If at First You Don't Succeed, Add Another Booster.

Managing Editor's Note: Thank you to A of A email subscriber Teri for sending me the link to the AJC article on Pertussis.

Has the pertussis vaccine stopped working?  Did it ever work?  It's only 85% effective to begin with and no one know how long it lasts.   Will the answer be, "We need more than five doses for our children?" That's fifteen vaccinations, since the Pertussis vaccine is bundled with Tetanus and Diptheria. Read about a recent outbreak where 17 of 18 kids were vaccinated from the AJC in the home of the CDC:  HERE.   

A cluster of whooping cough cases among Cobb County elementary students is adding to concerns that an important vaccine isn’t as effective as it needs to be to stop the spread of disease.

Whooping cough, also called pertussis, is highly contagious and can cause serious illness among infants and very young children. But the vaccine is only about 85 percent effective and wears off over time, leaving a significant number of children and adults vulnerable to an infection that is more common than many realize, health officials said.

Of the 18 students in the recent Cobb cluster, 17 were properly immunized with five doses of DTaP vaccine, which protects against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, health officials said.

“Despite the fact that we routinely vaccinate against pertussis, pertussis is endemic. There’s lots of pertussis,” said Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of CDC’s meningitis and vaccine preventable diseases branch.

 

Comments

[Jack]

It is a quite a sales model when your product doesn't work you actually get to sell more of it.

They must have learned it from the pesticide industry.

[Jack]

DTaP induces only Th2 cell response, made worse by the use of aluminum adjuvants that suppress Th1 response.

Pertussis also needs Th1 response, so my guess would be that that is why it isn't very effective.

We are really just learning about the delicate balance and interplay between T helper cells. I really think this is the problem with giving so many vaccines (potentially some with conflicting responses) at any one time.

[kathleen]

Thanks Twyla for such an informative reply. My son had a mild reaction to is first shot of DtaP, but I wasn't able to recognize it for what it was at the time. I'm blessed to have stopped with the 3h45m encephalitic cry that accompanied his second dose. There is no doubt in our minds that it could have been much worse for our son, it still makes me sick to think about those well baby visits...

[MinorityView]

Twyla,
Whooping cough doesn't provide lifelong immunity, either, although subsequent cases can be milder. From testing it appears that people get whooping cough over and over again throughout their lives, but clinically visible cases are rare, partly from misdiagnosis and partly from the large number of mild cases. Personally, I'm doubtful that this vaccine has made any difference at all in reducing the number of cases of pertussis...

[Twyla]

Kathleen -
The quote below is from "The Vaccine Book" by Dr. Robert Sears:

"Pertussis is most serious in the first six months of life, with about a 1 perrcent fatality rate for that age group. Recent studies show that of the approximately 2000 reported cases of pertussis each year for infants less than six months, about 75 percent are hospitalized and about 20 die each year. Most of these deaths occur before two months of age... The coughing fits can last so long that the infant is unable to breathe for a minute or so. This deprives the brain of oxygen and can cause brain damage. Fortunately, this [brain damage] is extremely rare -- about 10 cases each year. There are almost never any long-term effects from this disease. The coughing slowly resolves and the lungs recover over a couple of months.

"Beyond six months of age, fatalities from pertussis are almost unheard of, so it isn't considered a serious disease in older infants, children, and adults. We continue to vaccinate beyond infancy in order to decrease the disease in our population and protect infants. During the year that I wrote this book, seven infants less than two months of age died of pertussis in my state of California. They were too young to have even had the vaccine yet."

"... If treatment [with antibiotics] is started right at the onset of the coughing fits, the disease course may be milder and shorter. But by the time anyone realizes a bad cough is actually pertussis, treatment might not help very much and the disease will just need to run its course. Infants who have severe coughing fits and turn blue each time due to lack of oxygen need to be hospitalized for several days to help support them through the fits. A person is no longer considered contagious after five days of antibiotics."

How do the risks of the illness compare with the risks of the vaccine? I don't know. The DPT vaccine previously used contained whole cell pertussis which apparently caused more serious adverse reactions than the acellular pertussis used in the current DTaP vaccine which has only fragments of the pertussis cell. I don't know how much this change has decreased the number and severity of adverse reactions.

