Whooping cough resurgence due to vaccinated people not knowing they’re infectious?
Date:
June 24, 2015
Source:
Santa Fe Institute
Summary:
The dramatic resurgence of whooping cough is due, in large part, to vaccinated people who are infectious but who do not display the symptoms, suggests a new study.
…vaccinated people who are infectious but who do not display the symptoms of whooping cough, suggesting that the number of people transmitting without symptoms may be many times greater than those transmitting with symptoms.
The problem is, the newer vaccines might not block transmission. A January 2014 study in PNAS by another research team demonstrated that giving baboons acellular pertussis vaccines prevented them from developing symptoms of whooping cough but failed to stop transmission.
Building on that result, Althouse and Scarpino used whopping cough case counts from the CDC, genomic data on the pertussis bacteria, and a detailed epidemiological model of whooping cough transmission to conclude that acellular vaccines may well have contributed to — even exacerbated — the recent pertussis outbreak by allowing infected individuals without symptoms to unknowingly spread pertussis multiple times in their lifetimes.
Public Health Officials Know: Recently Vaccinated Individuals Spread Disease
Washington, D.C., March 3, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Physicians and public health officials know that recently vaccinated individuals can spread disease and that contact with the immunocompromised can be especially dangerous. For example, the Johns Hopkins Patient Guide warns the immunocompromised to “Avoid contact with children who are recently vaccinated,” and to “Tell friends and family who are sick, or have recently had a live vaccine (such as chicken pox, measles, rubella, intranasal influenza, polio or smallpox) not to visit.”1
A statement on the website of St. Jude’s Hospital warns parents not to allow people to visit children undergoing cancer treatment if they have received oral polio or smallpox vaccines within four weeks, have received the nasal flu vaccine within one week, or have rashes after receiving the chickenpox vaccine or MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine.2
“The public health community is blaming unvaccinated children for the outbreak of measles at Disneyland, but the illnesses could just as easily have occurred due to contact with a recently vaccinated individual,” says Sally Fallon Morell, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation. The Foundation promotes a healthy diet, non-toxic lifestyle and freedom of medical choice for parents and their children. “Evidence indicates that recently vaccinated individuals should be quarantined in order to protect the public.”
Scientific evidence demonstrates that individuals vaccinated with live virus vaccines such as MMR (measles, mumps and rubella), rotavirus, chicken pox, shingles and influenza can shed the virus for many weeks or months afterwards and infect the vaccinated and unvaccinated alike.
Officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) say the best way to prevent pertussis is to get vaccinated. But data from the Vermont Department of Health (DOH) suggest that going through the pertussis vaccination regimen is not a sure-fire way to ward off the highly contagious disease.
In 2014, an outbreak of whooping cough (pertussis) broke out in the San Diego area. Of the 621 individuals who were infected, nearly all of them were completely up to date on all preventive vaccinations. If vaccines are given to protect from disease, how could this happen?
San Diego public health official Dr. Wilma Wooten argued that the cause was related to a decrease in the protection offered by vaccines after the first year. This answer is most revealing, in that it speaks to the actual efficacy of vaccines. It also shows that the concept of herd immunity is largely myth—and completely misunderstood.
The theory of herd immunity states that when a critical mass of the population (usually stipulated at 95%) is vaccinated against a disease, the possibility of outbreaks is eliminated. This is the main argument that is used to shame parents who wish to refuse certain vaccinations for their children: by not vaccinating, they put the health of the “herd” at risk.
However, if vaccines start losing effectiveness after the first year, as Dr. Wooten says, then constant revaccination would be required, since the immunity offered is only temporary for most vaccines. Achieving the required rate of protection is virtually impossible under this paradigm.
Of course, if we look back over the decades and note the lack of rampant epidemics in our nation, while remembering that vaccine protection is in perpetual decline, the myth of herd immunity quickly unravels. Our society has never achieved this level of herd immunity, yet not a single major outbreak of disease has occurred.
The argument for herd immunity was actually developed out of observations of natural immunity, not vaccination. Statisticians observed that populations were protected when sufficient members contracted the wild form of a disease, and subsequently acquired lifelong immunity. With vaccines, however, evidence shows that unvaccinated children may catch infectious diseases from vaccinated children. What is true of natural immunity is not true of vaccination.
Adverse Effects of Pertussis and Rubella Vaccines (1991)
Description
Parents have come to depend on vaccines to protect their children from a variety of diseases. Some evidence suggests, however, that vaccination against pertussis (whooping cough) and rubella (German measles) is, in a small number of cases, associated with increased risk of serious illness.
This book examines the controversy over the evidence and offers a comprehensively documented assessment of the risk of illness following immunization with vaccines against pertussis and rubella. Based on extensive review of the evidence from epidemiologic studies, case histories, studies in animals, and other sources of information, the book examines:
The relation of pertussis vaccines to a number of serious adverse events, including encephalopathy and other central nervous system disorders, sudden infant death syndrome, autism, Guillain-Barre syndrome, learning disabilities, and Reye syndrome.
