I chose this discussion topic because I was curious about why the pertussis vaccine is not as effective as it once was, and wanted to understand more clearly if the reason was directly related to the composition of the vaccine itself. Through my research, I think I have a better grasp of the rationale for changing from the original to the present formulation and what changes were made to produce a desired, equivalent form. Adding aluminum intensifies the immune response through complex biochemical mechanisms, but primarily results in increased antibody production, further, incorporating it was necessary due to a using less potent antigen (Coffman, Sher & Seder, 2010). Not being a Biochemist, that is the best explanation I was able to derive
Let’s say you take your sick ol’ self to the doctor. What does he say when he sees you coughing your guts up while you’re wiping your mucus from your upper lip? “Have you had your seasonal flu shot? No? Well that is preposterous” He’ll sketch up something on that little notepad of his and run out of the room where a nurse will come back into the room with a little transparent baggy, props out her little pins and needles and before you know it you’re walking out of there with a Band Aid on your arms and a smile on your face, But oh nooo, did you know that flu shots themselves have a conspiracy behind them? They say that for one, the shot that they give you doesn’t really work, in fact the shot the flu shot prevents the flu in only 1.5 out of 100 adults. that means that it affects a little under 99% of the people already vaccinated anyways. So why stick that needle in there if it doesn’t work and why get the shot knowing it has chemicals that are harmful to you in the first place? Flu shots contain aluminum. Aluminum is supposed to work as an “adjuvant” to stimulate the immune system in one’s body due to the response to the virus in the vaccine. One of the problems is that aluminum is a dangerous neurotoxin that has the ability to slip past the natural defenses of the human body and enter the brain. This potentially causes brain damage. Including alzheimer’s disease and colvusions.It
Thimerosal is arguably the most debated ingredient that is contained in vaccines. Thimerosal is a “mercury-based preservative” and is used in order to “prevent contamination of multidose vials” (“Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism”). Anti-vaccinators argue that the mercury contained in the preservative is the culprit for causing autism to
170). Thimerosal was first introduced in the 1930’s and is a preservative that eliminated the bacterial contamination in vaccines, but could possibly sit in the brain and cause neurological damage (Mooney, 2009, p. 60). Before 1989, American preschoolers had to only receive three vaccines; for polio, diphtheria-pertussis, and MMR. In 1999 the FDA and CDC decided that vaccine users should reduce or even get rid of the amount of thimerosal used in vaccines. The CDC also recommended that newborns should wait to get the Hepatitis B vaccination until a thimerosal free vaccination became available (Miller & Reynolds, 2009, p. 170). According to head of the chemistry department at University of Kentucky, Dr. Boyd Haley, “‘You couldn’t even construct a study that shows thimerosal is safe, it’s just too darn toxic. If you inject thimerosal into an animal, its brain will sicken. If you apply it to living tissues, the cells die. Knowing these things, it would be shocking if one inject it into an infant without causing damage’” (Kennedy, 2005, p. 59). With the being said, vaccine manufacturers began working to find a way to make a thimerosal-free vaccination, and eventually they made one. Then a decade later, children were receiving a total of 22 vaccinations by the time they started first grade. As the number of vaccines that children needed went up, the autism rate stayed
All too often we hear on the news of the devastating effects of a disease that could have been prevented by vaccines, but because of parents refusal to vaccinate their infants and children, public health professionals are now confronted with a health crisis. The importance of vaccinations is to provide children with added protection because of a young, developing immune system. Consequently, vaccines will help in boosting the immune system in recognizing and protecting children from vaccine-preventable diseases, such as measles, mumps, and pertussis, also known as whooping cough.1 For example, pertussis, a bacterial infection that is preventable by vaccines, has infected 16 million persons worldwide, and causes about 195,000 deaths
Imagine, if you would, a small infant being rushed to the hospital; Her parents are desperately crying out for help as she is starting to turn blue. She is coughing so violently that she can no longer breathe. The sounds of the infant gasping for air fills the room. She was recently diagnosed with pertussis and it has progressed so quickly that now she is in respiratory failure. She is rushed to the intensive care unit where doctors and nurses rush around her in chaos. She is starting to crash, so they place a tube down her throat, an IV line into her head, before finally placing her onto a machine that will mechanically breathe for her. They maneuver around her limp body as they do everything they can to try and save her life. Her future is unknown because pertussis is dangerous and can be fatal. This could have been prevented if she had been vaccinated. Vaccines for children should be mandatory. It will prevent them from suffering through the long-lasting effects of diseases and even death. Vaccines were developed to save lives.
Whooping cough, which is also known as, Pertussis, is caused by infection by the Bordetella Pertussis bacteria. A highly contagious bacterial disease affects the respiratory system and produces spasms of coughing that usually end in a high-pitched whooping sound.
