RR Relative risk

The Author(s) 2014. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Abstract Since the implementation of the mass vaccination campaign against hepatitis B in France, the appearance of multiple sclerosis, sometimes occurring in the aftermath of vaccinations, led to the publication of epidemiological inter-national studies. This was also justified by the sharp increase in the annual incidence of multiple sclerosis reported to the French health insurance in the mid-1990s. Almost 20 years later, a retrospective reflection can be sketched from these official data and also from the national pharmacovigilance agency. Statistical data from these latter sources seem to show a significant correlation between the number of hepatitis B vaccinations performed and the declaration to the pharmaco-vigilance of multiple sclerosis occurring between 1 and 2 years later. The application of the Hill’s criteria to these data indicates that the correlation between hepatitis B vaccine and multiple sclerosis may be causal