Let's face it: the only real justification for using vaccines to "immunize" ourselves against disease is derived from the natural fact that when challenged by infectious agents the humoral arm of our immune system launches a successful response capable of conferring lasting immunity. Were it not for the elegance, proficiency, and mostly asymptomatic success of our recombinatorial immune system in dealing so well with infectious challenges, vaccination would have no scientific...
A newly published article written by a former WHO vaccine committee member, has revealed that estimates for pertussis vaccine efficacy have been greatly inflated because of inaccurate case definitions adopted by the WHO in 1991 which required laboratory confirmation and 21 days or more of paroxysmal cough, excluding and therefore concealing a veritable submerged iceberg of vaccine-resistant cases of pertussis infection.
