6-in-1 vaccine concern

[Ladyaudley675]

Hi all , I am reading a book called The Vaccine Book which discusses the issue of waning immunity for this vaccine - it refers to research by a key expert about how the vaccine actually wears off pretty quickly after teenage boosters and makes people more vulnerable to catching whooping cough for the rest of their lives. Please see attached excerpt which explains it better. Does anyone know more about this please ? As I am working my way through the schedule for my baby , I really want to make fully informed decisions and feel more confident about them.

Another research piece (Oxford academic) I just come across states this “Increasing pertussis incidence was observed in some countries with high vaccination coverage. McGirr et al estimated that the incidence of pertussis increased by 33% every additional year since the last dose of DTaP, and with no significant difference between 3 and 5 vaccine doses. Understanding the waning of vaccine protection is crucial to control the reemergence of vaccine-preventable diseases.”

tysm x

Its east to worry when it’s your child, but have you thought maybe that the best way to make an informed decision would be to listen to what your health visitor recommends? That the NHS recommendations might be slightly more informed than whatever you might find on the internet?

Isn’t this book written by a paediatrician who’s known to be antivax and was even put on probation?

The whooping cough vaccine is actually my favourite vaccine. Did you know that it's also been proven to reduce the chance of developing type 1 diabetes in children. Because if you catch the actual disease you're more likely to have T1D later. Countries that have the whooping cough vaccine as standard have found falling T1D numbers.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12647838/

And have you ever had whooping cough? It's shit. It's like the worst cough you've ever had and it lasts months.

If I were you I'd just put down this book. It's doing nothing for your peace of mind.

Waning immunity simply means a potential need for booster immunisation, it isn't caused by being vaccinated in the first place!
You would do better to gain a basic understanding of why immunisation works before going down rabbit holes like this.

Ps another vaccine that gives bonus protection against T1D is the rotavirus vaccine (12w and 16w babies get it). It made my baby vomit when he had his first dose so I read more about it thinking I might decline the next one.

Now I'm genuinely so keen on it I think every country should have it.

Edit! My link said the opposite lol I need to find the source I'd been reading

Btw - whooping cough isn't like, say, tuberculosis or something where you might think "wtf is that, surely no one's had it since the Victorians" [only yes, it's still around].

Whooping cough is rife. A mum at the soft play just last month told me her whole family had it recently and were coughing for months. I had it as a student.

Here it is! A meta study (that means putting together all the studies) found there is some protection against T1D on a societal level with the rota virus vaccine

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9459138/

So immunity does wane. That’s perfectly normal. That’s why the UK vaccination policy is written to target key infections in key populations who are most at risk. This policy is regularly reviewed and updated in line with emerging threats/ changes in evidence.

For example, when I grew up you had the MMR as a child. Then as my age group went to Uni there was a rise of mumps infections So the uk policy was adapted to include a booster before Uni . The aim is to protect as many people as possible but to also then stop it becoming an outbreak which would spread throughout the general population. Whilst achieving this within a cost effective way. The Vaccine committee have to justify why the Dept of Health should pay for the vaccine and prove it will impact as many people as possible, based on UK infection rates, cost of treating the disease and any long term damage left if you survive it.

the policy is known as the Green book. For the population protection to work, you need a high percentage of the population to take the vaccine to create the herd immunity. It could be in the countries with an increasing pertussis burden there is low vaccine uptake, or they need to add a booster to their schedule or perhaps there has been a recent influx of unvaccinated people (displacement). There’s lots of nuance in it which tends to be ignored by the anti vax lot.

if you are worried about your child being infected then vaccine is the best protection you can offer along side general sensible precautions etc.

This. Put the book down. That author is widely discredited. Follow the NHS schedule. Don’t delay and risk your baby getting meningitis.

