Whooping Cough Resurgence Linked To Vaccinated People

Pertussis cases in the United States from 1922 through 2012 and in the UK from 1940 through 2013. Shaded regions correspond to the pre-vaccine era, the DTP era, and the DTaP era, respectively.
Credit: Courtesy of B. Althouse and S. Scarpino

Pertussis Vaccine Side Effects in Infants

The pertussis vaccine may well have the side effect of causing more whooping cough. The rise of whooping cough cases in the United States has been extremely dramatic. Many health officials are blaming the pertussis vaccine for not being strong enough and potentially needing a booster. The antivaccine movement has, of course, been equally blamed, depending on who you talk to.

Let’s look at some of the numbers. In 2012, there were roughly 50k whooping couch infections tracked. That’s the most in over 60 years.

However, a study in BMC Medicine by Santa Fe Institute Omidyar Fellows Ben Althouse and Sam Scarpino seems to indicate that there is another cause for the recent rise in pertussis cases: vaccinated people. Vaccinated people who show no signs or symptoms of pertussis may well be spreading the infection to their peers.

The response to the 1950’s outbreaks was to create an inactivated pertussis cells vaccine. However, that vaccine had too many side effects and was later scrapped. Though, that vaccine was considered successful at the time (sans the side effects). The 1990’s came up with the acellular pertussis vaccines. These vaccines use the bacteria’s proteins. The issue here is that these new pertussis vaccines don’t seem to block them from distributing pertussis from others. A January 2014 study in PNAS gave baboons acellular pertussis vaccines. The vaccines did not stop the transmission of whooping cough.

Ben Althouse and Sam Scarpino were able to conclude that acellular pertussis vaccines are the problem. They are even able to show that pertussis can spread amongst the vaccinated who show no signs or symptoms of pertussis.

‘There could be millions of people out there with just a minor cough or no cough spreading this potentially fatal disease without knowing it,’ said Althouse. ‘The public health community should act now to better assess the true burden of pertussis infection.’

This also brings up the issue of mothers and fathers getting a pertussis shot in order to protect their new baby. ‘It just doesn’t work, because even if you get the acellular vaccine you can still become infected and can still transmit. So that baby is not protected,’ Althouse says.

The researchers stopped short of calling the pertussis vaccine totally ineffective and dangerous. They claim the vaccine still prevents the harmful symptoms to a degree.

The New York Times themselves even published these results.

As a parent, at some point, common sense and instincts have to play a role. In the case of pertussis vaccines, it most certainly does seem as though the pertussis vaccine shares some responsibility for the increased rates of whooping cough.

pertussis vaccine side effects in infants

Pertusiss vaccine side effects in infants: The label list that your infant could get a fever of up to 105 degrees. They infant may cry for 3 hours or more. Oh, and they may experience seizures. This is just the pertussis side effects for infants that the manufacturer list. Now it seems we can add on that they may carry the infection and transmit it to peers. Or, they may get whooping cough from a parent or relative who themselves, received the pertussis vaccine.

As a parent, it is our duty to research every side of the matter when it comes to vaccines. Finding unbiased studies tends to be the largest, most overwhelming chore of them all. Pharmaceutical companies notoriously sponsor their own vaccine studies which completely muddies the waters of authenticity. Pharma has much too much to gain from passing their vaccines via studies. Hopefully, President Donald Trump’s vaccine safety committee is able to take us to the new promised land of deeper examinations of these vaccines. Until then, as parents, we must strive to find the correct information on our own. And that’s certainly not always an easy task.