Egg hypersensitivity and adverse reactions to measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine

We evaluated the safety of the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) combination vaccine in 140 children with egg hypersensitivity. All children, regardiess of vaccine skin test results or severity of egg hypersensitivity, were safely immunized with the MMR vaccine. Systemic reactions to MMR vaccine in two nonallergic children were documented, indicating that reactions unrelated to egg protein can occur. With the use of a competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, the standard MMR injection was found to contain approximately 37 pg of ovalbumin-like material. This study provides 95% confidence that at least 97.5% of egg-allergic children will tolerate MMR vaccine without significant difficulty. Skin testing was not found to be helpful in predicting an adverse reaction. We recommend that the American Academy of Pediatrics consider revising its current policy regarding skin test response to MMR vaccine and administration of MMR vaccine to egg-allergic children.