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Do Vaccines Cause Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS)?

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The Clinician’s Vaccine Safety Resource Guide

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Abstract

Influenza vaccines reduce the risk of influenza infection, which causes Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS). Thus, influenza vaccines prevent GBS by protecting against natural influenza infection. However, influenza vaccines can very rarely cause GBS within 6 weeks of vaccination in adults, at an estimated rate of 1-3 cases per million vaccinations. Influenza vaccines have not been shown to cause GBS in children. Older formulations of rabies vaccine did cause GBS, but newer formulations of rabies vaccine have not been shown to cause GBS, and rabies vaccine is not routinely recommended to the general population in the United States. Other vaccines that are currently routinely recommended to the general population in the U.S. have not been shown to cause GBS. In years when influenza vaccine strains are a good match for the circulating wild type viruses, influenza vaccines prevent much more GBS than the vaccines cause. Therefore, the very small risk of GBS from influenza vaccines pales in comparison to the benefits of the vaccine.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    These conclusions do not necessarily consider vaccines recommended only for special populations in the United States such as Yellow Fever vaccine (international travelers) or Smallpox vaccine (military personnel).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Epidemiologist, Institute for Vaccine Safety, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Matthew Z. Dudley PhD, MSPH

  2. Professor, Departments of International Health and Health, Behavior and Society, Director, Institute for Vaccine Safety, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Daniel A. Salmon PhD, MPH

  3. Professor Emeritus, Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Professor Emeritus, Department of Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Director Emeritus, Institute for Vaccine Safety, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Neal A. Halsey MD

  4. Professor of Medicine, Pediatrics, Global Health, and Epidemiology, Emory University, Associate Director, Emory Vaccine Center, Director, Center of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance (Emory-UGA CEIRS), Former President, National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID), Atlanta, GA, USA

    Walter A. Orenstein MD, DSc (Hon)

  5. Associate Director for Behavioral Research, Institute for Vaccine Safety, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Rupali J. Limaye PhD, MPH, MA

  6. Associate Professor, Pediatrics-Infectious Diseases, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver, CO, USA

    Sean T. O’Leary MD, MPH

  7. William H. Foege Professor of Global Health, Professor of Epidemiology and Pediatrics, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Saad B. Omer MBBS, PhD, MPH

Authors
  1. Matthew Z. Dudley PhD, MSPH
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  2. Daniel A. Salmon PhD, MPH
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  3. Neal A. Halsey MD
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  4. Walter A. Orenstein MD, DSc (Hon)
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  5. Rupali J. Limaye PhD, MPH, MA
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  6. Sean T. O’Leary MD, MPH
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  7. Saad B. Omer MBBS, PhD, MPH
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Dudley, M.Z. et al. (2018). Do Vaccines Cause Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS)?. In: The Clinician’s Vaccine Safety Resource Guide. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94694-8_36

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94694-8_36

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-94694-8

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