It was late December in 2013 and my wife and I were sitting on her parent’s veranda in central Victoria when I received a phone call that almost sent me into a blind panic.
It was from my parents telling me that my dad had just been diagnosed with whooping cough. My mind immediately went back a few days to when my dad had spent the afternoon with my wife and six week old son, Tom. How many times had he held my son? Had Tom tried to suck his face, which was his party trick at the time?
I have a PhD in virology and have even written a scientific paper on vaccination. I have a good understanding of the risks associated with exposure to whooping cough in infants but that part of my brain just shut down. I admit that as a first time parent I was scared.
What was going through my mind were the deaths of young children caused by whooping cough. I have had discussions with people who had lost their children to vaccine preventable diseases and it was their stories that were playing on high rotation through my head.
We immediately headed back to Melbourne and booked into our GP who gave Tom his whooping cough vaccination and a course of preventative antibiotics. I don’t view myself as an overly sentimental person, and while I have no regrets about my decision, it somehow bothers me that the first thing my son ate or drank, apart from breast milk, was these antibiotics. I am very happy to say that Tom didn’t present with any symptoms and a year on is a happy, healthy, and very independent toddler.
So how was my son exposed to a vaccine preventable disease? My dad had done the right thing and had received the whooping vaccine less than two years earlier. We can never be sure whether the vaccine didn’t work or whether it only worked partially but my dad is over 70 and has had serious health issues for a number of years. He had recently been in hospital. where it is possible he was exposed to the pertussis bacteria that causes whooping cough. Due to his ill health and age, his immune system was probably not able to defend him even with the priming supplied by the vaccine and as a result he got sick.
Top Comments
I think that came down to luck! Luckily!!!
I know a child who has passed away from whooping cough and they had been vaccinated for the whooping cough already. This vaccination isn't as helpful as it once was.
I've done tons and tons of research on this vaccination and many others, and they're not what they were back in the day. These days there's way to many harmful chemicals in them, that shouldn't be in there.
I think everyone should take the time and research every ingredient in the vaccinations before they let the doctor jab they're completely healthy child.
Yes the whooping cough vaccine in use these days is not as effective as the cellular one that was used previously, simply because the cellular one had more adverse reactions. They made the vaccine less likely to cause reactions, but at the same time made it slightly less effective. That said, your child is still 7-8 times less likely to get whooping cough if they are vaccinated.
What chemicals trouble you, Reggie?
My mother is anti-vaccine and refused to vaccinate myself or my siblings. She gave us 'alternative natural' immunisations instead. We all had whooping cough, chickenpox and couple of my siblings had German measles and measles as kids. None of us died or had serious complications. Thank goodness.
I hope none of us, unable to make decisions about our own health at the time, passed the diseases onto others in the community who had weaker immune systems.
I had all my immunisations done as a teenager after questioning my mother about what would happen if I stabbed myself with rusty barbed wire - would the 'natural vaccination' stop tetanus? Nope!
I have a 2 yr old daughter of my own now and her vaccinations are up to date. She also has an excellent immune system and is barely affected by even the common cold. Would I use this as an excuse not to vaccinate her? Of course not. She is fortunate that she is healthy and able to fight illness but many others are not - including her father who has a terrible immune system and catches everything that goes around!
My mother asked me after my daughter was born if I knew that vaccinations caused SIDs. What a terrible thing to say to new mum - implying if I vaccinated my daughter and she died I would be responsible! I chose to ignore her, but even so, the fear and hysteria spread by anti-vaxxers does have an impact on new parents, no matter how rationally and logically they think.
The anti-vaxxers use the worst type of emotional manipulation - fear of death or injury to your child. The evidence simply does not add up to support this. Parents are faced with enough difficult choices as it is, and by far the easiest should be to protect their children against preventable disease. Parents do not need the added guilt of wondering 'what if?' if they do lose a child to SIDs or if their child is diagnosed with some kind of condition based on misinformation and lies.
Thanks EC for you story! Its great to know that there will be those who grew up in the antivax community who will question it and read and understand the science and listen to those qualified. Thank you again.