View report page

83
of ensuring permanent sterility, which are adopted in the laboratories
where this material is prepared, preclude the slightest danger
to the subject who is being inoculated.
As regards the results of the work which are so far apparent
in this area, it can be stated that no case of diphtheria has occurred
in any person who has received a course of immunising injections
and has been subsequently certified as Schick-negative.
Seven children, who were found to be Schick-positive or susceptible
to diphtheria originally, have contracted diphtheria prior
to the completion of the immunising course. During this period,
no claim is made that any protection at all has been conferred, as
the development of such immunity takes an appreciable time of
some weeks after the third injection of T.A.M. In the case of a
child of 5 years, who had only received one injection of T.A.M.; and
who must have been incubating diphtheria at the time of being
brought to the clinic, the disease terminated fatally. None of the
other children who contracted the disease had had more than two
injections of T.A.M.
No child found to be naturally Schick-negative has been notified
as suffering from diphtheria.
It is therefore worthy of note that the only cases of diphtheria
that have arisen among children attending the clinic have been
among subjects already certified by the Clinic Medical Officers as
susceptible, and have occurred at a time when we knew that they
could not yet be protected.
The position is made clear to all parents by the posting on
the clinic waiting-room wall of a notice to the following effect: —
"please note that your child is not considered to be immune
until you have received a certificate to that effect."
Further, to prevent any sense of false security in the minds of
parents, an explanatory note is issued to them as they leave the
clinic for the last time after being given the immunity certificate.
This is worded as follows:—