I know there is a startling number of type 1 diabetes in toddler aged children in the past three to four years, and, if I remember correctly, that is about when this new chickenpox vaccination was made available and mandatory for children to receive before they entered a daycare or school environment. Both of my children (now aged three and a half and four and a half) were diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of 18 months and had received the new chickenpox vaccination at 15 months of age. I find it hard to believe it’s a coincidence since neither my husband nor I have it, and our pediatrician told us that typically a strange/new virus will “kickstart” the islet cell antibodies to destroy the islet cells. Has anyone raised the question, or made a correlation between the chickenpox vaccination and the onset of type 1 diabetes?

There has indeed been a small but significant rise in the incidence of autoimmune diabetes over the last twenty years or so both in Western Europe as well as in the U.S. and Canada. More striking has been the increase in type 2 diabetes in children and adolescents, with the implication that has for a lifestyle with little exercise and an appetite for high calorie foods.

The possibility of a link between immunisations and the onset of type 1A (autoimmune) diabetes was first proposed some years ago with an emphasis on the timing of the immunisations. The research technique was questionable however, and understandably, it was soon refuted in a number of studies including one from the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta. (See DeStefano F, Mullooly JP, Okoro CA, Chen RT, Marcy SM, Ward JI, Vadheim CM, Black SB, Shinefield HR, Davis RL, Bohlke K; Vaccine Safety Datalink Team. Childhood vaccinations, vaccination timing, and risk of type 1 diabetes mellitus. Pediatrics 2001 Dec;108(6):E112.) Another large and still ongoing study of the environmental factors that may trigger diabetes in the susceptible, called DAISY, has so far not found any link between varicella (chickenpox) vaccination or indeed any other immunisation procedure and diabetes.

It is the exception for there to be a history of type 1A diabetes in the parents of affected children.

DOB