text: Malcolm Brabant spent two years in and out of mental institutions after a yellow fever vaccine . When award-winning BBC foreign correspondent Malcolm Brabant walked into a clinic one afternoon to have a yellow fever vaccine, he was warned the possible side-effects could be dizzy spells and a headache. Yet within 24 hours of having the jab, in April 2011, Malcolm had been reduced to a sweating, shivering wreck, gripped by a fever so strong it took two weeks and a spell in hospital before his temperature was brought down. Then the psychosis began. A shooting star, glimpsed from the balcony of his home, convinced Malcolm - who had no previous history of mental illness - that he was a modern-day Messiah. 'I went completely bonkers,' he says today. 'The vaccine fried my brain.' Malcolm, 59, who had the jab in preparation for an assignment in the Ivory Coast, believed his Kindle could fly, that dead friends were contacting him and that he could stop traffic just by thinking about it. He spent the next two years in and out of mental institutions, unable to work - and even attempted suicide. Fortunately, he has since made a full recovery. But Malcolm believes the yellow fever vaccine - available in High Street vaccination clinics, GP surgeries and even Boots - could have dangerous side-effects that affect more people than previously thought. Since its invention in 1951, more than 540 million doses of the vaccine have been given. Anyone travelling to parts of Africa or South America is advised to have it. Yellow fever is a serious viral infection spread by mosquito bites. Symptoms include fever, chills, loss of appetite and nausea. While many people recover after five or six days, 15 per cent enter a second, toxic phase, with recurring fever, abdominal pain, and jaundice due to liver damage. They may also start vomiting blood. This toxic phase is fatal in about 20 per cent of cases. Clearly a dangerous illness, there is no doubt vaccination can be life-saving. But Malcolm and others who say they have been adversely affected by the jab want the manufacturer to investigate. Malcolm, who for many years was the Beeb's man in Greece, had the jab in a clinic in Athens, where his family was living. Next morning, his new wife Trine, found him downstairs, shivering and sweating, his face beetroot red. 'I was beside myself with worry,' says Trine, 55, an author and journalist. 'It wasn't just the fever but the change in character. He became irrational, then emotional - crying.' When his fever showed no signs of relenting after five days, Trine took Malcolm to hospital. The doctors, who also discovered through blood tests that Malcolm had suffered recent liver damage, told him they believed he'd had an adverse reaction to the vaccine. He believes the yellow fever vaccine could have dangerous side-effects . They managed to lower his temperature. But his mental problems were only just beginning. Formerly agnostic, Malcolm became convinced he was Jesus, and two weeks after being admitted to hospital he was moved to a mental hospital and given anti-psychotic medication. It was a harrowing time for Trine. 'One day I visited him in hospital and he stripped off his clothes and asked me to turn the sheet into a nappy and put it on him so everyone could see he was Jesus,' she says. 'Doctors had told me not to upset him, just to do what he asked, so I did it. It was heartbreaking.' After three weeks, Malcolm was discharged in May 2011, and seemed to be recovering, so went back to work. But within weeks he deteriorated again. Malcolm developed full-blown psychosis, and over the following months moved between psychiatric hospitals in different countries - in the UK, Greece, and eventually with money running out, in Trine's native Copenhagen. On one occasion he attempted to take his own life. Happily, Malcolm was well enough to be discharged from hospital in July 2012 and has since made a full recovery. He is now pursuing the manufacturers of the vaccine, Sanofi Pasteur, to admit liability for what happened to him. As Trine explains: 'Every doctor we dealt with said they thought he'd suffered an adverse reaction to the vaccine. Since May 2011 I have been back to Sanofi Pasteur many times, but they are refusing to do anything or even meet us.' Malcolm is not the only person who believes they have had an adverse reaction to the drug. He is in touch with 12 others who believe they, too, have suffered grave side-effects. The NHS says that up to three in ten people who are immunised with the yellow fever vaccine suffer a mild headache, muscle aches, mild fever or soreness at the injection site - and that these symptoms occur because your immune system is trying