Childhood vaccinations and asthma

Evaluation of: Spycher BD, Silverman M, Egger M, Zqahlen M, Kuehni CE: Routine vaccination against pertussis and the risk of childhood asthma: a population-based cohort study. Pediatrics 123(4), 944–950 (2009). Asthma is the most common chronic disease of childhood in developed countries and its prevalence has been increasing. It has been suggested that infant and childhood vaccinations may be contributing to the increasing prevalence of asthma. Since vaccination is universally recommended for infants, any association between infant vaccinations and the occurrence of a common serious condition, such as asthma, could be of considerable public health importance. Many studies have been conducted evaluating a possible association between vaccination and asthma and other allergic conditions. Spycher and colleagues recently published a study of whole-cell pertussis vaccination and risk of wheezing and asthma. The importance of this new study is that the investigators tried to overcome the limitations of previou...