(edit:) After reading the rest of the comments, it seems that you have (again) attracted quite a few wackos, Phil.

NICE JOB! Hopefully a few of them will find that elusive animal called “reason” here.

I will no longer be watching the Discovery channel and am canceling my magazine subscription.

I can find no evidence of any affiliation between Discovery Channel and Discover Magazine.

Age of Autism is not a credible source of information, sorry to say. As an example, I offer their support of Andrew Wakefield.

At any rate, the information you posted is incomplete and sounds an awful lot like cherry-picking data. Was this study published anywhere? If so, in what journal? What was the title? Was it reviewed by independent third-parties? Has anyone else replicated the study? How were the other countries selected? What were the causes of infant mortality in each of the countries examined?

There is so much left out of your little blurb, that it is basically useless, and certainly does not, in and of itself, carry any scientific weight.

Following the link at the end and scrolling through the AoA site until I found the full blog entry where you got that, I noticed that the study was published by Generation Rescue, another pro-disease/anti-vaccine group who, before even knowing all the details involved in the autism rates among Somalis in MN, started canvassing the families saying that vaccines caused their kids’ autism.

The authors created a table showing the number of vaccinations next to the mortality rate for under-five children, even though the United Nations report from which they got that data does not specify causes of death. It is misleading, therefore, to suggest that higher number of vaccines equals more deaths. I find it interesting that they do not show the number of mandated vaccines in any African countries next to those countries’ mortality rates. Also, even their table suggests that there is no correlation between # of mandated vaccines and under-five mortality, seeing as there are countries with more mandated vaccines and yet lower mortality rates than countries with fewer mandated vaccines.

Before I ramble on any more, the study you posted has serious flaws and is quite simply bad science.

Objective: To compare vaccine schedules, autism rates, and under 5 mortality rates of the United States to other countries to see if any differences emerge.

Design: A full publication and literature review was completed to determine vaccine schedules and under 5 mortality rates for 30 countries, including the United States. The 29 other countries all had lower (better) under 5 mortality rates than the U.S. Additionally, autism rates were compared for certain countries with reliable, published autism prevalence data.

Results: The United States mandates the most vaccines in the Western world (36), double the average of the 30 countries studied (18). All countries with lower vaccine mandates have better under 5 mortality rates and many have materially lower autism rates.

Conclusions: The analysis lends credibility to the relationship between vaccines and autism and challenges the public view of both the Centers for Disease Control and American Academy of Pediatrics that more vaccines is always positive for public health.

http://www.ageofautism.com

Thanks

The CDC, FDA, manufacturers, etc. do not say that vaccines are 100% without risk. However, they are, all other things considered, relatively safe. Every one of them, if one cares to look, state what the risks are for each vaccine. The media, on the other hand, I would say is more likely to distort this. Of course, there is also a misunderstanding by the public who hear “safe” and think it means 100% without risk. When talking about any kind of medicine, “safe” is a relative term and depends on examination of the benefits and risks involved.

As to funding for the FDA, several years ago, through the Prescription Drug User Fee Act, industry began paying the FDA for every market application filed. The purpose of the fees was to provide added funding to hire more investigators to improve review quality and shorten review times. The necessity of this act, which has been renewed every year, was due to a lack of funding by Congress. FDA is still among the least-funded agencies in the government. I recommend the book Protecting America’s Health: The FDA, Business, and One Hundred Years of Regulation by Philip Hilts for a good history of the FDA and drug regulation. It provides insight into how it came about, how it has changed and the varying pressures to which the FDA is subject.

I have no idea whether or not the FDA needs more money to do their job, all I know is that they have failed repeatedly to protect the public from injuries that should have been caught early on. Case in point is the Pennsylvania plant’s contamination issues that took 6 months to catch and the Heprin case which of course someone at the FDA should go to prison for. Remember now that Merck was allowed by the FDA to put ProQuad on the market PRIOR to answering some serious questions about seizures and brain injuries and coincidentally once those answers came forward from the NEW study Merck pulled the product off the market just before the investigation began into the contamination at the Pennsylvania plant. ProQuad was not put on the market to fight some horrible outbreak of a new epidemic, it was put on the market as a convenience to the pediatricians. Four shots in one. Something that should have been thoroughly investigated prior to it’s release.

