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Originally Posted by Full Heart  While you can get it more than once (you can chicken pox as well), once you have it immunity is generally life long. whoopingcough.net (which is a pro vax site) has great info about it and confirms this.
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I'm not sure to what information on that page you are referring, but doing ust a cursory glance, this is all I found that referenced immunity:
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| Whooping cough itself produces immunity which is strong and longlasting. It is not considered necessary to give immunization to somebody who has had the real thing. It is however possible to get it twice, but it is very unusual. |
Unfortunately, it's essentially wrong on EVERY point. First off, the mainstream medical community
does recommend vaccinating people who have already had pertussis. As it says here:
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PERTUSSIS MYTH #3: I already had a pertussis immunization
or had pertussis as a child, so I don’t need the vaccine.
FACT: False. Individuals with a history of pertussis should still receive the vaccine. The immunity of individuals with either natural or vaccine-induced immunity can decrease. |
http://www.napnap.org/userfiles/File...P_BROCHURE.pdf
Mind you, I don't vaccinate, so I'm not saying I believe everyone needs a pertussis vax. I'm only pointing out that your source doesn't really seem to understand much about pertussis immunity and/or vaccination recommendations.
On the second point, that it's unusual to get it twice....well, that's ridiculous. Serology studies show that the average adult is infected about once every three years. So if you live 75 years, have your first infection at age 5 (just to pick a random, likely number)...that's about 22 or 23 infections in a lifetime. All of those won't result in clinical pertussis every time, but certainly more than one of them will. Pertussis is NOTHING like chickenpox when it comes to immunity.
On the same page of your site he says this:
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| The new vaccine, as one might expect, is equally effective but causes fewer reactions when given. |
This is also known by the mainstream medical community to be untrue. The vaccine does cause fewer reactions, but it is less effective and that's no anti-vax conspiracy. It's just common knowledge in the
mainstream medical world.
I appreciate the doctor's effort to educate us and his kindness in providing sound bytes, which I know from experience are very helpful in identifying WC. He's missed the mark on several points, though. If you search through the archives in this forum, there are lots of threads about the transient nature of pertussis immunity.
Having dealt with (a
very mild, and yet still stressful, case of) pertussis in an infant, the fact that infection offers only transient protection makes it even more important to attempt to avoid exposure in a baby. There's no long term benefit to it and it can be a very difficult illness. We had a mild case, but I certainly didn't enjoy watching my baby cough until her face turned bright red/almost purple and then vomit up breastmilk and copious amounts of mucous.
I won't vaccinate for pertussis or recommend it to anyone else, nor will I freak out about a possible exposure in a baby, but it just
makes sense to try to avoid it if you know someone has been exposed!!! Especially when you consider how many more people you and your baby might give it to (should you catch it) during the incubation period. Unless you (general you) plan on hiding out in your house for a few weeks and avoiding human contact until you're sure your contact doesn't have it and therefore didn't give it to you, you'd be risking exposing others who maybe DID want to avoid it.
We keep a large amount on-hand for if/when WC visits us, though of course it's very useful for the other, run-of-the-mill illnesses out there too.
