A month after taking suo motu cognisance of a news report published in a Tamil daily claiming that vaccination given to a six-year-old boy had resulted in a contusion which ultimately turned out to be cancerous growth, the Madras High Court, based on expert opinion, has come to the conclusion that the vaccination was not the cause for cancer.
Disposing of the plea, a Division Bench Justices S. Nagamuthu and Anita Sumanth said, “Without clarifying the correctness of such apprehension, the Tamil daily has reported as though the cancerous growth was as a result of immunisation injection.
“Such news items will undoubtedly create apprehension in the minds of the people that there is, at least, a close nexus between immunisation injection and the cause of paediatric cancer. We apprehend that, in future, the people more particularly, innocent, ignorant and remote villagers might become reluctant to take their children for immunisation programmes which would have a disastrous impact on the society,” the Bench added.
According to the report, the boy hailing from Erode was given vaccination in a government institute in Sathyamangalam taluk when he was six-months-old. A few days after vaccination, a contusion developed at the place of injection (right thigh), which developed into a cancerous growth which weighs about three kilograms now.
The court also sought expert opinion from the Head of the Department of Oncology, AIIMS, New Delhi, and the Head of the Department of Oncology, Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai as to whether such vaccination can cause cancer.
