How many people will be upset knowing that neurological damage had been occurring after the whooping cough (pertussis) vaccine right from the beginning? A 1948 article in Pediatrics discussed cases of brain damage following use of the vaccine. The article is hauntingly similar to the large number of cases of autism that would escalate decades later. The children, mostly boys, had been developing normally and showed no problems before receiving the vaccine. They manifested “acute cerebral” symptoms within hours of injection. A regression or “failure of further development” occurred afterward.
“Inspection of the records of the Children’s Hospital for the past ten years has disclosed 15 instances in which children developed acute cerebral symptoms within hours after the administration of pertussis vaccine. The children varied between 5 and 18 months in age and, in so far as it is possible to judge children of this age range, were developing normally according to histories supplied by their parents. None had convulsions previously. Twelve of the children were boys and three were girls, a sex difference also encountered in relation to other substances, such as lead, causing gross injury to the developing nervous system. At inoculation time, the children varied in age between 5 and 18 months. Developmental data were obtained in detail on all but two of the children, whose mothers simply stated that they had developed normally. Reference to the case histories showed that such objective activities such as sitting, walking, and talking had appeared in many of the children prior to the inoculations; and the regressions or failure of further development occurred after the encephalopathies [any disease or symptoms of disease referable to disorders of the brain] in several instances. In so far as it was possible to judge none of the children were defective prior to their acute illness.”
[Randolph K. Byers, MD, and Frederic C. Moll, MD, “Encephalopathies Following Prophylactic Pertussis Vaccine,” Pediatrics, vol. 1, no. 4, April 1948, pp. 438–439, 443.]
