The Department of Health in England says that the uptake of the whooping cough vaccine in pregnant mothers has been “extraordinarily good”. A month after the scheme was announced, 44% of eligible women in England had had the jab. The director of immunisation in England, Prof David Salisbury, told the BBC: “It really is an extraordinarily good result. “October’s the first month we’ve got figures and to go straight in at 40% is fantastic”. Early data shows that in August, there were 72 infections in children under the age of one. That fell to 67 when the vaccination programme started in mid-September and fell again to 46 in October. [1]

Two notes here.

First, it is weird (and suspicious) to have a large article about the SUCCESS of a vaccine and have the 80% of the article (at least) refer to the number of women who took the vaccine. The last time I remembered, what is important about a medicine what the success it has with treating the disease, not the success it has with… selling.

It is very sad to realize that actually such “arguments” have been more and more popular lately. I recently also read about another “scientific” study which praised the role of hypochondriacs because they make people fear and get more vaccines (!!!) [2]

Secondly, three measurements (August, September, October) are not at all sufficient to support the SUCCESS of a new vaccine. Alfred Russel Wallace warned us a long time ago of such “misconceptions”… [3]