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A study by Inserm published by The Lancet last March clearly evokes an increase in infant mortality in France, but no offense to opponents of vaccines, this information was observed long before the arrival of vaccination, or even of covid itself.
Once again, as has happened since the start of the pandemic, real information is “hijacked” to incriminate possible harm from the anti-covid vaccine. In March 2022, a study published by Inserm and The Lancet Regional Health Europe reports that the number of deaths of children under the age of one increased by 7% between 2012 and 2019.
A misinterpretation of a real scientific study
Or the screenshot of an article RMC on the subject has since been widely cited to explain a consequence of vaccination against Covid by imprecise internet users. This is to forget a little quickly that the study is based on data observed… before the health crisis. And so long before the anti-covid vaccination.
Another inconsistency: in France the vaccine does not concern children under 5 years old. But that doesn’t seem to stop the most staunch of vaccine opponents who swear the vaccine”is a poison”, or once again “They take us for idiots”.
Infant mortality that has increased significantly but… between 2012 and 2019
The tweet from RMC misshared since last May, however, relays real information on infant mortality: this increased by 7% between 2012 and 2019. These are the results of an Inserm study, published in the newspaper The Lancet Regional Health Europe according to the analysis of INSEE data during this period.
Their results show that during this study period, 53,077 deaths of infants under the age of one were recorded among the 14,622,096 live births, and that the number of deaths of children under one year, fell sharply from 2001 to 2005, then more slowly from 2005 to 2012, before rising again. Infant mortality thus rose from 3.32 in 2012 to 3.56 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2019, an increase of 7%.
“There is no relationship between this increase and the vaccination against Covid-19 since the data stops at 2019“, confirms Jean Christophe Rozé, co-author of the study and president of the French Neonatology Society at theAFP.
“We have seen on social networks that some people associate the results of our study – the increase in infant mortality – and vaccines against Covid-19, but this is not at all the case. The period of increase observed is between 2012 and 2019, well before the health crisis“, also replied Martin Chalumeau pediatrician and epidemiologist who supervised the study.
“Above all, the first provisional data we have also do not show an increase in infant mortality since the start of the health crisis or since the arrival of vaccines,” adds the epidemiologist.
The causes of this evolution remain hypotheses today (higher maternal age, increasing precariousness, increase in overweight and diabetes in women, etc.) mentioned in the latest Public Health France report on perinatal health. This is why reason is qualified “of indeterminate”.
Anti-Covid vaccination does not concern infants
Other information to take into account to counter misconceptions: in France, vaccination does not concern infants.
- This was extended in December 2021 to children aged 5 to 11 at risk or with relatives at risk;
- The vaccination of all children from 5 to 11 years old was opened on December 22, 2022;
- To date, it is not open to children under one year old, and barely 5% of children aged five to eleven are vaccinated in France.
Since December 19, 2022, the High Authority for Health“recommends extending vaccination against Covid-19 as of today to children aged 6 months to 4 years old at risk of a serious form of the disease and death. It concerns thechildren who have one of these comorbidities: congenital heart disease, chronic liver disease, chronic heart and respiratory disease (including severe asthma requiring ongoing treatment), neurological disease, primary or drug-induced immunodeficiency, obesity, diabetes, hematological malignancies, sickle cell disease and trisomy 21“. Vaccination is also recommended for babies whose entourage is at risk of having a serious form of Covid.
Finally, concerning the vaccination of pregnant women, which can also be brandished as a cause of infant mortality by Internet users distant from studies, a meta-analysis of 23 studies published on May 10, 2022, concludes that “vaccination with mRNA vaccines against Covid-19 during pregnancy appears to be safe and is associated with a reduction in stillbirths“.