The investigation lasted 17 years and the facts date back almost 22 years. In 1994, a major vaccination campaign againstHepatitis B is launched in France. But a few months later emerges a scandal linked to the appearance of dozens of suspected cases of neurological diseases such as multiple sclerosis (SEP). A national judicial investigation was then opened in 1998. 17 years and sixty cases of MS formally identified later, the investigation resulted, in the summer of 2015, in a dismissal, according to information from the Parisian. Nevertheless, three former managers of the pharmaceutical industries Sanofi-Aventis and GlaxoSmithKline are still indicted for aggravated deception.
No cause and effect link
The cause of the dismissal required by the prosecution: the absence of a proven link between taking the vaccine and the onset of diseases. The expert reports have in fact successively contradicted each other and the Court found them to be of little credibility. In the end, an overwhelming majority of experts insisted on the largely unrecognized origins of MS and noted that no causal link could be formally established in the medical field.
10% vaccine refusals in France
In the end, after this scandal made a lot of noise for two decades, the conclusion seems disappointing to patients. It’s a bit like the story of the mountain that gave birth to a mouse. Still, the suspicions and fears related to the hepatitis B vaccine have played during all these years a preponderant role in the virulence of the French anti-vaccine movement. France is indeed the most doubtful country in terms of vaccination, with nearly 10% vaccine refusals. However, vaccines prevent between two and three million deaths per year worldwide.
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