DCE research in The New York Times

Research results on an association between whooping cough and risk of epilepsy has recently been mentioned by The New York Times. Associate professor Morten Olsen from Department of Clinical Epidemiology, one of the researchers behind the study, was interviewed by The New York Times. The study shows that children who had whooping cough in infancy have a significantly higher risk of developing epilepsy compared to children without whooping cough.

Morten Olsen explains to the newspaper that the risk of getting epilepsy is generally small so there is no need to panic. He further stresses that it is not possible to say that if a child has epilepsy it was because of a whooping cough infection. However, the results are another argument why children should be vaccinated against whooping cough. Other studies have shown the disease to cause brain damage.

Read the New York Times’ online feature.

The study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.