Mexican commission calls for reparations in vaccine case

MEXICO CITY – Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission blames the country’s public health system for sickening 31 babies in a remote village last year. Two of the infants died.

The commission released a statement Friday saying there was no evidence showing the vaccines themselves were contaminated. But it appeared their administration led to the bacterial infections in May 2015 in the southern state of Chiapas.

The statement called on the Mexican Institute for Social Security to pay reparations to the affected families for violating their human rights.

The public health system said after the illnesses last year that its own investigation indicated that the vaccines for tuberculosis, rotovirus and hepatitis B were safe, but that somehow bacterial contamination occurred at the clinic in the Indian village of La Pimienta.