Reddit mentions of Dpt: A Shot in the Dark

I tend to listen to my doctor, take the pills and firmly believe she has my best interest as heart. (after all she's my sister in law)

When I ask her about the effectiveness of vaccines she cites the usual studies and I agree - vaccines do indeed work.

When I ask her what the dangers are (particularly for a new vaccine) she will say there are none because the studies are simply not there.Fine.

For older vaccines like whole cell pertussis vaccine (DTPw) caused Frank encephalopathy, which is brain damage in a small number of children. Previous research from Guinnea-Bissau demonstrated that a single dose of pertussis vaccine in DTP shots doubled the mortality rate in infants and more than quadrupled the mortality rate after the second and third DTP doses. so I asked her once again "does this not bother you?" The answer I got back was well we stopped using that in 1996"

great!

but it took 11 years after it was well known to cause issues before it was replaced with acellular version that was more safe..

While it's unfortunate for the kids involved (and doctors too) what happens in this situation is that parents (who are the gatekeepers of vaccines to children) will see this and put up a brick wall against anything because of the lack of trust.

No doubt the vaccines worked but to the sacrifice of thousands of children and children's lives open the debate up and introduce conspiracy theories in the absence of facts around their usage.

Big pharma will always push a new vaccine as safe regardless of the actual safety. I't all about the marketing (which if you read this article it will become clear that doctors are being used as sales people for the vaccine manufacturers)

Source: I used to work for a big pharma in the UK