Several years ago my doctor asked if I would be willing to get a whooping cough vaccine. He explained that at my age (65 at the time) I would not get very sick from the disease if I were to contract it. He added that adults were being asked to vaccinate simply to improve the "herd immunity" because so many children were not being vaccinated. I agreed.
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@Deborah Taylor
Did the doctor explain to you that you can get asymptomatic whooping cough thanks to the vaccine?
@Blanca - Complete bunk. This is the baboon study you are relying on:
"Twenty-four hours after two previously vaccinated baboons were inoculated with pertussis bacteria in the back of their nose and trachea, an unvaccinated baboon was put in each of their cages.
The vaccinated baboons continued to have pertussis bacteria in their noses, which the researchers had put there, for up to 35 days. And they were able to eventually pass the pertussis bacteria to the unvaccinated baboons in their cages.
https://vaxopedia.org/2018/07/09/can-vaccinated-children-be-asymptomatic...
The vaccine DOES NOT GIVE YOU THE DISEASE. The vaccine MAKES YOUR BODY DEVELOP ANTIBODIES TO THE DISEASE ORGANISM.
You can be colonised by the bacteria if you are vaccinated. But, you don't get sick, and the bacteria cannot user your body as an incubator to manufacture replicas of itself. Your antibodies will destroy the bacteria that do colonise you.
Yes, I was shouting.
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@Deborah Taylor When my granddaughter was born 7 years ago there was an outbreak of whooping cough in a religious community near our city.
I got the vaccine as did most of the seniors I know. I wasn't too worried for myself, but since babies can't be vaccinated before 2 months and require boosters for another couple of years I didn't want to be a source of infection to them.
I knew kids that had whooping cough and it was horrible.
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I contracted a terrible case of Whooping Cough 4 years after receiving a Tdap. I could not have been immune after that vaccination (but I sure am now!!)
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@Janet
I got a case in my early 50's, around 2001, from being exposed to babies and toddlers with Whooping Cough - a minor building epidemic I think. I remember it wasn't all that bad when walking around up - but coughed uncontrollably when I lied down, and slept propped up, even then having outbursts that woke everyone in the house.
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A more recent study, about three years ago by Oregon Health Science University showed that tetanus vaccines are likely effective for as much as 25 years.
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Interesting article. Human body itself is a miracle. It can cope up with the toughest conditions. If we are brought up in the toughest living conditions like India our bodies work wonders. We have all kinds of worst pollution here. Adding fuel to the fire is food adulteration, drinking water problems so on and so forth. I drank all kinds of water and I ate all kinds of vegetarian food in all types of hotels including street food and five star hotels right from my childhood and survived and kicking at 70 th year without getting any kind of serious ailment and so are plenty of other people.
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@Sivaram Pochiraju
All that wonderfulness must be why WHO gives India a life expectancy rank of 125, and why it has seven times the infant mortality of the US, which isn’t a high mark to begin with. Some people just get the luck of the immunologic draw. It’s the other ones we need to worry about.
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For Rabies, it's approx. 2 years. Even so, it's strongly encouraged to get 2 booster shots if exposed (biten) within those 2 years and for high risk groups, every 6- 12 months. That's some half- life.
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But there is that rare occasion when you get the disease twice, as I did. Chicken pox in infancy and then again at 21. Or another variation of immunity: exposed constantly at age 9 to my brothers mumps, yet never caught it. Exposed briefly to a patient’s child 12 years later, I came down with mumps. Infectious mono at age 63, despite having earlier kissed my share of frogs. I have to add, so-called childhood diseases are miserable as an adult.
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@Lee Hover, D. Med. Hum.- you've got a wacky immune system. Talk about genetic differences amongst humans.
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@Lee Hover, D. Med. Hum.
Shingles is proof that varicella immunity diminishes with time. BTDlT(*). I can't quantify because I have no idea what relation half-life has to the timing or intensity of a case of shingles.
_ _ _ _
(*) _Been _There _Didn't _like _That
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@Oded Haber
Shingles is only proof that you've had varicella (chicken pox). Those who haven't had chicken pox don't get shingles. The chicken pox virus sequesters itself until something triggers it and then it shows ups as shingles. Half life has nothing to do with it.
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What of EBV? It was mentioned, but then no results were included.
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In addition to the points raised in Dr. Klasco's answer, I suspect that our immune system degrades at different rates for different people as we age. Those of us who have maintained good health from a healthy diet, plenty of exercise, lower stress and less exposure to environmental toxins probably retain better levels of immunity to previous immune responses.
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Correction. You are confusing "half life" -- the time required for 50% of already made and circulating antibody to disappear from the circulation-- from the duration of acquired immunity which is a more complex matter. The latter includes all of those factors, many of which are not known, that enables the immune system to be stimulated to make antibody for long periods of time after immunization. Yes, they differ between various infectious agents (or vaccines) and, for lack of a better term, can best be ascribed to what is often termed "inherent immunogenicity". Here, those factors that relate to the persistence of antigen (either naturally or as a result of deliberate immunization) play an important role.
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@Phillip J. Baker
Please note that I appreciate Dr. Klasco's attempt to explain a very complex process for which, except for the definition of half-life, he did an excellent job. Since this is a very complex issue, it is best to rely on the expert advice of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices for reliable information on specific vaccines.
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