§ Mr. Ashleyasked the Secretary of State for Social Services, pursuant to his reply of 9 July to the right hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South, if he will express the number of reports of adverse reactions to pertussis vaccine as a percentage of the number of children in the relevant year who were immunised with the vaccine; and if he will give details of the extent and manner in which reports of suspected adverse reactions are further investigated by the Committee on Safety of Medicines.
§ Dr. Vaughan[pursuant to the reply, 22 July 1980, c. 210]: It is not possible to provide the percentage figures requested with any degree of statistical validity. This is because national figures of children treated with pertussis vaccine relate to children who complete a full course of vaccinations, whilst the adverse reactions reports given in my previous reply to the right hon. Gentleman on 9 July relate to vaccinated children whether or not they completed the full course of vaccinations.—[Vol. 988, c. 191–93.] The two sets of figures are not therefore statistically comparable.
For purposes of general comparison, however, the table below gives the number of children who completed a course with pertussis vaccine in the United Kingdom, usually in combination with diphtheria and tetanus toxoids in each of the following years:
760W
1965 800,756 1966 797,916 1967 815,220 1968 702,729 1969 527,987 1970 690,760 1971 737,562 1972 721,837 1973 672,913 1974 528,610
1975 313,595 1976 308,539 1977 288,427 1978 247,257 NOTE: The figures for 1967–1973 inclusive, include a small number of children in Northern Ireland who were vaccinated against diphtheria and tetanus only.
Adverse reactions reports relating to vaccines are followed up where necessary in the same way as reports to the Committee on Safety of Medicines on other medicinal products. These methods were set out in my reply to the right hon. Gentleman on 9 July.—[Vol. 988, c. 186–8.]