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Recent research has shown that most patients who experience the onset of a severe encephalopathy with seizures after pertussis vaccination have severe myoclonic epilepsy of infancy (Dravet syndrome), a condition that is causally linked to de novo mutations of the sodium-channel gene SCN1A. Although the pertussis vaccination could precipitate the clinical onset of the disease, it cannot be the cause in patients who have the mutation. These researchers aimed to determine whether diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP) vaccination affects the timing of onset, clinical features, or outcome of Dravet syndrome. They retrospectively studied 40 patients who had (1) Dravet syndrome, (2) a de novo SCN1A mutation, and (3) records documenting the dates of D…