9 x increase in seizures after swine flu vaccine: Australian gov't investigation

INVESTIGATOR: Australian Nobel Prize winner Professor Peter Doherty is leading an investigation into Australia's baffling spike in severe side-effects from flu jabs. 

From Perth Now:

SEASONAL flu shots can trigger febrile fits in young children at nine times the expected rate and should not be given to healthy under-fives this winter, the Chief Medical Officer advised yesterday in a warning that puts the world on alert.

Australia's baffling spike in severe side-effects may jeopardise the roll-out of the 2010 flu vaccine in the northern hemisphere, where the US, the European Union and Canada are awaiting the results of an investigation to be led by immunologist Peter Doherty.

 From The Australian:

Chief Medical Officer Jim Bishop said the 2010 seasonal flu shot had triggered febrile convulsions at a rate of nine in every 1000 children younger than five -- nine times the expected rate. [Nearly 1 in 100 young kids had a seizure:  a rate unheard of for other vaccines. The CSL vaccine is the one used in Australia, and it is unknown whether other manufacturers' vaccines cause the same, or other, complications--Nass]

The head of Australia's investigation into the spate of serious side-effects from the suspended pediatric vaccine said one hypothesis was that the killed-off cells were causing a "cytokine storm" -- a severe overreaction to the vaccine by healthy children's immune systems.
Such reactions have been blamed for the death toll from the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. Professor Doherty told The Australian the vaccine "could be doing something along those lines".

Pharmaceutical giant CSL yesterday announced a voluntary recall of the pediatric version of its Fluvax seasonal flu vaccine from medical clinics and distributors, as a "precautionary measure".

From Perth now:

The federal government has appointed Professor Doherty -- who shared the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1996 - to lead a committee of experts who will collaborate with the US Centre for Disease Control in Atlanta.
"Everyone is interested in what we're discovering, and we will be making information available to our colleagues at the WHO, the US and Canada," Professor Bishop told The Australian yesterday.
"The EU Centre for Disease Control has been in contact and we've had teleconferences with them. Our information is important to them, and they are going to take our findings into account."

Instead, the CDC tried to drown out this information today, blitzing the media with the claim (from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution):  CDC:  Swine Flu Vaccine Proved Safe.

But this isn't true.  The truth, discussed later in the article, is that swine flu vaccine caused the same amount of extra Guillain Barre Syndrome (GBS) cases as seasonal flu vaccine causes:  one more case than would otherwise occur per million vaccinated.

... analysis by the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed that about the same rate of people contracted GBS after receiving this recent swine flu vaccine as have historically contracted it from common flu vaccine.

But never mind the truth, when CDC is trying to reassure nervous parents that this year's vaccine couldn't possibly cause children to have seizures.  “Ongoing CDC research continues to show that the 2009 H1N1 flu vaccine is safe," CDC spokeswoman Rosa Herrera said. "Data show that the vaccine’s safety profile looks similar to the time-tested profile of seasonal flu vaccine.”

CIDRAP (U. Minnesota) makes clear CDC's data are preliminary and based on unconfirmed phone surveys (!)