The same journal group that more than a decade ago helped kick start the controversy that vaccines trigger childhood diseases has published a new study linking the whooping cough vaccine with earlier symptoms of a severe form of epilepsy.

In 1998, The Lancet published the now infamous study by Andrew Wakefield reporting that the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine caused autism. Although that claim has been discredited for years and the journal retracted the paper a few months ago, many parents and advocates cling to the idea that childhood vaccination instigates various disorders.

Adding further fuel to the vaccine “debate,” The Lancet Neurology today published a retrospective study of 40 children with Dravet syndrome, an acute type of epilepsy primarily caused by mutations in the sodium channel gene SCN1A, showing that around 30% suffered their first seizures within two days of receiving the whooping cough (also known as pertussis) vaccine — about two months earlier than other kids.

Although vaccination appeared to trigger earlier onset of disorder, the authors of the study were quick to point out that these same children would have developed epilepsy eventually. What’s more, the extent of the seizures was no worse than the other children who developed the syndrome later on. Thus, the researchers concluded, the vaccine remains safe and effective.

“These kids already had that genetic abnormality, [so] regardless of the relationship with the vaccine, they would have actually had that disorder happen to them anyway,” study author Anne McIntosh of the University of Melbourne’s Epilepsy Research Centre told Reuters. “Essentially, there is no proof that people should not be vaccinated … from concerns about it causing the onset of that disease.”

In an accompanying commentary, Max Wiznitzer, a pediatric neurologist at the Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio, urged that “through effective and accurate information and communication about benefits and realistic risks, public confidence in vaccines can be strengthened.”

Image via Wikimedia Commons