by Belgium-based GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals, which makes all the vaccines used in the study. Some authors have financial ties to the company, including owning stock in it, and Glaxo had a role in reporting the results.
I’m a little bit suspicious of this story. GSK-Bio makes money selling vaccines. GSK makes money selling people all sorts of pharmaceutical products. So, if your game is to cause sickness with vaccines, and offer “cures” via scores of other products, and the “success” of your vaccination program is reduced when the “patient” ingests Tylenol when receiving their shot(s), you have a problem.
On the other hand, you could actually believe that GSK wants you to be healthy.