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Tracy Hampton, PhD

JAMA. 2003;290:2655.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Available evidence suggests that influenza vaccines do not trigger relapses of multiple sclerosis (MS), according to an Institute of Medicine (IOM) report.

The report cautioned that current findings are inadequate to determine whether the vaccines play a causal role in the onset of MS. The committee said "there is weak evidence for biological mechanisms related to immune-mediated processes" by which influenza vaccines might act to trigger neurological diseases. However, committee chair Marie McCormick, of the Harvard School of Public Health, emphasized that because flu vaccines are so widely administered, the possible connection between neurological disorders and the vaccines should be given serious consideration.

Concern about possible links between influenza vaccines and neurological effects arose after hundreds of people developed the paralytic disorder Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) following a vaccination campaign in 1976 against a predicted epidemic of "swine flu." The report concluded that most studies indicate that influenza . . . [Full Text of this Article]