A Positive Spin on Vaccines

Negative stories about vaccines dominate the news, as activist groups continue to spread misinformation. But, vaccines are important to our health and safety, and many are speaking out about their positive effects.

NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon joined the Sounds of Pertussis campaign with the March of Dimes and Sanofi Pasteur. The campaign is a national education program educating adults about the importance of getting an adult Tdap (tetanus, diptheria and acellular pertussis) vaccination. The booster vaccine prevents adults from contracting pertussis and passing it along to unvaccinated infants, who will receive the vaccine at two months of age.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported there were more than 41,000 cases and 18 deaths reported in 2012 for pertussis, the largest outbreak in fifty years.

“Eighty percent of the time…these young infants are getting it from family members so it’s really about prevention (efforts),” Gordon states. “Prior to the baby being born, family members, when they come to the hospital, when they come to the home to visit, you know they need to make sure they’re protected.”

Gordon is not the only person speaking in favor of vaccines.  Jeanne Sager wrote an impassioned blog post for The Stir about the importance of vaccines. She asks parents to also consider all of the diseases that vaccines prevent, rather than just focusing on vaccine safety.

Sager references Amy Parker’s story on Voices for Vaccines. Parker grew up un-vaccinated in a “health nut” family. Parker states:

As healthy as my lifestyle seemed, I contracted measles, mumps, rubella, a type of viral meningitis, scarlatina, whooping cough, yearly tonsillitis, and chickenpox, some of which are vaccine preventable. In my twenties I got precancerous HPV and spent 6 months of my life wondering how I was going to tell my two children under the age of 7 that mummy might have cancer before it was safely removed...

If you’ve never had these illnesses you don’t know how awful they are -- I do. Pain, discomfort, the inability to breathe or to eat or to swallow, fever and nightmares, itching all over your body so much that you can’t stand lying on bed sheets, losing so much weight you can’t walk properly, diarrhea that leaves you lying prostrate on the bathroom floor, the unpaid time off work for parents (and if you’re self employed that means NO INCOME), the quarantine, missing school, missing parties, the worry, the sleepless nights, the sweat, the tears and the blood, the midnight visits to A and E, sitting in a doctor’s waiting room on your own because no one will sit near you because they’re rightfully scared of those spots all over your kid's face.

Dr. Daniel Gilstrap of Durham, North Carolina notes that, “The list of vaccines for adults has expanded quite a lot in the last few years. Not only that, the knowledge of the safety of these vaccines has increased.”

Vaccination efforts have enabled entire generations to grow up without knowledge of the severity of

polio, measles, whooping cough, and others. Gilstrap and other physicians are working to educate people on the importance of vaccines because they don’t know how bad the diseases can be.

Finally, Lisa Murakami wrote a blog post last September, Vaccination: A Layperson’s Perspective. Her post generated 482 comments and tackles all of the vaccination myths.  Her husband is a medical resident at Dana Farber.

She notes, “That means, he has 14.5 years of grueling medical training that I don’t have. And – conservatively estimated – 28,160 hours. My father has infinitely more; he’s seen tens of thousands of patients over the course of his forty-year career as a pediatrician. Clearly, I can’t run a Google search on a complex medical topic and eventually cobble together a better answer on it than these two can.”

Murakami concludes by noting that she can’t link to many of the sources she used when debunking vaccine myths because you have to pay for a subscription to major medical journals and other legitimate scientific sources. She has subscriptions to these sources, but the average person does not. The best information on vaccines isn’t available by Googling the Internet, however the worst information is available.

Those with questions about vaccines should consult their pediatrician. The Internet and other sources is not a substitute for years of medical training, and the diseases are much worse than the vaccines.

Jenny McCarthy Causes Whooping Cough

Juilia Ioffe wrote a candid blog post for New Republic about coming down with whooping cough at age 31 and the perils associated with this vaccine preventable disease. “I have been coughing for 72 days. Not on and off coughing, but continuously, every day and every night, for two and a half months. And not just coughing, but whooping: doubled over, body clenched, sucking violently for air, my face reddening and my eyes watering. Sometimes, I cough so hard, I vomit. Other times, I pee myself.”

