The first study of its kind as far as we are aware, perhaps the most striking and significant feature of the report is not the results of the tests, which might have been anticipated, so much as the fact that it came from a foreign country, Czechoslovakia. American science has been foremost in the development and promotion of vaccines. That it should be laggard in basic safety testing, of which this study may represent one of the modest beginnings, is a sad reflection on the American scientific community. We expect and should demand more from American science and medicine. This does not detract from the fact that these diseases, such as measles, may have complications resulting in brain injury.
Measles can precipitate subacute sclerosing panencephalitis and encephalomyelitis.
The latter illness may follow not only measles, but rubella, varicella, mumps, influenza, and other childhood diseases, just as smallpox and rabies vaccinations may be complicated by postvaccinal encephalomyelitis. Dublin L. Health Progress, 1936-1945. History, Ethics Law and Health. Evidence Bearing on Causality. The Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, October 1998, pp.