Confirmed: no link between hepatitis B vaccinations and MS. (News).

Two reports in the February 1, 2001, issue of The New England Journal of Medicine help put concerns to rest by showing there is no association between vaccinations for hepatitis B and certain other viruses and the risk of developing MS or triggering MS relapses.

The American study

Under the leadership of Harvard University's Dr. Albert Ascherio, investigators used the database from the Nurses' Health Study, which regularly surveys 238,371 female registered nurses about their lifestyles and history of diseases. In the early 1990s, the question "Have you ever had a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis made by a physician?" was added to the questionnaire.

Dr. Ascherio's team found that those who had received hepatitis B vaccinations were no more likely to develop MS than those who had not. The final analysis included 192 women with MS and 645 controls without MS.

The European & Canadian study

Headed by Dr. Christian Confavreux at Hopital Neurologique, Lyon, France, investigators in Europe and Canada used the European Database for Multiple Sclerosis registry to determine whether several vaccinations, including tetanus, influenza, and hepatitis B, increased the risk of MS relapses within the following 2 months. The study involved 643 people with MS and the results indicated that vaccination did not increase their risk of relapse.

Conclusions

Hepatitis B is a blood-borne infection that can cause chronic illness and, in some, fatal liver diseases. Health-care workers and sexually active travelers are at high risk because this disease is widespread in most of the developing world. It can be prevented by vaccination, but is incurable once a person is infected.

These two studies add weight to previous findings suggesting that such vaccines are safe. People with MS and their physicians can make decisions about their appropriate use without added worry about a trigger effect on the MS.