Post-Vaccinal Encephalitis

HC Deb 09 November 1943 vol 393 c1112W

Mr. Viant

asked the Secretary of State for Scotland why no reference was made in the recent Report of the Department of Health to the cases of, and deaths from, post-vaccinal encephalitis and other results of vaccination during the smallpox scares in Glasgow, Fifeshire and Edinburgh in 1942?

Mr. Johnston

The Report referred to, being a summary Report, was necessarily brief and could not include all material which would have appeared in the longer reports issued in normal circumstances. The position is that out of about a million vaccinations 39 cases of post-vaccinal encephalitis occurred and there were 14 deaths. Information as to the number of persons who developed other conditions which may have been due to, or complicated by, vaccination is not available, but eight deaths occurred as a result of such conditions.