They called the results of this study “worrisome” but consoled themselves with the thought that “only a small proportion of SIDS cases in infants with birthweights greater than 2500 grams could be associated with DPT.” A particular criticism to be made of this study is that children with “predisposing medical conditions” were excluded and their deaths were not considered to be SIDS, whereas in actuality children with “predisposing medical conditions” are routinely vaccinated.

Another study by the same group, of "neurologic events" following vaccination, is slightly more ambiguous than the preceding one but nonetheless raises a red flag about vaccines. Alexander M. Walker, Hershel Jick, David R. Perera, Thomas A. Knauss, and Robert S. Thompson. "Neurologic Events Following Diphtheria-Tetanus-Pertussis Immunization."(Pediatrics 81:3 [March, 1988], 345-349) was an investigation of the same 35,581 children, born between 1972 and 1983, as in the previous study. The attempt was made to identify "new neurologic conditions" in this group, not by interviewing the families, as might have been expected, but by examining hospitalization records and prescription records for the drugs typically used to treat seizures. Since the pharmacy was “on line” only on July 1, 1976, any drug purchases made prior to that date by families who left the Group Health Cooperative before July 1, 1976, would have been missed, as well as “any child neither hospitalized not treated with drug therapy.

Also excluded from the study were children with “uncomplicated first febrile seizures, because these “are not likely to have been hospitalized or treated with drugs.

Also excluded from the study were children whose first seizure occurred prior to 30 days of age -- presumably because no vaccinations were given in the first 30 days of life (although this is not stated).

Also excluded from the study were children in the category “seizure with possible predisposing cause, such as "trauma, asphyxia, congenital malformation, disorders of metabolism, birth weight less than 2500g, central nervous system infection, and neonatal sepsis."

Also excluded were children for whom it was not possible to identify from the available records a clear date of onset of illness.

Ultimately, the group was reduced by 25% -- to 26,600. Of course, when studies such as this exclude whole categories of children -- presumably those who are particularly vulnerable to vaccine damage -- the question immediately arises whether the study is truly a representative sample, since in the “real world” all of the above excluded categories are routinely vaccinated. And if the sample is not “representative,” the study itself has no predictive value.

The authors found 239 seizures without an apparent predisposing cause among the children in the target population. One case, in particular, is worth describing: “The single seizure that occurred within three days of a DPT was in an 11-month old white girl who suffered a 2 ½ hour generalized tonic-clonic seizure on the evening of her third DPT-oral poliovirus vaccination. Her temperature during the seizure was 39 degrees C. (102.2 degrees F.). Results of CSF studies were normal. There was a transient left hemiparesis and right sixth nerve paresis. She was treated with phenobarbitol. At 6 years of age, while still taking phenobarbitol, she was experiencing rare focal left-sided seizures in the absence of fever and continued to have abnormal EEG tracings.