MANITOBA – The diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough vaccine (commonly called the DTP or DTaP shot) is one of the first combination vaccines that your child will receive. In Canada, the DTaP - IPV combination is recommended at the 2 month mark. If you follow the standard schedule for the vaccine, your child will get a jab again at 4 and 6 months with a booster at 18 months.

This doesn’t include the Hib vaccine which is also administered on the same schedule. That’s a lot of vaccine for a little body.

While the triple combination for DTaP is now fairly standard, medical experts now suggest that this practice could provoke a type of immune response that predisposes children to asthma. New research out of the Manitoba Institute for Child Health and the University of Manitoba indicates that delaying the first dose of the DTaP vaccine by just two months could cut the risk of asthma by age seven in half.

Researchers followed over 11,000 children through their initial vaccinations. About half of these infants received their first DTP vaccination at age 2 months. The other half received their first dose of the vaccine at 4 months or older. When babies received their first vaccination at 4 months or later, their incidence of asthma at age seven dropped to less than half of the rate for babies vaccinated at 2 months.

The study also found a drop in rates of asthma if other vaccination doses were delayed, but the strongest drop was linked to that first critical dose.

The implication for public health and vaccination schedules is considerable. Dr Richard Halvorsen, the author of “The Truth About Vaccines”, is one advocate for delaying the current schedule, as well as the time period between immunizations. Halvorsen suggests that the government should be looking at this. Halvorsen said, “This study doesn’t prove the immunization schedule we use causes a problem but it is stupid not to consider it.”

Source: The Telegraph, UK