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October 30, 2002
INTERNATIONAL IMMUNIZATION NEWS
"Researcher Criticizes Vaccine Safety Assessment"
Reuters Health Information Services (www.reutershealth.com) (10/28/02); Woodman, Richard
Researcher Thomas Jefferson--who coordinates vaccine work for the Cochrane Collaboration from Italy and is studying vaccine safety with funding from the European Commission--believes that a lack of unbiased, large clinical trials involving vaccines for childhood diseases and a lack of intense surveillance puts children at risk of adverse events following vaccination. He also praised the pilot immunization registries, soon to be implemented in Sweden and Finland, that will record when each person is vaccinated, the specific vaccine batch, and subsequent health outcomes. Additional steps that could be taken to improve vaccine safety evaluation include internationally agreed upon definitions of adverse events and continuous reviews of evidence associated with vaccines.
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