No link with DTP, SIDS
No association exists between the DTP vaccine and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), concludes a study from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
A report on the study, which appeared in the April 1987 Pediatrics, notes that the infants who died of SIDS had a significantly lower incidence of DTP immunization than the control infants.
"There is no suggestion of an excess of deaths due to SIDS within the first 24 hours after DTP immunization," the authors of the report state. "It is clear that exposure to DTP immunization does not correlate positively with (these) two major risk factors for SIDS, low birth weight and black race."
The study compared 800 infants who died of SIDS with 1,600 control infants, all of whom were matched for AIDS and half of whom were matched for race and birth weight.