The Pertussis Paradox

摘要

When California reported more than 9000 cases of whooping cough in 2010, public health alarm bells rang far and wide. A childhood disease vanquished decades ago by a vaccine was resurgent. Major outbreaks of the disease, properly known as pertussis, soon surfaced in several other states, including Minnesota, Washington, and North Carolina. Something was wrong, very wrong.Kathryn Edwards, a vaccinologist at Van-derbilt University in Nashville, and many of her colleagues realized that the safer pertussis vaccines they helped usher in in the 1990s had come at a steep cost: They do not create immune protection as long-lasting as the vaccine they replaced. "It's humbling and kind of depressing," says Edwards, whose own daughter had suffered serious side effects from the old-fashioned vaccine. "I spent so much of my time and my life working on this. ... We were so excited that we had the answer, and now it isn't really the answer."