By Ed Susman
Special to DG News
NEW YORK, NY -- October 16, 2002 -- Doctors
treating patients at the Peripheral Neuropathy Center of Cornell-New York
Hospital have identified nine people with neuropathies or encephalopathies
linked to vaccination with Lymerix.
Howard Sander, MD, associate professor of clinical
neurology at the Weill Medical School at Cornell, said the patients treated
represent only those with neurological complications of the vaccine, which was
taken off the market due to several reports of various side effects after being
administered to more than a million people.
In a presentation here October 15 at the 127th
annual meeting of the American Neurological Association (ANA), researchers
reviewed those neurological cases.
Dr. Anita Wu, MD, a fellow in neurology at the
hospital and lead author of the poster study, said four patients were being
treated for neuropathies; four for encephalopathies and one patient appeared to
have both neuropathy and encephalopathy complaints.
"We are not certain whether the patients developed
these conditions from the vaccine or possibly from
Borrelia burgdorferi
infection," she said. B. burgdorferi
is the bacterium that is transmitted by infected ticks to humans, causing a wide
spectrum of symptoms, from rash to neurological impairment.
Dr. Sander noted that the investigators have only
been tracking these neurological complications for a year. "We want to put it on
the map that the vaccine can be linked to these conditions. This is just the tip
of the iceberg," she said.
Dr. Armin Alaedini, PhD, also a fellow in neurology
and another co-author of the study, noted that in hearings before the Food and
Drug Administration many individuals reported a variety of symptoms following
Lymerix vaccination.
The researchers scrutinised the genetic sequencing
of key amino acids found in the patients and in various databases. They said
their work considered that the neurological sequelae of Lymerix vaccination, and
possibly chronic Lyme disease, might be caused by molecular mimicry, resulting
from reactions to part of the vaccine proteins.
Dr. Wu said one patient suffering from a neuropathy
had responded to standard treatments. She said that the presentation did not
receive any outside funding.
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