1 Department of Pediatrics, Texas Children's Hospital, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030
To the Editor.
Our purpose in writing this letter is to comment on the controversy that currently surrounds DTP immunization and the recent marked increase in the cost of this vaccine that apparently reflects the cost of pending litigation.
In 1967, Russell J. Blattner, MD, was Chairman of the Department of Pediatrics at the Baylor College of Medicine. At that time, he performed a small clinical study to compare the rates of minor or local reactions secondary to administration of whole-cell DTP vaccine with the rates of similar reactions to fractionated or split-cell DTP vaccine.