Of course this is all my opinion and speculation and hand full of straw in one father’s attempt to piece together an understanding of what happened to a perfectly developed 12 month old little boy. Who knows, maybe all this is the result of a flea bite or an exposure to some common household cleaning solution but his measles titers and the rest of his blood work tend to point a finger in a different direction and if it can happen to my son, it can happen to others and that, I believe, is science. Whose fault it is, I guess, lays at my feet for allowing the vaccination to take place. But I can’t help but think that had there have been one headline, one news story that said anything other than how wrong people are to question the safety of vaccines I might see this in a completely different light. I can’t help but think we aren’t getting the truth and if we aren’t getting the truth about this, what else are we being lied to about? Yellow cake anybody?

I realize that my son’s injury is a one in a million event. But with the proper oversight and adherence to proper protocol my son’s injury could have been prevented.

The information you posted illustrates the fact that FDA is understaffed and underfunded. That, and the political interference from time to time, are the big problems I see with the FDA. That is not to say, however, that every single thing they approve is bad. The PA case you cite is a good example of FDA doing their job well and getting a dangerous product off the market.

I would suggest that instead of putting your efforts into saying that vaccines are dangerous (they’re generally safe, though mistakes do happen and dangerous products slip through the cracks), advocate for Congress to provide more funding to FDA. That would help to ensure they have enough staff to conduct site visits in a timely manner and catch those bad things sooner. It would also decrease reliance on fees paid to the agency by industry.

On October 14, the major media outlets shrieked a report of “the first outbreak of polio in the United States in 26 years,” occurring in an Amish community in central Minnesota. The specter of hundreds of children in braces and iron lung machines lining the halls of hospitals immediately danced through the air, and directly into the minds of parents who have chosen to not vaccinate their children.

More than a month later, phone calls and emails from concerned parents continue to pour in. The fears surrounding this “outbreak” need to be put to rest.

First of all, there wasn’t an “outbreak of polio.” There was only the discovery of an inactivated polio virus in the stool of four children. The first confirmation was in a 7-month old Amish infant, presumably hospitalized, with severe immune deficiency. The “find” prompted screening of other children in the community; four children were confirmed positive. None experienced any type of paralysis.

Part of the panic can be blamed on inaccurate reporting. The virus that was identified was not “wild polio.” It was a virus that is found only in the oral polio vaccine (OPV). Oral vaccine-strain viruses are inactivated with formaldehyde and are generally considered by the CDC “too weak” to cause disease. Even though the OPV is still used extensively in Third World countries, it has not been used in the United States since 2000. How did children in an isolated Amish community, with no exposure to foreigners, become exposed to vaccine-strain polio virus? That remains a mystery.

The unasked question is why was finding this strain front-page news? My suspicion is that it was because it was an Amish child; a large number of the Amish choose to not vaccinate their children. A confirmation would serve a dual purpose: to make an ”example” of the Amish and scare parents into believing polio still being ”in circulation,” when in fact, it is not.

A review of polio is important to alleviating the fears about the disease. Keep in mind that the last case of “wild type” polio virus in U.S was in 1979; the last case the Western Hemisphere was in the Peru, in 1991.

Polioviruses are transient inhabitants of the gastrointestinal tract. Up to 95% of all polio infections are completely asymptomatic. Approximately 5% of polio infections consist of a minor, nonspecific illness consisting of an upper respiratory tract infection (sore throat and fever) and gastrointestinal disturbances (nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and diarrhea). This influenza-like illness, clinically indistinguishable from the myriad of other viral illnesses, is characterized by complete recovery in less than a week with resultant life time immunity.

Less than 1% of all polio infections result in paralysis. Most importantly, the vast majority of individuals who contract paralytic poliomyelitis recover with complete—or near complete—return of muscle function. Any weakness that is still present 12 months after onset of paralysis is usually considered permanent.[1]

The take home message from the “Amish outbreak” is this:

1. Polio is not a synonym for paralysis.
2. The presence of vaccine-strain polio identified in the stool of 4 asymptomatic children is not a “polio outbreak.”
3. There have been no wild polio viruses identified in the Western hemisphere since 1991.
4. The WHO certified the Western hemisphere “polio free” in 1994.

The average wholesale price (AWP) for ProQuad® is $153.31 per dose. Between 2oo5 when it was introduced on the market until summer of 2007 when it was removed, Merck took in over $250,000,000 per quarter in revenues on the vaccine. That’s roughly 3 billion dollars. It was the second highest grossing vaccine.

