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Mark J. Upfal
University of Colorado Health Sciences Center Denver

JAMA. 1985;253(20):2960.

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

To the Editor.—

In the recent decision analysis article by Sacks et al¹ in the Dec 28, 1984, issue of THE JOURNAL, the authors claim to have calculated the maximum rate of hepatitis B vaccine-induced acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) to be eight per 100,000 with 95% confidence. This calculation is based on a study of 40,000 persons who had been vaccinated prior to mid-1982. I do not believe that an extrapolation from this population can be expected to hold true for a vaccine manufactured from today's pool of donors. As of June 1982, there were less than 600 reported cases of AIDS in the United States,² plus an unknown population of carriers of the disease-inducing agent. As of November 1984, the number of reported cases increased more than tenfold to 6,993,³ and the number of carriers, still unknown, can be presumed to have increased as well. The . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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