Since vaccines attempt to prime the immune system to recognise and attack these types of outer proteins, any alterations would render the mutated bacteria immune to vaccination.

King’s team tried out their theory in mice vaccinated with the whooping cough jab, infecting them with either an older or a more recent strain of B. pertussis. Animals given the current strain of bacteria were more ill than those given the older strain.

Although animal tests don’t necessarily apply to humans, the researchers concluded that the whooping cough vaccines of today may not protect children from newer forms of the illness.

Clinical evidence also shows that the disease is changing in character. Many cases of this new-style whooping cough differ from the illness of old, and may even lack the characteristic ‘whoop’. Some studies have shown that up to 30 per cent of individuals with a persistent cough are infected with B. pertussis (Clin Infect Dis, 1999; 28: S112-7). Unless a patient has a sputum sample analysed by a laboratory, the doctor may not recognise a persistent cough as whooping cough. It may well be that the PHLS has grossly underestimated the true incidence of whooping cough. Many more thousands of cases of mutated whooping cough may occur that are given names like ‘atypical asthma’, as they don’t resemble any known disease.

The acellular vaccine The vaccine used for boosters is not the same one given to babies. Infants receive whole-cell or ‘crude’ vaccine, made up of the whole pertussis bacterium cell. The formula is essentially unchanged from the first formulation by French bacteriologists nearly a century ago, in 1912. Pertussis bacteria are grown in large pots, killed by heat and preserved with formaldehyde, the main ingredient of embalming fluid. That is the original brew jabbed into the arms of babies all those years ago. The only modern additions are a metal salt to heighten the effect of the drug (usually aluminium), plus thimerosal, a mercury derivative used as a preservative.

According to the DoH, the whole-cell variety is unsuitable for older children because of 'an increased rate of reactions' (DoH letter, 15 October 2001).

However, an ‘acellular’ vaccine (in which the whooping cough toxin is inactivated by glutaraldehyde or hydrogen peroxide, or genetically modified supposedly to make it safer) is now available, and it is this acellular variety (usually noted as ‘aP’ and ‘DaPT’ in the triple jab) that is being offered with the triple booster.

In introducing what is, for all intents and purposes, a new vaccine, the DoH has entirely relied upon the say-so of the US and those countries in Europe using the acellular vaccine where, it says, 'there has not been cause for concern over either efficacy or safety'. Thus, the acellular jab is simply assumed to be safe with no British testing, based upon the clinical experience of other countries.

The PHLS did conduct a single study, which didn’t examine the safety of the triple jab on its own, but with simultaneous administration of the MMR jab (Vaccine, 2001; 19: 3904-11). The main purpose of the UK study was to find any extra reactions if you gave the DaPT booster at the same time as the MMR.

According to the DoH, 'no new safety concerns were identified and good antibody responses were achieved'. The report found no increase in reactions or fevers in the 10 days after vaccination or in the proportion requiring a visit to the doctor four to six weeks after vaccination.