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Giving Babies Tylenol May Blunt Vaccines' Effects
Boston Herald
10/16/2009
Researchers in the Czech Republic have determined that giving infants Tylenol or acetaminophen before or after vaccination to prevent fever could lessen the vaccine's effectiveness. Sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals, the study involved 459 healthy infants nine to 16 weeks old who were receiving an assortment of childhood vaccines, with half given three doses of Calpol, the European Tylenol-like brand, during the first day after immunization and the remainder given only the vaccines. While only 42 percent of infants given the fever-lowering medication developed a fever, compared to 66 percent of the infants given only the vaccine, neither group reported infants with high fevers. Infants given the medicine, however, had lower levels of antibodies than the other group, even after receiving booster vaccines, though more than 90 percent of infants participating in the study achieved protection from the vaccines. In a companion editorial published in The Lancet, doctors from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted that despite the fact that the antibody levels were not so low that infants were not protected, similar studies make "a compelling case against" using fever-lowering medications as a preventive measure during vaccination. Experts say antibody levels were not affected when the medicine was given after a fever developed.
