Whooping cough shot may wear off after 3 years

[emmy526]

http://vitals.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/20/8415438-whooping-cough-shot-may-wear-off-after-3-years

Young children who receive vaccinations against whooping cough are not fully protected against the disease three to six years after their shots, a new study suggests.Currently, kids receive five doses of the pertussis vaccine, with the final injection given between ages four and six. A pertussis booster shot is recommended for adolescents.In the new study, vaccinated kids developed pertussis anyway — and the number of pertussis cases progressively increased each year following the kids' final vaccination. Children were seven times more likely to develop pertussis six years after vaccination than one year after vaccination.Researchers knew that pertussis vaccine protection waned with time. But studies had not looked cases of pertussis in vaccinated children this young before, said study researcher Sara Tartof, a medical epidemiologist at the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.

continued in link...

[Bokonon]

And the risk of serious reaction increases with each booster, so...

[jupitermama]

It hardly seems worth it to subject a child to so many shots, when you need so many (4 or 5 doses of pertussis) before you are "fully protected" but the immunity wanes after only 3 years...especially when the vaccine carries a very real risk that you take with each dose your child receives.

[ma2two]

I'm sure the vaccine makers are thrilled with this new finding. Imagine, each person getting 25-30 pertussis vaccines over their lifetime. Cha-ching!

[Bokonon]

Originally Posted by ma2two 

I'm sure the vaccine makers are thrilled with this new finding. Imagine, each person getting 25-30 pertussis vaccines over their lifetime. Cha-ching!

And hey, we could always use that extra protection against diphtheria.