Young kids who receive the rotavirus vaccine may be less likely to develop type 1 diabetes than children who don't get this routine childhood vaccination, an Australian study suggests. Rotavirus can cause severe watery diarrhea, vomiting, fever, and abdominal pain. Some children can become extremely dehydrated, requiring hospitalization to prevent fatalities. Rotavirus infections are also thought to accelerate the development of type 1 diabetes, although the exact reason for this connection isn't clear.
In the current study, researchers compared rates of type 1 diabetes in the eight years before and the eight years after May 2007, when a routine oral rotavirus vaccine was introduced for infants six weeks and older. After the vaccine's debut, type 1 diabetes cases declined 14 percent among children age four and younger, researchers report in JAMA Pediatrics . There wasn't a meaningful…