Ioffe continues to describe her symptoms and the odd and embarrassing situations it has created for her. She states, “And while my having pertussis at my age seems absurd, it can also be tragic: in babies, the infection can easily be fatal.” Ioffe notes that whooping cough had been conquered in the developed world until the anti-vaccination movement frightened parents with propaganda about autism. Vaccination has now become another consumer choice, like drinking coconut water.

“The problem is that it (vaccination) is not an individual choice; it is a choice that acutely affects the rest of us,” Ioffe continues. A recent study in Pediatrics indicated that areas with high concentrations of conscientious vaccine objectors were 2.5. times more likely to have an outbreak of pertussis (whooping cough). In Ioffe’s case, she was vaccinated as a child, but the vaccine wears off by adulthood. In the past, this wasn’t an issue because children were vaccinated. However, she came into contact with an unvaccinated child, who had the disease and spread it to her.

Ioffe concludes: “I understand your wanting to raise your own children as you see fit, but you’re selfishly jeopardizing more than your own children. …what gives you denialists the right to put my health at risk – to cause me to catch a debilitating, humiliating, and frightening cough that, two months after I finished my last course of antibiotics, still makes me convulse several times a day…”

After reading Ioffe’s posts, Razib Khan wrote a blog postfor Discover about the pressure he and his wife experienced from their peer networks not to vaccinate. He recalls that they were able to resist and rebuff peer pressure because of their strong scientific backgrounds. He also notes that he can imagine someone with less of a scientific background trusting the people they normally trust – their peer network – on vaccination. 

Khan suggests that the denialism be countered by shaming and recommends parents investigate the rate of vaccination in their community. If the vaccination rate isn’t high, he recommends moving away from the dangerous critical mass, and telling people why you are moving.

Vaccine preventable diseases like whooping cough have devastating consequences. Parents should be aware that these vaccines have a purpose. Vaccine Watch encourages parents to consult their pediatrician about vaccine choices.

Whooping Cough Vaccine Stirs Debate

New research has shown that protection from whooping cough (pertussis) weakens a few years after preschool children get their final diptheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTaP) shot. The current recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is that children receive a booster between ages 11 and 12.

It’s likely that the trend is linked to a change in the vaccine in the 1990s. An acellular pertussis vaccine with fewer side effects was introduced and replaced the original whole-cell vaccine. The new research notes that children may be at risk of developing whooping cough before age 11 because their immunity is declining from a weaker vaccine.

Dr. H. Cody Meissner is a pediatrician at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston and notes, “There’s a fairly dramatic and startling increase in pertussis [whooping cough] in children in the seven to ten-year old age group.”

Sara Tartof from the Southern California Permanente Medical Group in Pasadena led the group of researchers on the new study. Immunization records of 400,000 Minnesota and Oregon children who received the recommended series of five DTaP shots were analyzed.

“An important thing to remember is the kids who do receive all five doses on time generally have milder [whooping cough] than those who are under-vaccinated or unvaccinated,” Tartof said. “Even though there is waning immunity…getting the five doses on time is still the best protection you can give your kid.” Parents should continue to follow the CDC’s vaccine schedule.

The CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has decided not to recommend an alternative revaccination schedule despite the waning pertussis protection. The group cited that the risks of pertussis decrease with age.

“It is so important that people do not interpret this as the vaccine doesn’t work, and then not get vaccinated at all,” Meissner concludes. “Because then we would really have a problem.”

In New York, this is already becoming a problem as the rise in religious exemptions for children is paralleling a rise in whooping cough cases. “It’s troubling from an ethical standpoint,” Dr. Jana Shaw, a professor of pediatrics at SUNY Upstate Medical University states. “If you have gotten an exemption for your child, not only are they at high risk of [whooping cough], but you’re putting other children at risk – even those who have been vaccinated.”

Clay County in Missouri is having a vaccination campaign for childcare workers, parents and grandparents in July. The Public Health Center believes that vaccinating those who come into contact with infants will decrease the cases of whooping cough in the county. Whooping cough is often unknowingly spread from unvaccinated adults to children who don’t have full immunity until they are 12-15 months of age.

‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ actress Sarah Michelle Gellar is also supporting the pertussis vaccine. Gellar, who has two small children, has partnered with March of Dimes to increase awareness about the importance of childhood vaccines. She also recommends adults be vaccinated for whooping cough.

Vaccines are one of the best forms of protection for children. Parents should consult their child’s pediatrician if they have questions or concerns about the vaccine schedule or a particular vaccine.