CDPH Holds Rare Vaccination Study

As more state residents eschew vaccinations out of fear of harming their children, the California Department of Public Health conducted a rare study regarding the results of vaccinating against whooping cough/pertussis.

CDPH officials examined the records of 690 newborns in California who suffered from pertussis. It concluded that those whose mothers received a Tdap vaccination during their pregnancy were significantly less likely to be hospitalized, admitted into the intensive care unit or intubated to treat the condition. Hospital stays for infants whose mothers were vaccinated were half as long as those whose mothers were not vaccinated.

The data was released as California has been going through a reemergence of whopping cough cases. There were 9,000 reported cases of the condition in 2010 – the highest rate since 1950. Ten infants died as a result. Last year, there were more than 9,900 cases, with one death. Two other infants who contracted pertussis in 2013 also died last year. There were similar outbreaks of measles last year, but on a significantly smaller scale.

Public health officials have suggested that parental fear about their children having an adverse reaction to multiple vaccinations – including an elevated risk of contracting autism – may be behind some reluctance to be completely up-to-date on vaccines. Public health records show there are clusters of unvaccinated and under-vaccinated children in affluent areas in Berkeley and Marin County in Northern California, although recent cases of whooping cough have been more prevalent among lower-income Latino children. 

“Prior studies have demonstrated that prenatal Tdap vaccination reduces the risk of whooping cough among infants less than two months of age,” said State Public Health Officer Karen Smith, M.D. “However, this is the first study that CDPH is aware of that has evaluated the impact of Tdap vaccine during pregnancy on the outcomes of infants who do become infected with pertussis. This study provides more evidence that getting the Tdap vaccine is the best way for pregnant mothers to protect their babies from pertussis and its complications.”