Vaccination and asthma

NEW YORK, August 11 (Praxis Press) Preliminary studies have yielded conflicting results about the safety of influenza vaccination in children with asthma. Kramarz and colleagues retrospectively studied the association of emergency department visits and hospitalizations, and flu vaccination in a cohort of 131,653 children ages 1 to 6 years with asthma. In the two weeks after vaccination, the unadjusted incidence of asthma exacerbation was two to three times higher. However, after adjustment for asthma severity using a self-control method, incidence rate ratios of asthma exacerbation were 0.58 in 1993–1994, 0.74 in 1994–1995, and 0.98 in 1995–1996. Asthma does not appear to be a contraindication to flu vaccination in children.