They got vaccinated, and they still got sick.

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"The older version of the pertussis vaccine caused severe reactions in older children and adults, Todd said." Comment - Public health officials have moved heaven and earth to deny that any version of pertussis (whooping cough)vaccine was a problem. Now we are informed by epidemiologist Todd that indeed the pertussis vaccine had caused serious adverse reaction problems. The facts are vaccines are not safe for many people nor are they very effective for most since booster shots are required as in the case of the Colorado epidemic. When tested, 50 percent of vaccine recipients - including those receiving booster shots, show no antibody response to the vaccine which means they are not immune. If an adult contracts the disease the consequences are far more serious than if the disease had been naturally acquired during childhood. - Croft Woodruff

http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~2076414,00.html
The Denver Post
Sunday, April 11, 2004

Whooping cough surges in Colo.
Lack of emphasis on vaccination, booster shots cited in increase
By Karen Aug�
Denver Post Medical Writer

They got vaccinated, and they still got sick.

In Larimer County, where health officials have been fighting a pertussis outbreak, every one of the nine recent confirmed cases of the disease - commonly known as whooping cough - had their shots as toddlers.

They got sick as teenagers.

That's because the pertussis vaccine everyone is supposed to get before they start first grade doesn't protect into adolescence and adulthood.

"Many vaccines, like measles, tetanus and pertussis, are safe and effective, but that immunity wears off," said Dr. James Todd, chief epidemiologist at Children's Hospital in Denver.

Despite the government's push to vaccinate babies and toddlers against pertussis, no one advocates booster shots for older kids.

In fact, just the opposite is the case.

The older version of the pertussis vaccine caused severe reactions in older children and adults, Todd said.

But unlike its predecessor, the current pertussis vaccine may be safe for older children and adults.

"It's being studied even as we speak," said Dr. Ned Calonge, the state's chief medical officer.

Calonge said the vaccine is approved for use in older children and adults in Canada.

And the wisdom of asking teenagers and adults to get pertussis boosters has come up at National Immunization Conference meetings, he said.

"The reason you want to prevent pertussis in middle and high school kids is to keep them from bringing it home to younger siblings, where the disease is much more serious," Calonge said.

For most kids and adults, whooping cough is uncomfortable, even scary, but not life-threatening.

But for babies it can be far more serious.

The CDC estimates that 1.3 percent of babies under a month old who get whooping cough die of it.

Cases of whooping cough, which once was a common and serious disease, plummeted in this country after a vaccine became widely used in the last half of the 20th century.

Now, however, the disease is making an ugly comeback nationwide.

And Colorado, which lags behind all other 49 states in getting children vaccinated, is ahead of much of the nation in its number of pertussis cases.

Colorado's pertussis rate "is rising faster and is already much higher than the national rate," Todd said.

As of Monday, the state health department said, 126 people in Colorado had gotten sick with whooping cough.

Only two states - Massachusetts, with 438, and New York, with 388 - had more cases as of early April, according to the most recent figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In contrast, Texas has reported 45 cases, Arizona 46, and California has reported none so far this year.

The state's performance in vaccinating children is the worst in the country, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention figures show.

Todd said it's "a fair assumption" of a connection between the disease's outbreaks "and our woefully inadequate pertussis immunization" record.

But according to the state health department, 40 of Colorado's cases, or just over one- third, were not among the young. Rather, those 40 cases were among residents between the ages of 10 and 20.

Health officials offer several reasons for Colorado's poor vaccination record, including a lack of state funding to provide shots for poor and uninsured children.

Also, many Colorado parents object to vaccines, for a number of reasons.

In Boulder County, for example, almost one of every eight parents - 13 percent - with school- age children have refused to have their kids get some, or all, of the vaccines required by the state.

For the rest of the metro area, the number of students not entirely vaccinated because of parental objections ranges from 1.42 percent in Denver to 4.2 percent in Jefferson County.

Meanwhile, many vaccination opponents point to the inexplicably skyrocketing numbers of children with conditions such as autism and asthma when they question a possible connection to the increasing number of recommended immunizations.

The pertussis shot has been a persistent target of these vaccine opponents.

For its part, the medical establishment dismisses many of those concerns, saying that repeated studies have failed to document any such connection.

According to Barbara Loe Fisher, founder of the National Vaccine Information Center, new and improved versions of the vaccine cause fewer adverse reactions than the previous model.

Still, Fisher and her organization tell parents to arm themselves with information before letting anyone with a needle near their child.

"We urge parents to get informed about disease and the vaccine ... and make an intelligent decision," Fisher said.

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