DPT Vaccine Roulette (1982)

Emmy Award winning documentary produced by Lea Thompson at WRC-TV in Washington DC in April 1982. DPT (also called DTP at times) stands for the Diphtheria, Pertussis, and Tetanus Vaccines. The vaccine would eventually be proven to increase a child’s risk for encephalopathy, seizures, and death, which is why the US Government switched out the DPT vaccine for a less reactogenic vaccine, the acellular pertussis vaccine, or DTaP vaccine, which replaced the DPT vaccine in the mid-1990s. The DPT vaccine would still be the vaccine used by developed nations for many decades.