Each green circle depicts a whooping cough outbreak this year. (Map: Council on Foreign Relations)
As the map illustrates, many areas in the country are in the grip of whooping cough outbreaks, everywhere but California. More on California in a minute. Let’s first take a look at a new(ish) vaccine and see how its limitations might be contributing to the outbreaks.
In the 1990s, the U.S. and other developed countries switched from one kind of vaccine against whooping cough (also called pertussis) to another. The older vaccine was very effective but there were concerns about a rare side effect, a neurological disorder, which may (or may not) have been connected to the vaccine. More commonly, the vaccine caused the same minor side effects that we traditionally associate with shots: redness, soreness at the injection site, etc. Except that with the old pertussis vaccine, the side effects occurred more frequently.
In her wired.com blog noted science reporter Maryn McKenna recaps the research and wonders if there could have been an unexpected trade-off with this new vaccine — that it is less effective and therefore contributing to the outbreaks we’re seeing now. From McKenna’s blog Superbug: Continue reading
