The following is a news analysis.
Many U.S. government and health officials have avoided addressing rising incidences of infectious disease outbreaks among vaccinated children. These officials choose instead to stay on the vaccine industry narrative of heaping blame on those who are partly vaccinated or unvaccinated.
By failing to tackle the issue at hand– vaccines that are not providing the expected immunity– some health experts say the problem only stands to grow worse.
One of the most recent cases from this past March comes from Los Angeles, California. A private high school there reports nearly 50 students came down with whooping cough (pertussis), even though they were all vaccinated.
According to the Los Angeles Times, none of the students at the school with vaccine exemptions contracted the disease even though they had not received a whooping cough/pertussis shot.
Furthermore, Los Angeles County officials have said that 90 people recently were diagnosed with whooping cough in the county and all of them had been immunized against it.
Experts say part of the problem with whooping cough vaccine currently in use is that a newer form of the vaccine that’s considered safer… doesn’t last as long as the one that was used prior to 1997 (that reportedly had more serious side effects.)
One study found that even a booster doesn’t help much. It provided immunity for only about a year.
This raises the question of risk-benefit ratio: how much benefit a child receives versus the risk of side effects (which all vaccines and medicines have). If the vaccine exposes children to some side serious side effects, even if relatively rare, is it worth it when immunity only lasts four years or less?
Additionally, there are questions of disclosure and informed consent. When doctors administer the pertussis vaccine (typically part of the childhood DTaP series), are they disclosing to parents that the whooping cough protection will only last a relatively short time? When boosters are given to middle school students, are parents told it’s probably only effective for about a year, according to a Kaiser study?
Please note that CDC recommends that due to risk of side effects, children with certain risk factors should only get DT vaccine, without the pertussis component, instead of DTaP. Issues that could be reason to opt out of pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine include: if a child…
- …had severe pain or swelling after any vaccine containing tetanus or diphtheria.
- …has seizures or another nervous system problem.
- …ever had a condition called Guillian-Barré Syndrome.
Significantly, many parents have said their child’s pediatrician did not ask about risk factors or discuss limited immunity before administering DTaP vaccines.
Waning or ineffective immunity or combined with the possibility of vaccine side effects provide good reason for everyone to advocate for safer, better vaccines.
Pitting those who want improved vaccine safety against those who smear them as “anti-science” or “tinfoil hat conspirators” only allows the power brokers behind the scenes to disappear among the infighting, and continue making money without improving the product through technologically possible advances.
Read the L.A. Times article by clicking the link below.