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June 25, 2003

U.S. IMMUNIZATION NEWS

“Health Officials Probe ‘Inadvertent’ Vaccinations of Pregnant Women”

Infectious Diseases in Children (www.idinchildren.com) (06/03) Vol. 16, No. 6, P. 16

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is looking into how 103 women were reportedly given the smallpox vaccine despite efforts to prevent the action.  The agency’s National Smallpox Vaccine in Pregnancy Registry notes that some of the women showed negative pregnancy test results on the day of their vaccination, but the fact remains that in the military’s smallpox immunization program, 62 women conceived before vaccination and 23 conceived during the four weeks following vaccination, according to researchers.  The civilian program showed only six inadvertent vaccinations during pregnancy, with two of the women suffering miscarriages early in their pregnancies.  A number of women involved in clinical trials of different smallpox vaccines were also pregnant at the time, but overall, CDC researchers believe that the counseling to women to abstain from intercourse or protect against pregnancy has been relatively successful. With the screening and counseling programs in place, six out of every 1,000 reproductive-aged women vaccinated became pregnant before or shortly after their vaccinations, down from an estimated 12 out of every 1,000 women who would have otherwise become pregnant during that period.