Children of the 70s, did you have whooping cough vaccine. Do you still have your records h

[IamSlave]

Just that really dh had whooping cough as a child.

I don't know if I had the vaccine but I'm assuming dh didn't?

I think older dc just had it (still had cough now doc completely dismissed possibility of it but all other places saying symptoms match.)
Younger dc obviously exposed and had a cough but not as bad

I was born in the early 1970s and had the vaccine, and had a febrile convulsion. That was in Essex funnily enough! So I imagine there was some kind of batch recall, or something? I have also had whooping cough around 8 years ago, so further proof that it wears off. Sympathy to anyone else who’s had it because it was awful!

@Floralnomad where under what

Friend's dc are vaccinated against whooping cough but 2 out of 3 have just had it. I had no idea it wore off! I think I was as I remember a feature about it on the news and my mum saying I didn't have to worry about it.

@RemarkablyBrightCreature no. Not until recently

@Cyclingforcake I ask my mum but I'm not sure she'd remember.
She is totally convinced me and my sister have never had chicken pox. We have. It was at the end of the school year so my mum had to go in and collect all my stuff from my tray and my PE kit etc and then I passed it to my sister which she was well annoyed at because it was the summer hols.
But my mum doesn't remember this 😂

Same here but 1974 birth. You're right about the vaccine scare. I caught it as a toddler.

I was born in 1970 and don't think I had the vaccination, if indeed it was offered then (I'm sure my mum would have accepted had it been offered). My younger brother caught WC when I was about 13 but I didn't get it (we had mumps and chickenpox together, but not that one).

Whole cell pertussis hasn't been used since 2004 - changed to acellular aP then.

Unfortunately it doesn't seem to last as long: "Acellular pertussis vaccines provide protection during the first years of life, but their effectiveness wanes a few years post-boosters." - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5710106/#:~:text=Acellular%20pertussis%20vaccines%20provide%20protection,a%20few%20years%20post%2Dboosters.

I believe there is currently a project looking for an improved Whooping cough vaccine due to the issues mentioned above.

My records show I didn’t have it (born 1974). I asked DM and she says there was a scare that it could cause brain damage.

Thank you for this thread. Once I found my childhood records I was always curious as to why I wasn’t vaccinated but my mum couldn’t remember why just that she had spoken to the doctor who had 4 kids of a similar age to my mums and he said the first two had had them the last 2 hadn’t and my mum thought if the doctor wasn’t getting his kids vaccinated then I shouldn’t be. Unfortunately I got none of my childhood vaccinations not just pertussis 😂😂

I am a 1971 baby. I was vaccinated for WC but still caught it when I was 12. It was horrendous, but I still think I had a milder dose than I would have had without the vaccine.

Found it - Southampton UC are researching a new Whooping cough vaccine.
https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2017/06/whooping-cough-study.page

Same - although my mum might have been a bit of an anti-vaxer because I had measles and mumps too

I don’t think it gives complete immunity at any point, just lessens any probs. The current cough syndrome is related but not exactly the same and there’s an adult version - long term cough over weeks, comes back in waves

Born in 75, didn’t get the vaccine until I was maybe eight or nine? I remember throwing a strop in the carpark of the doctors because my mum hadn’t said where we were going.

@MargotMoon I had the measles vax because my sister had measles and was very poorly with it so my mum was determined I would have that.
Was mumps vax standard then?
No idea if I am vaxed against it.

I'm pretty sure I had all the vaccines that were available at the time. I remember having the smallpox one.

I don't think whooping cough lasts and you need to get a booster every 10 years or so

Same here, maybe it wasn't a thing because I'd have definitely been vaccinated if available but I caught whooping cough I think in the same year, it was so bad my eyes haemorrhaged from the cough and they took photos to show student medics how severe it can be.

There was a WC vaccine scare in the 70s

I nearly died for WC age 2/3 in early 70's. Not sure vaccine was available as I know mum would have absolutely had us vaccinated.

1970 child and yes I was vaccinated but still caught it! I was hospitalised with it and the doctor told me I would have died if not vaccinated as would have it much worse.

Just read that you can get it even after having being vaccinated

I didn't have the whooping cough vaccine (76 baby). There was a scare about it causing brain damage, think the Dr told me mother to avoid because I have eczema.

There's an article in Nature called 'a tale of two vaccines' that explains why it was changed after a 'vaccine scare' in the 1980s

It states : . Three countries, Sweden, the UK and Japan, interrupted or decreased pertussis vaccination.

Apparently the controversy started earlier in the UK than the US:

The pertussis vaccine controversy in Great Britain, 1974-1986Jeffrey P Baker 1 2003

This historical essay analyzes the role played by Great Britain in the pertussis vaccine controversy of the 1970s and 1980s. Public backlash against this vaccine not only took place earlier in Britain than the United States, but also was so widespread that a series of whooping cough epidemics soon followed.

1970 child here - got measles and whooping cough vaccines but I don't think we were being immunised against mumps at that point. I got it when I was about 10 and had a face like a balloon.

My brother was born mid 70s and my mum remembers being really torn over the whooping cough vaccine because of the scare. He ended up getting it because her own experience of having whooping cough as a small child had been dreadful and she couldn't stand the thought of her baby going through that.

We also got tested for rubella in our teens and only vaxxed if shown not to be immune. Only 2 girls in my year needed it so it must have been rife in the community when we were growing up.