FDA inspectors spent a total of 30 days at the West Point plant between Nov. 26, 2007, and Jan. 17, 2008. In April of 2008 an FDA report showed 49 problems at the Merck vaccine plant in West Point, Pennsylvania. The report cites cases where bulk lots of PEDVAX and ProQuad were contaminated, that measuring instruments were were not calibrated properly and that unwanted “fibers” were found on the vial stoppers. Also the report noted defective vials had to be rejected twice to be discarded, and that one internal quality investigation went on for more than a year unresolved.

Several experts said no single finding was horrendous but that the overall pattern was troubling. “It’s the sum of many small things that puts the whole operation in question,” said a 25 year veteran consultant.

He also said, “I would not judge the plant as being out of control. There are numerous issues where they failed to comply with their own documentation and SOP [standard operating procedure] requirements. This suggests insufficient staff. There are other instances where the validation was insufficient. This also looks to me like overwork of the available crew. Sometimes in a plant where everyone feels overburdened . . . they give up trying to do everything and just try to keep their heads above water.”

Then there is this, as if you need anymore proof that just because the FDA gives their stamp of approval doesn’t mean it’s safe.

FDA ignored debris in syringes
Complaints of filth came in 2005; plant’s microbiologist was a teenage dropout

RALEIGH — Months before an Angier company shipped deadly bacteria-tainted drugs, the federal Food and Drug Administration received numerous complaints about sediment and debris in the medicine.

The FDA received reports about AM2PAT as early as 2005, but not until December 2007 did the agency issue recall notices to pull the drugs off the market.

Although they are supposed to be inspected every two years, plants such as AM2PAT have instead gotten site visits about once every five years, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office. Between 2002 and 2007, FDA inspectors visited only about one-quarter of the 5,616 registered plants per year, the GAO report states.

From 1988-2007, the FDA was mandated to enforce 123 new laws. Taking inflation into account, it lost $300 million in funding during the same period. Staffing has remained roughly the same for 15 years.

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/health_science/story/1418047.html

I realize that my son’s injury is a one in a million event. But with the proper oversight and adherence to proper protocol my son’s injury could have been prevented. And of course, had I have known then, what I know now, I would have never allowed my son to be vaccinated. But then, according to most of you, he still would have developed autism when he did because vaccines don’t cause autism.

You’re using scare tactics and distorting things. Let’s put your comment about the polio vaccine into perspective. The following information is from chop.edu/consumer/jsp/division/generic.jsp?id=75724 (add www to the front):

In the early 1960s, when immunization rates in this country were low, contact immunity was an important feature of OPV. However, despite OPV’s 40 years of success, there was an extremely rare but frighteningly dangerous side effect: permanent paralysis. Paralysis caused by OPV occurred in about one of every 750,000 people after taking the first doses of the vaccine. Since 1979, the time when natural polio was eliminated from the United States, OPV caused about six to eight cases of paralysis each year.

The IPV form, now recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), does not, and cannot cause paralysis. But the original IPV, made in 1955, wasn’t a very good vaccine. A few people immunized with at least two doses of the old IPV still caught polio. In the early 1980s, due to advances in protein chemistry and protein purification, a much better inactivated polio vaccine was made. This new IPV obviated concerns about the old IPV and has been the only polio vaccine recommended for use in the United States since 1998.

And from the CDC:

Before polio vaccine was available, 13,000 to 20,000 cases of paralytic polio were reported each year in the United States. These annual epidemics of polio often left thousands of victims–mostly children–in braces, crutches, wheelchairs, and iron lungs. The effects were life-long.

Okay, so we have 6-8 cases of paralytic polio from OPV per year versus 13,000-20,000 cases of paralytic polio per year without the vaccine. The OPV-induced cases suck, yes, but compared to the alternative, just a slight improvement, wouldn’t ya say? Also, regarding “spreading the disease”, note the bit about contact immunity above.

