Kim Rossi

16 Year Old Blinded (Bilateral Vision Loss) After Gardasil Vaccination

I assume this headline, "Girl Blinded by Gardasil Vaccine!" is in your newspaper today, on the front page, as every case of measles, mumps and chicken pox is reported. Will the doctors at Connecticut Children's Medical Center be hailed as heroes or villains, and run out of town on a rail for publishing this report like a certain doc from the UK who raised a question about MMR? Heroes, I hope.

How dreadfully sad for this child and her mother, who I'm sure is heartbroken and guilt ridden. Let's pray the damage is reversible. When Walgreens advertises flu shots l on TV or when PBS tells you, "Go Get your H1N1 Vaccine" after an episode of Arthur, they are not required to share side effects. Protect your daughter? Of course. We all want to do that. Oh, and Merck is lobbying for Gardasil for boys on the routine vax schedule, so get ready to protect your son too. The .pdf from the journal is HERE.

A 16-Year-Old Girl With Bilateral Visual Loss and Left Hemiparesis Following an Immunization Against Human Papilloma Virus

Francis J. DiMario, Jr, MD

Departments of Pediatrics1 at Connecticut Children's Medical Center, Hartford, Connecticut, fdimari@ccmckids.org, University of Connecticut School of Medicine, Farmington, Connecticut

Mirna Hajjar, MD
Department of Neurology at Hartford Hospital, Hartford, Connecticut
Thomas Ciesielski, MD
Department of Pathology at Hartford Hospital, Hartford, Connecticut

We report the course of a 16-year-old girl who presented with near complete visual loss associated with chiasmal neuritis and a biopsy proven tumefactive demyelinating lesion on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in association with a recent immunization against human papilloma virus.

Key Words: demyelination • tumefactive • blindness • chiasm • HPV

Journal of Child Neurology, Vol. 25, No. 3, 321-327 (2010)
DOI: 10.1177/0883073809349322

Check iut this report from 1978 too:

Am J Ophthalmol. 1978 Oct;86(4):544-7.
Optic neuritis complicating measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination.
Kazarian EL, Gager WE.

A 6-year-old boy developed bilateral optic neuritis with decreasing visual acuity 18 days after administration of live attenuated trivalent measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine. The patient was treated with oral corticosteroids. The optic neuritis resolved within several weeks and normal vision returned. An afferent pupillary defect persistent in the more severely involved eye for 14 months following vaccination.