To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many yellow card reports of an adverse reaction to childhood vaccination or immunisation were received in the last year for which figures are available; and how many children died.

In 1991 there were 483 reports of suspected adverse reactions in association with immunisation of children up to the age of 16. A report of a suspected adverse reaction does not necessarily imply a causal association between the reaction, the outcome and the vaccine. Nine of those reports were deaths: research from several recent studies has shown such deaths to be temporally but not causally related to immunisation.