Vaccines have NOT been proven safe or effective

Uh, yes, they have. Otherwise, FDA would not allow them on the market. No proof = breaking the law.

do have serious side effects

Yes, but the serious side effects are extremely rare. As with any medicine that has an effect, there is the potential for serious side effects. The question then becomes, do the risks outweigh the benefits, or do the benefits outweigh the risk? In answering that question, one must look not only at the risks from the vaccine, but also the risks of not vaccinating. For example, here are the risks from the disease vs. risk from the vaccine (info from cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/6mishome.htm):

MMR –
DISEASE

Measles
Pneumonia: 6 in 100
Encephalitis: 1 in 1,000
Death: 2 in 1,000

Rubella
Congenital Rubella Syndrome: 1 in 4 (if woman becomes infected early in pregnancy)

VACCINES

MMR
Encephalitis or severe allergic reaction:
1 in 1,000,000

DTaP –
DISEASE

Diphtheria
Death: 1 in 20

Tetanus
Death: 2 in 10

Pertussis
Pneumonia: 1 in 8
Encephalitis: 1 in 20
Death: 1 in 1,500

VACCINES

DTaP
Continuous crying, then full recovery: 1 in 1000
Convulsions or shock, then full recovery: 1 in 14,000
Acute encephalopathy: 0-10.5 in 1,000,000
Death: None proven

What is the difference between autism and PDD?

The term “PDD” is widely used by professionals to refer to children with autism and related disorders; however, there is a great deal of disagreement and confusion among professionals concerning the PDD label. Diagnosis of PDD, including autism or any other developmental disability, is based upon the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) (American Psychiatric Association, Washington DC, 1994), and is the main diagnostic reference of mental health professionals in the United States.

According to the DSM-IV, the term “PDD” is not a specific diagnosis, but an umbrella term under which the specific diagnoses are defined.

http://www.autism-society.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_FAQ

FROM NIMH:

Autism Spectrum Disorders (Pervasive Developmental Disorders)

What are Autism Spectrum Disorders?

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), also known as Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDDs), cause severe and pervasive impairment in thinking, feeling, language, and the ability to relate to others. These disorders are usually first diagnosed in early childhood and range from a severe form, called autistic disorder, through pervasive development disorder not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS), to a much milder form, Asperger syndrome. They also include two rare disorders, Rett syndrome and childhood disintegrative disorder.
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/autism-spectrum-disorders-pervasive-developmental-disorders/index.shtml

FROM YALE:

Pervasive Developmental Disorder – Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS)

Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS) is a ‘subthreshold’ condition in which some – but not all – features of autism or another explicitly identified Pervasive Developmental Disorder are identified. PDD-NOS is often incorrectly referred to as simply “PDD.” The term PDD refers to the class of conditions to which autism belongs. PDD is NOT itself a diagnosis, while PDD-NOS IS a diagnosis. The term Pervasive Developmental Disorder – Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS; also referred to as “atypical personality development,” “atypical PDD,” or “atypical autism”) is included in DSM-IV to encompass cases where there is marked impairment of social interaction, communication, and/or stereotyped behavior patterns or interest, but when full features for autism or another explicitly defined PDD are not met.

It should be emphasized that this ”subthreshold” category is thus defined implicitly, that is, no specific guidelines for diagnosis are provided. While deficits in peer relations and unusual sensitivities are typically noted, social skills are less impaired than in classical autism. The lack of definition(s) for this relatively heterogeneous group of children presents problems for research on this condition. The limited available evidence suggest that children with PDD-NOS probably come to professional attention rather later than is the case with autistic children, and that intellectual deficits are less common.

http://www.med.yale.edu/chldstdy/autism/pddnos.html

And my bad, Banks’ parents were awarded a lump sum of more than $810,000 plus medical-care compensation by the vaccine court in February 2009. It took over a year and a half to come up with the money. Special Master Richard Abell ruled that the plaintiff had successfully demonstrated that “the MMR vaccine at issue actually caused the conditions from which Bailey suffered and continues to suffer”.

My son’s doctor was indeed an idiot and a great deal of the responsibility for his injury lays at the feet of this doctor and his partners in his practice for failing to follow the simplest of protocols. But many children present to the doctor’s office with no symptoms and a normal range of red blood cells that are actually too sick to be getting the vaccines. How do we as parents know any better if the doctors don’t? How do we as parents know to be cautious about vaccines when we are constantly told not to worry, it is those crazy Jenny McCarthy antivax people looking for excuses. How do we as parents know that some vaccines, such as ProQuad, has clinical trials showing serious adverse reactions, including death when it doesn’t make the evening news? But what does make the news is crap like this: “Recently, Offit set off a flurry of angry postings when he said that a baby’s immune system could handle as many as 10,000 vaccines. Then he upped the ante, saying it was probably “closer to 100,000.” http://www.newsweek.com/id/165644/page/2

Ahh, that feels much better!

