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cally develop pertussis each year without being diagnosed or having those deaths associated with ptxP3 when compared
cases reflected in government statistics. Whether vaccinated or unvac- to ptxP1. Today none of the whole-cell or
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cinated, a person may be infected with pertussis and not even know it. acellular pertussis vaccines administered to
children or adults (including pregnant women)
COUNTERPRODUCTIVE address any of the widely circulating, mutated
Transmission of pertussis by recently vaccinated persons is one plau- B. pertussis strains associated with whooping
sible explanation for the worldwide resurgence in pertussis infections. In a cough in human populations. 8
study involving infant baboons, researchers found that acellular pertussis Studies have also found that DTaP vac-
vaccines prevented clinical symptoms but failed to prevent colonization cination, intended to protect children from B.
or transmission. 52,53 After vaccinating a group of baboons at two, four and pertussis, may increase their risk of whooping
six months of age and exposing them one month later to pertussis, the cough from another organism called B. par-
researchers found that the baboons were not protected from B. pertussis apertussis. One study found that by 2010, B.
colonization and had high levels of bacteria in their respiratory systems. parapertussis—for which vaccines offer little or
Moreover, when the investigators placed unvaccinated baboons in the no protection—was associated with 16.5 percent
same cages twenty-four hours after the vaccinated animals’ exposure of whooping cough cases.
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to pertussis, the unvaccinated group became infected even though the An earlier study by German research-
first group had no overt symptoms. The researchers suggested that the ers published in 2003, titled “Clinical and
vaccinated group remained contagious for several weeks. epidemiological picture of B pertussis and B
The baboon study and others like it provide evidence that people parapertussis infections after introduction of
who have received whole-cell or acellular pertussis vaccines may become acellular pertussis vaccine,” found a similarly
“silent reservoirs” of subclinical pertussis infection and may transmit the significant effect of vaccination. The German
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disease without even knowing it. This may be the reason why “cocoon- study showed that less than five years after
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ing”—the recommended strategy to vaccinate close contacts of infants widespread acellular pertussis vaccine use, the
and other vulnerable people to protect them from pertussis—is increas- proportion of whooping cough cases accounted
ingly ineffective but also possibly counterproductive. 55,56 for by B. parapertussis had increased from 20 to
Another explanation for the resurgence in pertussis over the past 36 percent. Eighty-one percent of the B. parap-
three decades has to do with changes in the pertussis organism away from ertussis cases were fully vaccinated. 61
targets of the vaccines, a phenomenon called “antigenic drift.” Pertussis
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outbreaks occur naturally in three- to five-year cycles—despite vaccina- THE VACCINE INJURY EPIDEMIC
tion—but pertussis bacteria also mutate. In many regions of the world Fisher often points out that her son was one
(including Europe, the U.S. and Australia), new strains of pertussis have of the more fortunate victims of vaccine injury.
replaced the common strains targeted by pertussis vaccines, not unlike Although his health deteriorated because he
the way indiscriminate use of antibiotics has led to antibiotic-resistant received a crude, highly reactive pertussis vac-
strains of bacteria. In fact, B. pertussis began evolving to become vaccine- cine without her informed consent, her son’s
resistant soon after public health authorities began recommending that reactions, while life-changing, did not leave
children get multiple doses of whole-cell DTP vaccine. him with severe and profound brain and im-
In a 2014 study, researchers who analyzed a worldwide collection of mune dysfunction. As an adult, he works hard to
three hundred forty-three strains of B. pertussis—isolated between 1920 compensate for his learning disabilities but lives
and 2010—to assess the influence of pertussis vaccines on the emergence independently as a productive member of soci-
of new strains concluded that while antigenic divergence initially involved ety, in contrast to more severely vaccine-injured
relatively few mutations, vaccination against whooping cough is now the adults who require assisted care throughout life.
“major force” inducing adaptive behavior in B. pertussis populations. Fisher describes her son as one of the “walking
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These shifts are leading to reduced vaccine efficacy. wounded” in what has become “an unprec-
Vaccine-induced adaptation has also led to higher levels of virulence edented and still unexplained chronic disease
and new and increasingly dominant strains of pertussis toxins. A highly and disability epidemic now plaguing millions
virulent strain of pertussis toxin called ptxP3, for example, did not exist in of children and young adults in America.” 2
the pre-vaccination era but has emerged from within pertussis-vaccinated Nor is it only pertussis-containing DPT,
populations. It produces 1.62 times more lethal toxin than the former ptxP1 DTP, DTaP and Tdap vaccines that can cause
strain, and no vaccines are designed to protect against it. Researchers harm. All vaccines carry a risk of injury and
have observed a statistically significant increase in hospitalizations and death, a risk that can be greater for some people

WINTER 2020 Wise Traditions 77