One in twenty will develop the disease

May 27, 2009 00:01 GMT  ·  By
Diseases such as rubella are not eradicated in the US, just kept under control. Unvaccinated individuals could put the entire population at risk
   Diseases such as rubella are not eradicated in the US, just kept under control. Unvaccinated individuals could put the entire population at risk

Whooping cough, or pertussis, is a contagious disease of the respiratory system, and it affects between ten and 90 million people each year. Of these individuals, nearly 600,000 die annually, which makes the disease one of the leading causes of preventable deaths in the world. Despite the fact that the disease is covered by the DTP and DTaP vaccines, many parents choose not to vaccinate their children against the bacterium Bordetella pertussis infection. A recent study has proven that one in 20 children who never get the vaccine go on to develop the coughs, while only one in 500 who have the vaccine done do the same.

The new investigation, which was conducted by experts at the Institute for Health Research, a part of the Kaiser Permanente Colorado group, was the first ever to be government-funded and to have access to the medical records of the people it followed. Thus, the researchers were able to determine exactly which children received the vaccines, which did not, and how both groups fared in the long run. The results were clear as daylight – children who do not get the shot are, intuitively, more prone to developing the coughing disease, which can be fatal.

One of the main reasons why some parents willingly put their children at risk is, in their minds, to protect them. Over the last few years, several so-called “experts” have argued that reactions to vaccines may lead to conditions such as autism, which is fairly true up to a certain point. But the parents got scared, and misinterpreted the warnings. There is a very low chance of that happening, but that doesn't mean, responsible experts warn, that the children should go without their shots addressing a number of conditions. Their very life is at stake, they add.

Additionally, if youngsters do not get vaccinated, the risk for the general population increases as well. The bacterial infection is highly contagious, and those who don't get the vaccine run the risk of favoring the emergence of the disease in cluster groups. “The US immunization program has been so successful at eliminating so many diseases that we no longer see them. So it's essentially become a victim of its own success. Now parents are no longer worried about the diseases themselves, as far as their children getting sick. They're more worried about vaccine safety,” epidemiology expert Dr. Jason Glanz, who participated in the new study, told Reuters in a telephone interview.

The paper, published in the latest issue of the respected scientific journal Pediatrics, also urges parents who refuse vaccination for their children to understand that they are putting their young ones at risk, and that diseases such as smallpox, polio, diphtheria, measles, mumps and rubella still exist, just waiting to infect massive parts of the population again.