Poling and Banks both have autism and that’s a fact.

Poling may well be autistic, but the claim actually made before, and accepted by, the NVIC was that vaccination caused a regressive encephalopathy with features consistent with an autistic spectrum disorder. The decision in the Banks case clearly describes his condition as a non-autistic PDD.

Bank’s case was HEARD in July of 2007, the decision wasn’t announced until last month.

False. The decision was filed on 20/07/2007, and made publically available shortly after.

Why weren’t the anti-vaxxers talking about it earlier? Because the Banks case is pretty weak. There’s no solid evidence that MMR causes ADEM, no solid evidence that ADEM causes PDD, there’s even some question as to whether Bailey Banks actually had ADEM, and of course, there’s the minor detail that PDD is not autism. And even if all those weak links turn out to be solid gold, the fact remains that measles is known to cause ADEM at a rate one thousand times greater than that claimed for MMR. If the Banks case is true in every respect, then it is an argument for vaccination, not against.

The Chinese didn’t recognise autism until 2006.

“For decades, autism went largely undiagnosed in China even as in the West awareness was growing of the condition. China only recognised autism as a disability in 2006.

“Autism is very unknown in China. If you ask people on the street, 90 percent of them have never heard of it,” said Tian Huiping, the founder of China’s pioneering school for autism, Stars and Rain, in the suburbs of Beijing.

Some provinces have also begun to set up state-backed schools, in a sign that autism, known in Chinese as “lonely syndrome”, is finally getting recognition.”

You seem to be equating having no diagnosis for it as meaning it didn’t exist. The one does not necessarily equal the other. Before the disease description was even developed in the West, it most certainly existed, but it was called other things, mental retardation among them. You should also note that the article you linked to mentioned the big problems with recognition (due to no developmental milestone comparisons between siblings) and a lack of diagnostic tools. Simply put, autism may have been just as common there as anywhere else; they just didn’t have the tools or knowledge to look for and correctly diagnose it.

At any rate, you said they did not have a word for it. I showed that they did. You moved the goalpost, but still used faulty logic.

Regarding the Somalis in Minnesota, you should note that the articles (and the NY Times more so than the NPR one) state that the cause of the high rates of autism in the Somali population are unknown, but that there are many different contenders, such as vitamin D deficiency, inbreeding, effects from the civil war, and so on. The article does not support the argument that vaccines are in any way connected.

Poling and Banks both have autism and that’s a fact.

Wrong. Poling has complications of a mitochondrial disorder. Banks has acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM). Neither of these is autism, though their symptoms may be similar.

In fact, Merck has recalled 1.2 million vials of Hib across the world after finding sterilization defects in the lot made at its Pennsylvania factory on Wednesday.

Good for Merck for picking up on the defects and taking appropriate actions to avoid patient injury. This event, however, still does not show that vaccines in toto are bad and evil and simply tools of a money-grubbing corporation. In fact, it contradicts the “Big Pharma’s trying to make us sick” argument.

Regarding the Hib vaccine death in China, do you have a link to the story?

Of course a misdiagnosis could mean death or as in my son’s case, a serious brain injury.

And, misdiagnosis is the fault of the vaccine how?

His immune system was out of wack the day he got his shots

Wait, wait, wait. Was he already sick the day that he got his shots? IIRC, most vaccines warn against administration of the vaccine if the patient is sick, on antibiotics, and so forth. If your son was sick that day, then his doctor is at fault. But then, your comment that his doctor diagnosed his seizures over the phone rather than calling for him to come in to be examined already speaks to his ineptitude.

You have my sympathies for what happened to you and your son. However, I think you are placing the blame in the wrong spot. In general, vaccines are safe (and yes, there’s always some level of risk). There are situations where they should not be administered, though, such as when the patient is ill, is allergic to one of the excipients (e.g., eggs), and so forth. These are spelled out in the labeling. Any physician that doesn’t follow the indications in the labeling is putting their patient at increased risk.

GAry 7

I use iMac and it has a great spell checker. Makes me look a lot smarter than I am,,,

GAry 7

Gary 7

But I’m just mean that way.

