What about deaths from this disease? Well, to quote the CDI Bulletin from 25 December 1997, In the 20 years from 1976 to 1995, there were 21 deaths from pertussis in Australia. In contrast, from October 1996 to November 1997, there have been 9 deaths; six in NSW and one each in QLD, VIC and WA. All were children aged between two weeks and four months of age (too young to have completed the primary course of vaccination against pertussis) and none had received more than one dose of pertussis vaccine." Pertussis is most dangerous for infants. Once a child is over 12 months of age, though whooping cough can be a nasty disease, it is usually not deadly nor is there much risk of long-term adverse effects from infection if it is treated properly.

What is demonstrated above however, is that in this short space of time, 9 infants under the age of 12 months died from whooping cough. Is it common for children that young to get this disease? The normal distribution for pertussis is between the ages of 4 and 10 years. It used to be very rare for infants to contract whooping cough and when they did, it was much more common for them to die or to have serious complications as a result. So, anything that makes infants more susceptible to infection with this illness would be considered less than helpful. It appears from research in several different countries that the higher the rate of whooping cough vaccination in infants, the more cases of whooping cough you see in that age group.

A year later, the same Prof Stewart published another study in the Lancet6 where he looked at both the effectiveness and the safety of pertussis vaccination. His research showed that, Notifications of incidence?follow the same pattern of steady decline in the United Kingdom and are unaffected either by small-scale vaccination beginning about 1948 or by nationwide vaccination beginning in 1957. there is no evidence that vaccination played a major role in the decline in incidence and mortality in the trend of events. In the families studied, 70% of the introducers were themselves full vaccinated as were 48% of their contacts. But the present situation in the UK is that protection by vaccination is at best, partial, probably temporary and seldom if ever complete enough to protect the only group which is seriously at risk namely infants in crowded homes.?

So why vaccinate? After reading this information, you would probably be asking yourself the question if the whooping cough vaccine is so ineffective and dangerous, why are we still using it?

This is a question I ask myself every day. While the research from medical journals and our own experience in Australia demonstrates so clearly that the vaccine has done nothing to reduce the incidence of pertussis and may even have led to its resurgence in the age groups most at risk of complications, our government and the medical community continue to push vaccination as though it were the holy grail. Whooping cough is not a vaccine-preventable disease. That much is clear. And while it can be an unpleasant rite of passage for many children, it is rarely deadly or dangerous when contracted during its normal age distribution. Though infection with whooping cough does not guarantee life-long immunity against future infection, contracting and recovering from pertussis does seem to protect for far longer than the vaccines which, when introduced, were touted as conveying protection for life. When it comes down to it, it is hard to imagine that anyone who was actually given this information would still choose to vaccinate against whooping cough. And perhaps that is the reason why so many people still do use this vaccine because this information is simply not made available to them so they were unable to make an informed choice. Let us all work towards ensuring that we will see free and informed vaccination choices during our lifetime for the sake of our children and for the health of our world.

References

1. www.drinkingnightmare.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/ Content/health-archive-mediarel-1998-mwsp980319.htm

2. www.online.epocrates.com/u/10a4284/Infanrix

3. www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/10/26/2401442.htm

4. Trollfors B. Bordetella pertussis whole cell vaccines--efficacy and toxicity. Acta Paediatr Scand. 1984 Jul;73(4):417-25. Review. PMID: 6380211; UI: 84276893

5. Epidemiological Evaluation of Immunisation and Other Factors in the Control of Whooping Cough, W.R. Bassili, G.T. Stewart, The Lancet, February 28, 1976 6. Vaccination Against Whooping-Cough Efficacy versus Risks, Gordon T. Stewart, The Lancet, January 29, 1977. If you are concerned about pertussis, please visit your and treatm