Catholic professionals back controversial tetanus vaccine

An international organisation of Catholic health professionals dedicated to the care of mothers and babies has approved the controversial tetanus vaccine.

In a statement released yesterday, Canada-based MaterCare International said if the tetanus vaccine given to millions of women in many countries including Kenya was capable of causing infertility, there would be ample demographic data to confirm this by now.

Currently, a team of professional experts drawn from both the Ministry of Health and the Church are in the process of conducting joint tests to establish the vaccine’s safety.

The anti-tetanus campaign began in October last year, with the second and third rounds of immunisation having been carried out in March and October this year, during which millions of women were vaccinated. It was sponsored by the World Health Organisation and Unicef.

MaterCare International Founder and Executive Director Robert Walley said the validity of the tests performed in five labs in Kenya was questionable because they were not tested as vaccines but human samples. Dr Walley said even if the substance tested was the infertility hormone, the levels were too small to cause infertility.

“But the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Kenya Catholic Doctors Association acted in good faith after receiving what appeared as evidence from the lab tests. They were fulfilling their pastoral duty,” he said.

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Walley said once the absence of the alleged birth-control hormone was unequivocally confirmed by joint lab tests, a public statement and campaign in support of the immunisation programme would be necessary to reverse the damage.

“In future, the World Health Organisation should officially certify that all vaccines do not contain any substance with contraceptive properties through a process of randomly testing all future batches for infertility hormones. This will help allay fears,” he suggested.

Earlier this year, Catholic Church head John Cardinal Njue warned a congregation in Nyeri to be wary of the vaccines because there was “something fishy about them”.