to fight the small dose of yellow fever you have been injected with. These symptoms may last for up to 14 days after the injection. It's thought that far fewer people, four in a million, suffer more serious psychotic or neurological reactions, mainly unconnected to the symptoms of yellow fever itself. One of those is former Royal Naval Commander Graham Beard, who is convinced the jab, which he had in July 1999, ruined his health. He still suffers bizarre attacks, with loss of vision, hearing impairment, vertigo and headaches (posed by model) A fortnight after being given the injection, Graham, now 56, experienced terrible pains down his left side. He spent three weeks in Watford General Hospital and another three in the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in Queens Square, London. 'No diagnosis was made, except that I had suffered a major neurological illness,' says Graham, a father-of-two from Wales. After three months at home convalescing, Graham - who had also been unable to move - finally got movement back in his limbs and the pain disappeared. But then began a series of debilitating attacks which continue to this day. 'While now controlled by epilepsy medication, I still suffer bizarre attacks, with loss of vision, hearing impairment, vertigo and headaches, which occur sometimes daily or with gaps of several days or weeks,' he says. 'The most I have ever had is 19 in a single day. The stress and exhaustion from these attacks essentially stopped my career. I managed to hang on for ten years, but by 2010, after 32 years in the Navy, I realised I wasn't being fair on the team. 'Having struggled to accommodate the condition, while taking a staggering succession of medications and having constant tests, it finally beat me and I had to walk away from the career I loved.' Graham always mentioned to specialists that his symptoms seemed to have begun after he had the yellow fever jab and, consequently, he has been advised by medical professionals it's likely that a vaccine caused the problem. But it was only after hearing about other cases such as Malcolm's that he decided to speak out. 'Surely the company that makes the vaccine has a moral duty to review it to see if it should be modified or replaced,' says Graham. As long ago as 2005, Dr Thomas Monath, a former Harvard public health professor and world expert on yellow fever, confirmed that the vaccine can cause 'really severe and significant adverse events'. He told Good Health: 'While we should not overlook the 60 years of wide use of yellow fever vaccine, with a remarkable record of safety and effective prevention of this terrible disease, rare and unusual adverse events temporally associated with vaccination may occur. Some of these, such as the neuropsychiatric syndromes described in Mr Brabant's case, may not be acknowledged as causally related in the official literature.' The manufacturer, however, does not believe it needs to reassess the vaccine. In 2013 Dr Ronald Neeleman, head of vaccination innovation at Sanofi Pasteur, admitted to a conference that the vaccine hadn't been reviewed in many years, saying it serves 'a small market, with very low returns, and there is not really an incentive to redevelop'. A spokesman told Good Health that the company takes reports of adverse events 'very seriously' and ensures they are investigated promptly, but 'after carefully examining all the medical information that has been disclosed to us up to April 2013, we have been unable to establish any evidence for a causal relationship between the administration of the yellow fever vaccine Stamaril and Mr Brabant's reported medical condition. 'The current state of scientific knowledge does not support that these reported symptoms could be biologically plausibly linked to the natural history of the disease, nor the mode of action of the vaccine. 'Similarly, the observation of an event after vaccination does not automatically mean that vaccination has caused this event.' Malcolm, who has written a book, Malcolm Is A Little Unwell, won't be satisfied until the experiences of people like him are acknowledged in official literature about the vaccine and he has been offered compensation. 'The vaccine almost destroyed me,' Malcolm says. 'I want justice for my family, and the hundreds of others whose lives have been ruined.'
target: BBC foreign correspondent Malcolm Brabant had a yellow fever vaccine .
  24 hours later he had been reduced to a sweating, shivering wreck .
  Had a fever for two weeks then psychosis: 'I went completely bonkers'
  Spent two years in and out of mental institutions, unable to work .
  Even attempted suicide, but has fortunately made a full recovery .