An apparently healthy teenage girl gets a cervical cancer vaccine, and drops dead a few hours later. Did the vaccine cause the death? Not in the U.K. case we mentioned earlier this week. An autopsy found that Natalie Morton died of a previously undiagnosed tumor in her chest, the BBC reports . That sad case is a reminder to be wary of confusing proximity in time with cause and effect — a concept public-health officials have been citing in advance of the imminent roll out of the swine (H1N1) flu vaccine. As the CDC chief recently pointed out , there will be people who get a swine flu

shot and suddenly drop dead a few hours later. Pregnant women will get the vaccine and go on to have miscarriages. In those situations, he said, “we need to know very clearly how many we would expect if the vaccine doesn’t cause any problems whatsoever.” Only if the number of sudden deaths, miscarriages, or other health problems is significantly higher than expected in those receiving the vaccine is there an indication that the vaccine may be to blame. No such serious problems have been detected in clinical trials of the H1N1 vaccine. Photo: iStockphoto

Continued here:
Cervical Cancer Vaccine Didn’t Kill U.K. Teenager