hmb - vaccination question

[Jimjams]

Actually its not a vaccination question its an antibody question.

All the stuff I've read has said that babies don't gain protection from pertussis via the placenta or through breat milk. Is this true and if so why?

When ds2 was 4 months he had a very heavy exposure to whooping cough (on several occasions, from different children at various stages of the diseas- basically my friends 4 kids all had it- and we didn't realise "my haven't they got a bad cough and o lhook they're vomiting". Ds2 was being breast fed , and after the diagnosis had been given my homepath did give us pertussin ( ) Anyway he didn't get it.

Just wondered whether its true there is no protection in breast milk.

Actually I always think that this case demonstrated the principal of susceptibility (an idea you come across in homeopathy a lot). My friend had bad whooping cough when she was 8. I remember it well as I had measles at the same time and used to play with her whilst we were both off school (my mum was working so her mum looked after me as well). So was it a case of susceptibility (i'm good at fighting off whooping cough and so are my children, or was there protection in the breast milk). And I still don't understand why there wouldn't be.

[hmb]

You do realise that immunology was my least favorate subject don't you! I will have a google and see what I can find. Logically you would think that if one antibody can pass into breast milk they all could. Might it be that you don't get enough to be effective?? I'll go and google

[hmb]

The first think that came up was \link{http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12381931&dopt=Abstract\antibody levels

So from this it would seem that there are antibodies to WC passed to the neonate by breast feeding. Other sites also said that breast feeding helped to protect the neonate from whooping cough (and these were in general 'kids health web sites rather than any on either side of the vaccination debate IYSWIM) I don't know how long the anti bodies would persist....as I keep saying this is not my area!

HTH

[hmb]

And now I can't do links anymore

[hmb]

try cut and paste this
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12381931&dopt=Abstract

[Jimjams]

Thanks hmb- I've always thought antibodies must be passed. It was a dept of health publication that said no protection was passed through breastfeeding. Strange. I suspect we're back to the usual- the studies haven't been done.

[hmb]

And what I have been unable to find are any studies of how long the antibodies persist, and also if the titre levels are high enough to give protection and/or produce more antibodies.

As you say it may be that the studies haven't been done. I know from my days in the pharmaceutical industry that it is very difficult to get ethical permission to do studies on lactating women (for obvious reasons). Understandable, but still annoying that the data doesn't exist.

[Jimjams]

Or alternatively the homeopathy worked Must have been the antibodies

Now I want to see more research done on whooping cough now and whether the vaccine offers any protection at all against the new strain. I do find it stunning that someone could publish a paper saying that pertussis vaccine doesn't protect against a new strian and that isn't then taken any further. Especially when the vaccine is recognised as being one of the ones most likely to cause side effects.

I should run a grant awarding body. I could think of some good studies!

Now I'm off to search for the meningitis study. Research was going on in Oxford as to whether vaccinating against men C would just increase the number of men B cases. Wonder if they've published anything yet......

[hmb]

The crazy thing is that there are so many excellent research projects written that just don't get funding. When I worked in research (10 years ago now, Eeek!) the last project I worked on ended for lack of funding. The grant application was A rated, and we still didn't get the funding. The reserach was relivant to parkinsons disease and MS. Crazy.