There appears to be an alarmingly large group of people that don’t mind exposing their children to serious harm; in recent years, many adults have decided against vaccinating their children. This is unusual, as vaccines are non-lethal, very safe protection for children; they are even cost-effective for their parents and are considerably safer for the entire family when these children are vaccinated routinely (Prosser, 1548). Jennifer Hamborsky of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention essentially describes vaccination as the administration of antigenic material to stimulate an individual 's immune system to develop adaptive immunity to a pathogen- and vaccination
During the meeting, we will consult with each other on how we can support each other. Because there are only three of us, we need to ensure that each one of us is supported, and that we may need to double up on responsibilities.We all agreed at our week 2 meeting that the pertussis project is going be a positive and fun experience.
A few years earlier in Britain, pediatric neurologist John Wilson, claimed that the pertussis vaccine caused brain damage in children. Further medical studies reported that 1 in 100,000 children suffered brain damage because of DPT. The media exploded with the results of these studies, an enormous amount of lawsuits were filed, and the vaccine stopped being given. After years of replicating the initial study that found a correlation between the pertussis vaccine and brain damage, none of the studies were able to prove an association (Offit, 2010). Further research found that children with defects to a
In recent years, the number of parents who are refusing vaccinations on their children has increased. Because of this, once extinct diseases are now making a comeback (Marquez and White, 2013). Newer vaccines have tested to be effective in the 90-100 percentile range in preventing these once lethal diseases (Marquez and White, 2013). Some of the known and documented reactions to vaccinations can include redness and swelling near the injection site, headaches, vomiting, and in very rare cases encephalitis (Marquez and White, 2013). In the past, the main concern over vaccines was that mercury was included in the dosage (Marquez and White, 2013). In recent years, this part of the vaccine has been removed due to health concerns. Long term research has proved that there are no long lasting adverse effects of receiving vaccinations as a child (Marquez and White,
There are many different childhood diseases out there. Each one of these affects the child in a different way. However some of these diseases occur more often than others. So when narrowing down which topic to write about for this pediatric paper I decided to write about one that is more common and more than likely not very well known, despite being common. So it is for that reason that I chose to write about pertussis.
Moreover, according to Russell Blaylock, MD, herd immunity conception is “one of the grand lies of the vaccine program” (Obukhanych). According to herd immunity principle, 92-94 percent of population needs to be vaccinated in order to prevent contagious diseases from spreading. Even with 95-97% of vaccinated population, California being a world’s top tourist destination will always be at risk for outbreaks because over six millions tourists visit California each year. As vaccine immunity is only short-term in contrast to disease-conferred immunity which last a lifetime, CDC came up with booster shots. But even despite of accepting “cradle-to-grave shots” of Pertussis vaccine, the disease “still persists after more than sixty years of widespread
Vaccines are made of viruses or bacteria that originally cause the diseases. In order to make this viruses and bacteria usable as a vaccine, scientists choice one of the three basic methods depending on the vaccine they want to produce. The first method is using weak version of the virus causing the disease. They weaken the virus by limiting its production using chemical material. This method helps produce small amount of the virus to stimulate the immune system without harming the body. Scientists use it to make vaccines for diseases like measles, chickenpox, and mumps. (“ Weaken the Virus”1,2,3). The benefit of this method is providing a life lasting immunity for the person with one or two doses of the vaccine.( “Weaken the Virus” 9,10). However, this type of vaccine can not be used for people with low immune system .(“ Weaken the Virus” 10,11).
In their informational article “Thimerosal in Vaccines”, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) analyzes
Aluminium based adjuvants have been used extensively to induce long lasting protective immunity through vaccination and billions of doses have been administered over the years (Lindblad, 2004). But reported incidences of toxicity and side effects of aluminium have raised concerns regarding their safety in childhood vaccines. These effects include minor local reactions such as pain and erythema, a nodule at the site of injection and systemic reactions which may entail fever, malaise, shivering, general aches and headache (Clements and Griffiths, 2002) and is one of the most common reasons for dropout rates, resulting in incomplete immunisation and hence suceptibility to various diseases (Aguado, 1993). A small proportion of vaccinated people also suffered from delayed onset of diffuse myalgia, chronic fatigue and cognitive dysfunction. In some persons, at site of intra-muscular immunization, a granulomatous lesion called macrophagic myofasciitis (MMF) has also been observed. Clinical symptoms associated with MMF is recently delineated as “autoimmune/inflammatory syndrome induced by adjuvants”(ASIA) (Gherardi and Authier, 2012). Despite of this fact, the choice of adjuvants for human vaccination still reflects a compromise between a requirement for adjuvancity and an acceptable level of side-effects (Clements, 1996). At present, in human vaccinations, aluminium based adjuvants are being used primarily in Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis, Hepatitis B,