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Genesis gathers details in baby's death

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By Deirdre Cox Baker | Friday, July 04, 2008 |

A baby’s death that caused Genesis Health System to suspend its childhood immunization program is being investigated, but has no known connection to a vaccine given to the infant hours before he died, said Ken Croken, vice president of corporate communications for Genesis in Davenport.

Details of the incident are still being collected, and Croken expects to announce them at a news conference next week. Croken said he had no information Thursday on which vaccination was given to the child, but he said that information should be available at the news conference.

The temporary program suspension comes in the wake of the boy’s death Tuesday night in a hospital emergency room. The child had been vaccinated hours earlier at a Genesis Health Group facility in the Illinois Quad-Cities.

An autopsy was conducted Wednesday, said Brian Gustafson, chief deputy of the Rock Island County Coroner’s office, but as for the cause of death, “We just don’t know yet.”

While initial findings were inconclusive, further genetic testing and toxicology scans have been conducted, he said. Final results will take anywhere from three weeks to three months to obtain.

In the meantime, Gustafson filed a required report Wednesday with what is called the Vaccine Adverse Event Report System, or VAERS, run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

About 30,000 VAERS reports are made annually in the United States, with 10 percent to 15 percent of those having a serious result, including death.

The VAERS report and the baby’s medical records will be studied by the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration, said Curtis Allen, a CDC spokesman. The review will be to determine whether the local death is part of any pattern across the country.

Children at 4 months of age begin getting several immunizations for diseases such as measles and the mumps. CDC studies show no link between those immunizations and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or SIDS, according to its Web site, cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns. The leading cause of death among children younger than 1 year is SIDS, according to the CDC.

The CDC’s suggested vaccinations for children at 4 months of age are for: diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, or DTaP; Haemophilus influenza type b conjugate vaccine, or Hib; inactivated polio and pneumococcal. Of those four, no reactions as severe as death have been reported due to the vaccination, according to the CDC Web site.

While the Genesis childhood immunization program has been suspended, vaccines still are being administered in the Quad-City area at other locations, including the Scott County Health Department’s Immunization Clinic, which saw 21 patrons Wednesday.

Deirdre Cox Baker can be contacted at (563) 383-2492 or dbaker@qctimes.com.