Oh and Shane, thanks for the great “Name” for this post.

Chris J

I’m not too sure this has anything to do with my son’s case. His problem developed immediately after he received his vaccines at 12 months of age. His immune system was out of wack the day he got his shots, his doctor saw nothing unusual in his seizures, fevers and fits of screaming at the top of his lungs. He lost his language he developed, lost eye contact, social interaction, stopped eating real foods and stayed sick. His doctor said his immune system was equal to that of an AIDS patient.

Ben was diagnosed with viral encephalitis, caused by the measles. Unless I allow a brain biopsy or a lumbar puncture we will not know for certain if the measles is from a wild strain or a vaccine. Right now it is just a coincidence that he became so sick after the vaccine.

I have no idea what caused he autism in other children, I just know a brain injury caused my son to have characteristics of someone with autism.

Based on my clinical study of one child, autism is caused by a virus. Vitamin D, testosterone, mother smoking, vinyl flooring, pesticides, older parents may all be connected by weakening the protection mechanism guarding the area of the brain that is sensitive to viral infections. This can happen in the uterus or out, who knows.

I just know what happened to my son and I believe it to be vaccine related.

http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health/autism/vit-D-theory-autism.shtml

GAry 7

“For decades, autism went largely undiagnosed in China even as in the West awareness was growing of the condition. China only recognised autism as a disability in 2006.

“Autism is very unknown in China. If you ask people on the street, 90 percent of them have never heard of it,” said Tian Huiping, the founder of China’s pioneering school for autism, Stars and Rain, in the suburbs of Beijing.

Some provinces have also begun to set up state-backed schools, in a sign that autism, known in Chinese as “lonely syndrome”, is finally getting recognition.”

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSPEK182906

MPR: Report : Higher rate of Somali kids in Mpls autism programs
Mar 31, 2009 … There is no word for autism in the Somali language. And as far as Abdull knows, there are no cases of autism in Somalia. …

minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/03/31/somalis_autism_research

Poling and Banks both have autism and that’s a fact. Bank’s case was HEARD in July of 2007, the decision wasn’t announced until last month.

HIB Vaccine Recall
December 17, 2007

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US pharmaceutical firm Merck & Co and its China importer have recalled 104,930 vials of a children’s vaccine against meningitis and pneumonia after they were found to be defective, China’s top drug watchdog said yesterday.

Hib is a vaccine for under-five children against meningitis, pneumonia and other serious infections.

The vaccines were distributed in eight Chinese municipalities and provinces, including Beijing and Tianjin, and Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Hainan and Sichuan, said a statement on the State Food and Drug Administration’s website (SFDA). But there have been no reports from any of these places of a child falling ill after vaccination.

In fact, Merck has recalled 1.2 million vials of Hib across the world after finding sterilization defects in the lot made at its Pennsylvania factory on Wednesday.

Baby dies after being given Hib vaccine

A FOUR-MONTH-OLD baby died after receiving a pneumonia and meningitis vaccine in east China’s Shandong Province, an official with the local health bureau said yesterday. The baby was vaccinated against Haemophilus… …from Shanghai Daily on Sun, Oct 26 2008

Febrile seizures are extremely scary. When my son initially had his seizures the doctor said (over the phone) they were febrile seizures. I wonder how he could tell the difference between febrile seizures or meningitis over the phone.

A child having a febrile seizure may:

* Have a fever usually higher than 102 F (38.9 C)
* Lose consciousness
* Shake or jerk the arms and legs on both sides of the body
* Rigidity
* Roll his or her eyes back in the head
* Have trouble breathing
* Lose urine
* Vomit
* Cry or moan

Possible symptoms of infant meningitis:

* Fever
* Headache – often hard to detect in an infant
* Irritability
* Poor feeding
* Refusing feeds
* Fretfulness
* Dislike of handling
* Neck stiffness – though difficult to identify in newborn except by other behaviors like neck retraction or back arching.
* Retracting neck
* Arching back
* High pitched crying
* Whimpering
* Lethargy
* Tiredness
* Difficulty waking
* Staring expression
* Vomiting
* Bulging fontanel
* Seizures
* Poor muscle tone
* Jaundice
* Diarrhea

Of course a misdiagnosis could mean death or as in my son’s case, a serious brain injury.