Study: Vaccines not to blame for onset of Guillain-Barré Syndrome

Vaccines, including those used in protecting against influenza, do not put a person at increased risk of Guillain-Barré syndrome despite wide-spread concerns, according to a Kaiser Permanente study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Disease. The retrospective study spanned 13 years starting in 1994 and included 415 confirmed cases of individuals with Guillain-Barré syndrome – only 25 percent of which had received any vaccine in the six weeks prior to the onset of the disease Furthermore, researchers also found that 277 of the patients had a respiratory or gastrointestinal illness in the 90 days preceding the onset. “If there is a risk of Guillain-Barré syndrome following any vaccine, including influenza vaccines, it is extremely low,” said Dr. Roger Baxter, co-director of the Kaiser Permanente Vaccine Study Center and lead author of the study. Guillain-Barré syndrome is an acute disease thought to be an autoimmune disorder resulting in destruction of a nerve’s myelin sheath and...