Pertussis antivax vs. MMR antivax

I recently started looking at the "Pertussis vaccination causing epilepsy/brain damage" scare story in the 1970s. It is really striking how similar it is to the current MMR antivax lunacy and I think that it's instructive to look at the parallels between it and the current unpleasantness. They were both kicked off by a single report, Wakefield et al., 1998 in the MMR case and Kulenkampff et al., 1974 in the Pertussis case, which was subsequently picked up and reported as gospel truth by an overly credulous media. To quote a WHO report from 1986:

In 1974, one report received massive public and professional attention. It is interesting to speculate about the reasons underlying this response. Newspapers and television were prepared to challenge official views and emphasized disagreement between experts. The low level of disease, and therefore the poor memory of its effects may have made the late 1970s the right time to question immunization.

and:

Much more confusing has been the rapid emergence of spurious, mythical contraindications. These are not written down but have become part of an orally transmitted set of beliefs amount the community providers of immunization.

Unfortunately epilepsy is one of those contraindications. The debate appears to have been kicked off by a Wakefield-like report (Kulenkampff et al., 1974). The NCES (National Childhood Encephalopathy Study) follow-up study showed that there was little or no correlation between brain-damage (epilepsy, encephalopathy etc.) and the whooping cough vaccine. The brain-damage reported was typically caused by other means. However, it seems that this long-term study was not as widely reported in the media as the original Kulenkampff report. Following on from this Shorvon et al., 2008 in Epilepsia reported:

Large-scale studies of this issue have produced conflicting results, although the recent consensus is that the risk of vaccine-induced encephalopathy and/or epilepsy, if it exists at all, is extremely low.

The large-scale studies which did show some link (typically very tenuous) have subsequently been disproved by further research. Also, this almost negligible chance of some probably unrelated brain-damage pales into insignificance compared to the risks of widespread lack of immunization which can result in death or severe brain-damage in babies. Germany & Sweden stopped their immunization programs due to the health-scare, but had to start them up again when Pertussis epidemics struck. In the US, they had the same problem, despite all the research showing that there is little or no risk. A retrospective in the New York Times said:

Unfortunately, because of the sensationalistic media, the organization of a group of parents who attribute their children's illnesses and deaths to the pertussis vaccine, and the unique destructive force of personal injury lawyers, we now have a national problem that shouldn't be.

I think that that quote sums up who is responsible for misleading the public quite well. It's exactly the same as the MMR hoax being perpetuated at the moment. This, naturally, not an unusual opinion. An article published in Vaccine 2003 reached a very similar conclusion:

Public backlash against this (pertussis) vaccine not only took place earlier in Britain than the United States, but also was so widespread that a series of whooping cough epidemics soon followed. As with the more recent dispute involving measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism, the United Kingdom played a primary role in defining, promoting, and ultimately exporting this controversy. This essay seeks to explain this phenomenon by situating it in Britain's long history of suspicion regarding vaccines evident among both the public and the medical profession, a theme dating back to the compulsory vaccination laws of the 19th century. It argues that anti-vaccinationism, far from being simply a new development related to the public's lack of awareness of childhood vaccine-preventable illness, actually represents a revival of a much older movement.

MMR wasn't the first vaccine to come under fire, and it looks like it won't be the last.