Infectious disease doesn't care why you're unvaccinated

The people who are against vaccinations are mostly idiots, however, scientists are not infallible. Sometimes they lapse into politics too.

I'm interested to hear why a five minute old infant is at risk of contracting Hep-B. Our kids will get Hep-B before they start school. Even if one of our kids did contract Hep-B, it is pretty unlikely that they will be able to give it to your children.

Rota-virus vaccine was suspended by the FDA temporarily,[1] We opted to decline this one even after the suspension was lifted considering seriousness of intussusception[2][3] compared the very low incidence of death or serious injury by rota-virus infection in the US. Even though the suspension wasn't related to the earlier intussusception problem, I considered the incident sign of poor QC and/or a lack of respect for the FDA by the manufacturer. We would probably reconsider if we had plans for international travel with the children, even though our oldest has probably been exposed/infected. (a fun story!) (It sure would be nice if antibody testing were cheap and widely available).

Seasonal Influenza - Declined based on personal negative experience and systematic reviews of vaccine efficacy[4][5]. Every single seasonal influenza vaccine I have taken has resulted in a miserable two-week flu-like state. I have never had a case of the flu as that was as unpleasant as my reaction to the vaccine. I understand most people are not affected so negatively by the vaccine. After reading the Cochrane reviews on the subject, I am inclined to believe that the seasonal Influenza vaccine is an unnecessary and rarely useful product.

Not that I need to worry about it yet, but Cervarix and especially Gardasil seem to have low efficacy WRT to the (possible) risks of the vaccine, especially considering the prognosis for those that contract cervical cancer (women rarely die of cervical cancer). I also find Merck's relationship over the matter with my state's idiot Governor particularly aggravating.

So, basically, if the risk of contracting and or having the illness is low, and if it doesn't needlessly endanger others (like MMR refusal for school-aged children) then I am going to take a good hard look at whether we really need the vaccine.

>not considering yourself anti-vaccine.

Anti-vaccine means you don't allow yourself or your children to be vaccinated. Our children do receive most vaccines at the scheduled time. We have opted to delay or forgo a few vaccines. Lumping people into two opposing factions has had a very negative effect on the debate, as it tends to do in a debate on any subject.

[1] http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/ApprovedP...

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22293889

[3] http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/Questions...

[4] 'Flu vaccine doesn't help elderly' http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20166072

[5] Please read the author's conclusions for this one. 'Vaccines for preventing influenza in healthy adults.' http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20614424

Vaccines aren't to keep individuals from getting sick; they're to prevent outbreaks and pandemics.

That they prevent most people who receive them from getting sick is an added benefit.

To report a problem, go to http://vaers.hhs.gov/index , which is the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System.

Did you get any paperwork about the immunization? There should have been a flyer or handout like http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/vis/vis-statements/dtap.pdf . This has information both about VAERS, as well as about the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

The "ap" in DTaP vaccine means "acellular Pertussis", which means it uses antigens of the pertussis pathogen rather than whole cells. There should be no infectious material that could cause a bad cough a week later. (It also has fewer side-effects than, but is also less effective than the whole cell vaccine.)

I read that newspaper article you mentioned. It said "Infants under 2 months of age are at the highest risk, accounting for five of Texas' [six] deaths this year" and "80 percent of those were children under 2 months old, who are too young to be vaccinated against the disease."

This is a very different situation than what you are describing, where a cough starts a week after the vaccination. I don't think you can make the inference that it's a side-effect of the vaccination itself based on that article.

The article points out that the new vaccine formulation doesn't seem to be as effective for as long as the old one. What's likely happening is that adults whose immunity has worn off are acting as carriers for the disease, and infecting babies and children who haven't received any immunization for the disease.

This is probably one of the reasons that the Td immunization (DTaP is for children) recommends "All adults should get a booster dose of Td every 10 years."

(While it doesn't confer a life-long immunity, the goal is to prevent pertussis in children; they have the highest risk of death if infected.)

I don't know what to say to you, other than that I, some anonymous person on the internet, agrees with your doctor that "it probably wasn't Pertussis."

> "even considering the low expected rate of serious adverse vaccination events, it is not possible that this clinic has never had a reportable event"

There are different styles of reporting. First off, 25% of the children who receive the DTaP vaccine get a fever, 25% get redness or swelling where the shot was given, and 25% get soreness or tenderness where the shot was given. Your doctor has almost certainly seen those side effects.

But they aren't reported because they are expected. Again, they should be in the handout you got as part of the information about immunization. No doctor is going to report such mild problems.

Then there are the "moderate problems", like seizure, non-stop crying, and a fever of over 105°F. These occur in less than 1:1000 children, which means there should have been a couple of children in your clinic who have had these reactions.

However, it's up to the doctor to decide if this is severe enough to report. The VAERS guideline include "clinically significant adverse health events following vaccination", "vaccination error [that] may pose a safety risk", "or that the error would be preventable with public health action or education" but "accepts all reports."

These moderate problems are likely not 'significant adverse.' The severe cases seem to happen in 1:1 million cases or rarer for the vaccinations I looked at. Even across all of the vaccinations, it's unlikely that your doctor's office would have had that happen to one of their patients.

So, that's one style of reporting. Another style occurs when they get the above statistics in the first place. In that case, they enroll doctors into the program, and have the doctors report all problems that arise after the vaccination. This can be compared to a baseline reference from children who haven't yet had the vaccine. (Eg, the three weeks before the vaccine compared to the three weeks after.) That's used to weed out coincidental correlations. After all, kids do get sick even with vaccines.

This second style of reporting is what's used to list the known risks of the vaccine, with the first style of reporting use to get information about the very rare cases.

What should the doctor have done to improve your sense of confidence? Run a test for pertussis even though your child didn't have the symptoms for the disease? Make a report even though it wasn't a severe adverse effect? The information you wanted - what to do if there was a severe affect - should have been information you already had. I'm somewhat surprised that the staff didn't know that, since I (an anonymous stranger on the internet) knew it existed, but I also only know your side of the story.