Pertussis Synthesis

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

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

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

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

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

There is no doubt that the number of vaccines recommended by health care professionals and government agencies has increased rapidly since 1980. Furthermore, vaccines have also changed in how they are made, which is unknown or poorly understood by the general public. While reviewing the literature, this was shown in the article, “Vaccines and Autism: A Tale of Shifting Hypotheses”, by Gerber & Offit (2009), where they discuss how vaccines have changed overtime. The authors state that today a single vaccine use uses less than 200 bacterial and viral proteins or polysaccharides compared to over 3000 immunological components used in 1980. In addition, the amount of protein chemistry and recombinant DNA has also increased. This helps cut back on vaccine-related reactions, because the vaccine only resembles a microbe and doesn’t function on one.

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

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.

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,

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.

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.

MD Paul Offit says, “Children are exposed to more bacteria, viruses, toxins, and other harmful substances in one day of normal activities than are in vaccines ("What Goes Into a Vaccine?").” One of the main questionable substances was a mercury preservative substance called Thimerosal. This substance was only introduced in small amounts at a time, not enough to build up and create problems. The ingredients in vaccines are in such small doses that the odds of them causing harm are very low.

In their informational article “Thimerosal in Vaccines”, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) analyzes

While a potential study bias included being limited to Europe, many countries were involved which I think is a particular strength in varying the patient population. I think the study achieved its aim although I think it may have valuable to include patients with chronic pertussis and cough for comparison. This would have required to the study to monitor patients beyond its four week post-initial visit follow up. I do not think the study had obvious imperfections beyond the diary logged patient-reported symptoms. However this would have required patients to continuously visit their primary care providers and would still require a degree of

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).