@Skippythebutterfly hi , of course we worry when it’s our kids and we are responsible for their health. Hv , nurses or even general doctors quite often don’t actually know much other than the set schedule and how to deliver it. When I asked before, they just looked a bit confused and didn’t really have an answer! Which is fair enough if they’ve never done any research or study on specific issues. I have a family member who has some neurological challenges after one set of vaccines and after the emerging health issues from some of the covid ones (blood clots for example , which another family member had after their booster, although of course some will say it’s coincidence ) I have started doing my own research to learn more. This includes books, journal articles , talking to medical staff but I haven’t yet found a dr in person who knows much. I genuinely want reassurance !

@Abbimae hi Abbie, genuinely looking for reassurance and more credible information to help me learn and feel more confident . You’re right, I’m definitely not a scientist

@PeloMom the book is by dr sears . from what I read, he denied being antivax and said something about wanting to encourage vaccination in parents who otherwise would not get it at all. I think it’s always a little controversial when someone questions the set schedule or does it a bit differently based on the needs of their own child. However , you mention probation, I don’t know about that and I promise I’m not some big fan of his . I’m looking at all sources of info objectively as possible. This issue of waning immunity isn’t only flagged up by him. There’s quite a few studies and academic journal articles about it. FYI , I am actually vaccinating my baby, we are in the process of it, I just want to feel more confident about it all !

I have a family member who has some learning disabilities as a result of catching a vaccine preventable illness in the 1960's (it wasn't preventable then). He was kept in isolation away from his family who weren't allowed to visit and barely knew if he'd get better or not.
The repeated high fever damaged his growing brain as my grandmother tells it.

@Mumoftwo1312 tysm for taking the time to explain your thoughts and share links as well ! I will check them out as soon as I get a mo. I really appreciate such effort, instead of using slurs like antivx to shut down reasonable research-based conversation. I think it’s important to have spaces where worries can be shared and questions can be answered . This would only increase v rates. Or at least make us feel better when taking our babies to the appointment, knowing we have done our research and understand benefits vs risks and what we are putting in their bodies .

Waning immunity is still better than no immunity at all! Please vaccinate your child and save them from potentially deadly diseases.

Think about it this way: immunity might wane later in life.

But your child will never be as small and vulnerable as they are now. And it will almost never be so hard to cram medicine into them without getting Calpol dribbles everywhere.

Hell, if the vaccine only protected to a few years old, I'd still call that a win.

I note in the book he says a resurgence in some countries - why not all? There are many complicated factors going on e.g. uptake of vaccines, migration etc that make measuring tricky. I was recently quite surprised to learn that whooping cough protection lasts around 10 years and then wanes. However the point is that it is most risky to young children. Of course months of coughing is unpleasant in teenagers and adults, but less likely to cause serious complications.

I don't know if this comarison is helpful. I spent a long time trying to look into the chicken pox vaccine (to have privately) including talking to a GP relative. There was some concerns it wanes after 20 years and as I have a girl and it is dangerous in pregnancy I was concerned. However other countries give it routinely and don't seem to have an issue in adults. It's a complex picture and something many scientists research for years, so understandable. In the end I decided to get my children vaccinated and revisit whether a booster would be useful when they are 20.

If you say to a qualified doctor that you have done research and think that the set vaccine schedule is not credible, they aren't looking confused, they're looking tired and worried. Tired because this stuff keeps popping up despite being a bit silly, and worried because dangerous diseases are returning due to vaccine resistance.

I'm a health care professional of many years' experience and one of the things I know is that the doctors in NICE ķnow far more than I do. Immunology is INCREDIBLY complicated, research statistics are fascinating but difficult. I can't do research at that level; no individual can. It's a huge collective effort, funded by us as taxpayers to improve public health. I feel that we are lucky that our vaccine schedule is run by people like this. And it works. Circulatory illness like blood clots are increased by Covid and the vaccine combats that, reducing death rates wherever it is in use.

Where we are important is in knowing our children. Of course if your child has a specific allergy that is relevant (egg is one, isn't it?) or has a cold at the time of a vaccine appointment, obviously you speak up and say, let's do it next week, or in a few cases have the vaccine in a hospital in case of an immediate reaction. But refusing a vaccine outright because it might not last forever doesn't make much sense.

