"Think of the weaker children who can't get vaccinated."

School’s about to start and the pertussis scare is still on the rise. Children are getting vaccinated for pertussis all around the country.  For parents of older children, shame and societal pressure is often the only reason they get their child vaccinated and revaccinated for whooping cough.

We are reminded of our responsibility to society and told to think of the weaker children who can not get vaccinated. We are told to think of immune compromised children and newborns and told to vaccinate against pertussis as much as ends up being needed. Of course, in recent years, we’ve been told that the vaccine doesn’t last as long as we once thought, so more boosters are called upon to keep the weaker members of society well.

When anti-vaxers claim that the whooping cough vaccine is spreading pertussis, they are mocked and told that it is not a live vaccine.

Yet, though the vaccine is not actually live, science that is a not even very new can validate the anti-vaxers claims. It has nothing to do with the bacteria being “live” or not within the vaccine.

See, this disease is most often attributed to B. pertussis infection... BUT, it is also caused by the closely related  B. parapertussis.  

But, what they already know and just aren’t telling you is this…  In tests, the vaccine appears to work quite well against B. pertussis in mice. In contrast, the same tests showed exposure to the bacteria after vaccination led to a 40-fold enhancement of B. parapertussis colonization in the lungs of mice.

40-Fold.

That doesn’t necessarily translate into 40 sick mice as opposed to just one. It means 40 times the lung colonization.

Just so there is no confusion:

colonization [kol″ŏ-nĭ-za´shun] the development of a bacterial infection on an individual, as demonstrated by a positive culture. The infected person may have no signs or symptoms of infection while still having the potential to infect others.

So, yes…. Please, think of those with weakened immune systems. Think of them enough to demand better tests. Think of them enough to look at the facts of this vaccine.  The older Whole Cell vaccine did not do this. Think of them enough not to get swept away in this scaremongering.  Also think of what this means to your own child’s health.  At the end of the day, no one is going to care if their pertussis is B. pertussis or B. parapertussis. Sick is sick.

And the vaccination appears to have the potential to make sure more people are walking around contagious or sick.  Worse yet, these people could be walking around showing NO symptoms.  Now THAT is an immunocompromised person’s nightmare.

They are telling new moms to get vaccinated for pertussis right away because their newborn can not have this vaccination at birth.  Consider the facts of this research and the similar findings in other research we’ve discussed on Everything Birth Blog over the years and the implications this could have on your new baby.

Most of us mothers would do anything to protect our newborns, including take a jab, even if we’d never give one to our child. This research that has been public since before the pressure was turned up for parents to become vaccinated to protect their newborns offers a scary different perspective. In taking that pertussis jab ourselves, could we simply be increasing the likelihood that we will be colonized with a slightly different version of whooping cough?

Though the mechanism behind this increased colonization was not fully understood, the researchers speculated that it involved specific immune responses not following the normal healthy path or hindered by the acellular vaccine, including cytokine and antibody production during infection. This isn’t ME speculating, this is the vaccine researchers speculations which they discussed for the sake of working on a future vaccine that would also encompass the B. parapertussis. The researchers who worked for the  Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics at Penn State speculated that the colonization could be because the vaccine skewed normal immune response or hindered it.

Their exact conclusion was this:

“Thus, we conclude that aP vaccination interferes with the optimal clearance of B. parapertussis and enhances the performance of this pathogen. Our data raise the possibility that widespread aP vaccination can create hosts more susceptible to B. parapertussis infection.”

But when anti-vaxers suggest the same possibility, they are crazy and stupid, right?