Dr. Sears goes on to say that infants in the U.S. are not at high risk for Tetanus and Diptheria (the other two components of this vaccine). There is very little risk of Diptheria in the U.S. And infants who are not even crawling yet don't step on rusty nails. Perhaps it would make sense to vaccinate for pertussis by itself, and put off the vaccines for diptheria and tetnus to a later date. I don't know whether or not this would be better. But at this point it is not even an option, because there is no monovalent vaccine for pertussis by itself.

There are risks of diseases and risks of vaccines. Unfortunately, there is still so much we don't understand about vaccine injuries, and about who is most susceptible, which makes decisions difficult.

I know some peope are confident in arguing for no vaccines whatsoever, but I do not see these issues as black & white. I don't see these questions as having simple answers.

I do believe the following:

- The DTaP should not be given at the same time as other vaccines.

- If a baby has a reaction to the first DTaP this may be an indication that the baby is susceptible to injury from this vaccine. There are some really sad stories in Barbara Loe Fisher and Harris Coulter's book "DPT: A Shot in the Dark" of babies who had increasingly severe reactions to the DPT vaccine which culminated in an even worse reaction with permanent brain damage after the third or fourth shot.

- Our government should be putting much more resources into studying injured babies/children to better understand prevention, treatment, and susceptibility. Our vaccine program should constantly be under review, with new information resulting in modifications to the vaccine schedule, ingredients, and testing for susceptibility. Instead, those responsible seem to constantly be in CYA mode. The protection from liability should have resulted in more willingness to admit to and address problems; instead it appears to decreased the motivation to fix problems.

I found it interesting that some of the babies described in the book "DPT: A Shot in the Dark" had a history of milk allergy before receiving this vaccine. Two of the microbes in this vaccine are raised in a substance called "casein hydrolysate" which contains all the amino acids of casein. I wonder if this contributes to provoking too strong a reaction from the immune system.

And I wonder if this contributes to the sensitization to milk in our kids with autism.

One more issue to consider is that vaccine may not provide life-long immunity, whereas coming down with a fullblown case of whooping cough generally does.

[kathleen]

Thanks for the replies. My next thought would be to wonder just how dangerous whooping cough is? Anyone to die because of it would have it known in a post mortem. So I am guessing that the death rate must not be much, so this begs the question, to me anyway, why vaccinate? Does the benefit out-weigh the risk?
Oh silly me, that is THE question about many of the newer vaccines.

[Jenni Byrd]

“We are frustrated by the fact that we don’t know,” Messonnier said.

Yeah, me too...I am frustrated that you continue to promote the current vaccine schedule w/o full knowledge of the implications.

I am frustrated that I have watched the health of all three of my kids deteriorate and developing autism after getting a vaccine.

[Jack]

"The world has heard much of the triumphant war against disease through the control of the insect vectors of infections, but it has heard little of the defeats, the short-lived triumphs that now strongly support the alarming view that the insect enemy has been made actually stronger by our efforts. Even worse, we may have destroyed our very means of fighting."
--Rachel Carson, "Silent Spring"

Sadly, 50 years later, we still aren't learning the lessons of "Silent Spring." Not a good sign for mankind. Everything she says about pesticides could apply to our current situation. It is a must read.

[moon batchelder]

here in florida too, northwest in the panhandle...a family, all of whom were vaccinated, came down with whooping cough...it was verified by the appropriate health officials...the answer? more boosters for all!!! cheers...

[John Stone]

Kathleen

If you click on the link to the study I provided below - I am afraid my text was a bit garbled - it shows that this was just what was happening. The diagnosis was not being made because the illness was supposed to have been eradicated, but was actually probably quite common. I guess in most case in modern conditions it gets better in the end anyway.

[hera]

There was a whooping cough exposure near our school at one time.We were told that in older children and adults the symptoms can be very mild; a flu or cold that can be followed by a chesty cough for a couple of weeks.Apparently ( based on the information we were given)many people never develop the whole "whooping" cough thing at all, and most adults, and many older kids have it so mildly it is hard to tell it apart from the flu or a cold. ( it is much more dangerous for babies, we were told.)
Interestingly, though no whooping cough cases were reported at all, a flu swept through the school, with a lot of kids out for several days with a cold and later a cough.

Our doctor diagnosed bronchitis and gave antibiotics. (I read somewhere that the antibiotics after 5 days make a person with whooping cough non contagious, even if they still have the cough, so it is good to know the appropriate treatment was given either way.)