The relation of rubella vaccines to arthritis, various neuropathies, and thrombocytopenic purpura.
The volume, which includes a description of the committee’s methods for evaluating evidence and directions for future research, will be important reading for public health officials, pediatricians, researchers, and concerned parents.
Whooping cough increase related to current vaccine
The move to an artificially created vaccine for whooping cough is behind an increase in cases of the deadly disease in the US, a new study suggests.
The findings highlight the need to do similar research in Australia where whooping cough cases have spiralled upward in the past decade, co-author Associate Professor Manoj Gambhir, from the University of Monash, says.
In 2012 the US saw the highest number of pertussis (whooping cough) cases since 1955.
At the same time there has been a shift in the age group reporting the largest number of cases from adolescents to 7 to 11 year olds.
In the paper, published today in PLOS Computational Biology, Gambhir and colleagues use mathematical modelling of 60 years of pertussis disease data to determine what best explains this increase.
A Change in Vaccine Efficacy and Duration of Protection Explains Recent Rises in Pertussis Incidence in the United States
Published: April 23, 2015
PDF version
Abstract
Over the past ten years the incidence of pertussis in the United States (U.S.) has risen steadily, with 2012 seeing the highest case number since 1955. There has also been a shift over the same time period in the age group reporting the largest number of cases (aside from infants), from adolescents to 7–11 year olds. We use epidemiological modelling and a large case incidence dataset to explain the upsurge. We investigate several hypotheses for the upsurge in pertussis cases by fitting a suite of dynamic epidemiological models to incidence data from the National Notifiable Disease Surveillance System (NNDSS) between 1990–2009, as well as incidence data from a variety of sources from 1950–1989. We find that: the best-fitting model is one in which vaccine efficacy and duration of protection of the acellular pertussis (aP) vaccine is lower than that of the whole-cell (wP) vaccine, (efficacy of the first three doses 80% [95% CI: 78%, 82%] versus 90% [95% CI: 87%, 94%]), increasing the rate at which disease is reported to NNDSS is not sufficient to explain the upsurge and 3) 2010–2012 disease incidence is predicted well. In this study, we use all available U.S. surveillance data to: 1) fit a set of mathematical models and determine which best explains these data and 2) determine the epidemiological and vaccine-related parameter values of this model. We find evidence of a difference in efficacy and duration of protection between the two vaccine types, wP and aP (aP efficacy and duration lower than wP). Future refinement of the model presented here will allow for an exploration of alternative vaccination strategies such as different age-spacings, further booster doses, and cocooning.
FDA NEWS RELEASE – FDA study helps provide an understanding of rising rates of whooping cough and response to vaccination
For Immediate Release: Nov. 27, 2013
A new study is helping to provide a better understanding of vaccines for whooping cough, the common name for the disease pertussis. Based on an animal model, the study conducted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and published November 25, 2013, in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that acellular pertussis vaccines licensed by the FDA are effective in preventing the disease among those vaccinated, but suggests that they may not prevent infection from the bacteria that causes whooping cough in those vaccinated or its spread to other people, including those who may not be vaccinated.
While the reasons for the increase in cases of whooping cough are not fully understood, multiple factors are likely involved, including diminished immunity from childhood pertussis vaccines, improved diagnostic testing, and increased reporting. With its own funds plus support from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the FDA conducted the study to explore the possibility that acellular pertussis vaccines, while protecting against disease, might not prevent infection.
Study- Acellular pertussis vaccines protect against disease but fail to prevent infection and transmission in a nonhuman primate model
Although pertussis resurgence is not completely understood, we hypothesize that current acellular pertussis (aP) vaccines fail to prevent colonization and transmission.
To test our hypothesis, infant baboons were vaccinated at 2, 4, and 6 mo of age with aP or whole-cell pertussis (wP) vaccines and challenged with
pertussis at 7 mo. Infection was followed by quantifying colonization in nasopharyngeal washes and monitoring leukocytosis and symptoms. Baboons vaccinated with aP were
protected from severe pertussis-associated symptoms but not from colonization, did not clear the infection faster than naïve animals, and readily transmitted
pertussis to unvaccinated contacts. Vaccination with wP induced a more rapid clearance compared with naïve and aP-vaccinated animals. By comparison, previously infected
animals were not colonized upon secondary infection. Although all vaccinated and previously infected animals had robust serum antibody responses, we found key differences in T-cell immunity.
Previously infected animals and wP-vaccinated animals possess strong pertussis-specific T helper 17 (Th17) memory and Th1 memory,whereas aP vaccination induced a Th1/Th2 response instead. The
observation that aP, which induces an immune response mismatched to that induced by natural infection, fails to prevent colonization or transmission provides a plausible explanation for the
resurgence of pertussis and suggests that optimal control of pertussis will require the development of improved vaccine
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