Pre MMR child.
I got my immunity to Rubella, Mumps and Whooping Cough the hard way.
It added up to a couple of months of infant school lost. (Plus another couple of weeks for Chicken Pox in juniors)
Fortunately in my teen years there was a catch-up vaccination initiative for Measles due to an outbreak, so that one was the easy way.

The risk of catching these illnesses is now rising as the herd immunity declines. At best they leave you poorly for days/weeks and trash your school (and the parent's work) attendance. At worst, they can disable or kill.

Vaccination protects a generation of children when they are most susceptible to sharing them in busy schools. By protecting children and reducing prevelence, you're also reducing transmission amongst older generations.

We really don't want these diseases widespread through society again and indeed there's a lot of effort at present going into trying to catch up on school-age children to prevent epidemics as illness numbers rise.

I'm doing my own research on flying a plane.
I'm an English teacher but in my opinion, those pilots don't know anything.

You coming with?

When you think of side effects you have to put it in perspective,

My MiL’s sister, for example, has slight brain damage from a massive allergic reaction to paracetamol. She’s very lucky to be alive. No one would ever dream of saying that because a tiny tiny proportion of people have a reaction to it people should all stop taking paracetamol.

I’m highly reactive to penicillin. Again, nobody would think that because a tiny percentage of the population has troubles that it should be banned.

So, if you’re going hunting for research that will tell you that vaccination is 100% safe then you won’t find it. Because nothing in the world is 100% safe.

However, you have to balance up the tiny tiny risk that comes with vaccination with the considerably bigger risk of things like measles and the other things that vaccinations help with.

Having to have a booster later isn’t a sign of vaccines being pointless. You don’t take antibiotics once in your life and never get any infections ever. Or asthma inhalers once and then never need to take them. As bodies change and grow it’s natural that some things need to be boosted.

It can be scary giving vaccinations to tiny babies, but as someone who was bullied into single vaccines for her eldest two I can tell you - it’s much scarier when your child is ill and the guilt in your stomach that they didn’t have the most effective vaccine is overwhelming

Who are your sources, what is their qualifications and who is funding their research?

Simply being and Oxford academic is not enough.

PS, if you don't want to be called an anti-vax, it's perhaps an idea not to promote a book written by an anti-vaxxer and then in another post, shoehorn blood clots following another vaccine. (though you conveniently forgot to mention the instance of blood clotting issues being far far higher post COVID infection rather than vaccine)

@Ladyaudley675

I really appreciate such effort, instead of using slurs like antivx to shut down reasonable research-based conversation

I mean this kindly but a “research based conversation” is impossible with someone who doesn’t understand basic science, which you don’t.

People like the author of this book are preying on your lack of scientific understanding to push vaccine scepticism. And sorry if you find it a slur but it is antivax. Dressed up in lots of stuff about “doing your own research”, which is the palatable way they work these days but at heart it’s someone trying to make money out of vaccine scepticism.

”Doing your own research” has become a shorthand for reading a load of dubious and unbalanced stuff which is based on trying to sell more books. “Doing your own research” never involves reading peer reviewed literature by people who understand vaccines.

It’s understandable that you feel anxious about this when it’s your child but anyone with the most basic grasp of how vaccines work will be able to confirm that your children are at much greater risk from not having vaccines than having them. It’s irrelevant whether the NHS nurses at your practice understand the vaccine schedule: this isn’t their role.

For your mental health and your children’s health ignore this snake oil and get medical advice.

Dr Sears is not a respectable source, the most basic of 'research' will prove that.

Even waning immunity provides some immunity. People far more intelligent than you or I have developed the vaccines and the schedule, spent years- decades- in immunology. Trust them rather than a sketchy American doctor flogging a book on Amazon.

It is true that 'doing my own research' is shorthand for 'read some dubious things online, watched a few tiktoks and think I'm an expert'. Drs aren't confused, they're pissed off and trying not to tell you how ridiculous you are.