I have a purely laymans' suspicion that there may be several or even many cases of whooping cough going around, but they are just getting diagnosed as something else.

[MinorityView]

Kathleen,
Whooping cough isn't all that obvious and is easily misdiagnosed. For one thing, many cases are quite mild and the coughing fits do not present with the "whoop". For another, even with the "whoop" doctors can misdiagnose if the patient doesn't happen to perform during the 10 or 15 minute appointment, especially if the patient in question has been vaccinated. There are an amazing number of alternative diagnoses that doctors have figured out: atypical asthma and bronchitis are popular choices.

[kathleen]

I am confused at how 10,000 cases a year could truly be 300,000 and pertussis be under-reported??? It's whooping cough...it is a far more obvious disease than most. Wouldn't a doctor have to be a complete idiot to miss pertussis? Or am I missing something?

[Erika]

I agree with you Libby.
As far as i know Fifth Disease is a mutation of the Rubella virus and the reason many doctors do not diagnose nor talk about it is...(drums please) because there is no vaccine for it!

By the way, my son got pertussis right after he got his 3rd DtaP shot. He also got it again twice, and gave it to me both times, when we were clearing the shot homeopathically.

[Twyla]

@ Libby -
I am interested in your comment on fifth disease, which recently hit my daughter's school, and I came down with it too. I have been to the standard web sites, (WebMD, CDC, etc.) but I would be interested in any links you can provide regarding a relationship between vaccines such as the MMR and Fifth disease.

[Terri Lewis]

Speaking of booster shots:

*If* you're still one of those people who "believes in" vaccines, and *if* your child wasn't damaged by the first MMR, and *if* you're determined to try your luck again with an MMR booster shot at about 4 or 5 years old--

Why not at least ask your doctor to check titers first?

The MMR is supposed to "work" (produce a certain level of antibodies) in 95% of us the first time around.

Why take all the risks of vaccinating *again* if your child is already showing immunity?

[John Stone]

One paradox is that for a long time we lived under the illusion that whooping cough had been eradicated by vaccination, so no one diagnosed it (I am sure had an incidence in my childhood desopite being vaccinated). We were even assured of this by the Nuffield Consultation on Bio-Ethics in 2006-7, and they somehow managed not to publish my submission pointing out that this was not the case, by the most eminent professional reckoning.

In 2006 the British Medical Journal published a study the lead author of which was a member of the UK Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, which came to the view that whooping cough diagnosis could not be ruled out even if the patient is immunised.

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/333/7560/174

As a result doctors started to diagnose whooping cough for the first time. This was the only time I ever came to thhe defence of our head of immunisation, Dr Salisbury, pointing out to opposition politicians that there was nothing whatsoever he could do about the rise in cases. I trust he is grateful.

[Adrienne]

What I find most frightening are the doctors who refuse to believe the vaccinated children tested positive for pertussis because they had been vaccinated. Wouldn't it be ironic if CDC had to re-brainwash their mass of those still unthinking into believing that yes, they may have gotten it wrong a time or two. That, and the doctor from Sanofi Pasteur who states that "nothing about this is unusual." You can almost picture his glibness while he says that we need to keep vaxing, while some of his colleagues are at least ACTING perplexed. Certainly no conflict of interest on his part, I'm sure. I don't know - there may be a silver lining here. I think CDC may lose yet another handful of parents and Peds to our side after news like this. We'll see - not holding my breath...

[CDC says what?]

The vaccines don't work in the children so the CDC's answer is to vaccinate the adults and teens. ha ha ha They are so STUPID. I also heard that they are going to switch back to the super brain damaging DPT and away from DTaP. Smart people running the CDC.

[Libby]

I have to say the pertussis vaccine has stopped working. My fully vaccinated (for pertussis), now ASD daughter just got over whooping cough. She's now had it twice. So that means, that not only does the pertussis vaccine not work, but it weakens the immune system so much that you can get it again. So much for that lifelong immunity we had hoped for. And yes, she had titers to pertussis after the vaccines too. Or maybe the recent outbreaks mean that the bacteria has mutated like other vaccine bacteria/viruses so that its a different form (see Fifth's disease which didn't exist until the MMR shot). When will we realize that we aren't smarter than nature and that disease is part of being human?

For those who may contract whooping cough, find your neighborhood herbalist. They have many safe and effective treatments to help you through the disease.