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According to the World Health Organization, cases of pertussis, also known as whooping cough, reported in the US increased from fewer than 8,000 in 2000 to more than 20,000 in 2015. One hypothesis is that the switch from a vaccine containing whole Bordetella pertussis cells to an acellular version with pertussis antigens—a change that happened in the US around the year 2000—might be to blame.
In a study published in March in Science Translational Medicine, though, researchers attributed the disease’s rise to a combination of not enough people getting vaccinated and vaccine-based immunity waning over time, albeit much more slowly than other studies have suggested. They found no evidence that the switch in vaccine type drove the resurgence.
Now, another group of scientists is challenging the mathematical models and conclusions from the March study, which they say are inconsistent with observational data. The critics advocate for ...
