KPBS Public Broadcasting San Diego CA August 15, 201
SAN DIEGO — Children across the country may need yet another booster shot — a seventh inoculation — to protect against whooping cough, a disease that is spreading across the nation in what may be the worst epidemic in more than 50 years.
New research confirms the whooping cough vaccine is failing at a higher rate than expected, and scientists are considering adding a seventh dose to the national immunization schedule published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Two recent studies have found the majority of people getting sick are up to date with their immunizations.
KPBS and Investigative Newsource foreshadowed these findings in an investigation in 2010 when whooping cough cases had reached epidemic proportions in California, killing 10 babies and sickening some 9,000 people.
The investigation raised serious questions about the effectiveness of the vaccine, reporting that a majority of the people diagnosed with the illness in San Diego County and across California had been fully immunized against the disease.
Whooping cough, also known as pertussis, has dropped off in California, but it’s scorching a path through states such as Washington and Wisconsin. Some scientists suggest there is a need for a new vaccine that is more effective and lasts longer.
“I think 2010 was a real eye-opener,” said Dr. James Cherry, a specialist in pediatric infectious diseases at UCLA. “My friends at the department of public health are saying vaccine failures are a much bigger part of this and I agree with them.”
In interviews with KPBS and I-Newsource two years ago, Cherry said he and other scientists attributed the dramatic rise in whooping cough cases in California to increased awareness among physicians, better testing and the fact that outbreaks are cyclical in nature, occurring every about every five years.
Officials at the CDC and the California Department of Public Health also blamed people who weren’t up to date with their immunizations for the spread of the disease.
Today, experts have backed away from some of those assumptions.
“We know there are places around the country where there are large numbers of people who aren’t vaccinated,” said Dr. Anne Schuchat, the director for the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC, during a recent teleconference. “However, we don’t think those exemptors are driving this current wave.”
New studies published in prominent medical journals have called into question the 85 percent efficacy quoted in the vaccine’s package inserts …
Even the CDC admitted the effectiveness rate is only 24% & as mentioned even having up to date vaccines are still contracting it. So why would I want to get another shot when the others had a good chance of not working?
You should not. This is totally ridiculous. The shot is dangerous, causing, like its predecessor, the DPT, SIDS, asthma, allergies, seizure disorders, and autism. It is not very effective, as even Dr. Schuchat has admitted. My baby got the DTaP at 2, 4, and 6 months, and still caught the disease at a La Leche League meeting at 8 months old, and gave it to me. I had a ton of DPTs as a child (8), the first one causing encephalitis and the last one (the ninth, as a tetanus booster at 19)causing M.S., but they had long since worn off to the degree they gave any protection at all (and the DPT was more effective, but so dangerous it was taken off the market here). The disease was uncomfortable, but not dangerous, as it usually is not in those over four or five months old. This youngest group should be quarantined at home for those months, there is no other way to protect them.
So, disease not dangerous, vaccine very dangerous, vaccine not very effective: how does this add up to Get your damn Tdap vaccine for anyone who does not work for the medical cartel?
See Wendy Lydall, Aviva Jill Romm, and Dr. Suzanne Humphries on caring for infants who get the disease in spite of all efforts to protect them: even the vast majority of them recover with no residual damage, but because it can kill some of these little ones, they should absolutely be quarantined at home if there is any pertussis in the community at that time.