Re: Daughter had reaction from DPT shot

My sister died the day after a DTP vaccine, in 1958. I had always been told she died of pneumonia. It was only after my children started reacting to the DPT vaccine that we discovered the truth.

My mother said that we always had terrible reactions to the DTP -- enough so that our doctor had started giving us half-doses-- and that my sister had died the day after she had a DPT. Mom had taken her for her 6 month old well-baby check-up, and she had the vaccine. That night, Mom said she developed "a little runny nose." The next morning, she woke up having seizures and they took her to the hospital, where the doctors said she had encephalitis. But "pneumonia" was what went on the death certificate, and so my parents always told us she'd died of pneumonia.

For over twenty years they had thought my healthy sister died the day after her well-baby check-up from some "germ" she "picked up" in the doctor's office. But my children's pediatrician pointed out that pertussis starts with a runny nose and causes a severe form of pneumonia. So she stopped giving my children that particular vaccine. They had always reacted badly to it (one child had seizures) -- and with the info about my sister, that did it. Tweet