Due to anxiety-driven fear of vaccination-induced seizures, the whole-cell pertussis or the so-called whooping cough vaccine (DPT) was replaced by the current acellular vaccines (DTaP and Tdap).
"Pertussis, during the acute phase, is associated with seizures in infants, but the likelihood of developing epilepsy is unknown," writes Morten Olsen, MD, PhD, from the Department of Clinical Epidemiology at Aarhus University Hospital, Denmark.
Such remarks were based on a study published in Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) where researchers assessed national data that consist over 4,700 patients born between 1978 and 2011. The subjects of the research were those who were diagnosed to have whooping cough during infancy or before they turned six months old. Such patients were compared to another group of subjects who were considered part of the general population.
The research revealed that 4,700 children were identified to have pertussis diagnosis between the years 1978 and 2011. In order to come up with their results, the researchers tracked each diagnosed child for up to 15 years. Results were then compared to ten control participants from the general population who were not diagnosed to have pertussis.
Other factors taken into account in coming up with the conclusions were exposure to smoking during pregnancy, birth order, gestational age, cesarean delivery, birth weight, a history of meningitis or a brain tumor, birth defects, and the mother's history of epilepsy.
"To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the risk of epilepsy following pertussis," lead author Dr. Morten Olsen from the Aarhus University Hospital said.
Adam L. Hartman, MD, associate professor of neurology and pediatrics at Johns Hopkins Children's Center, said the that finding of the research is certainly novel. "Seizures in the short term have been associated with pertussis infection but this study shows that there also might be long-term effects," he said.
