Tetanus
Symptoms
According to Wikipedia tetanus may be a serious illness, but most cases are not fatal.
[Tetanus is] characterized by muscle spasms. In the most common type, the spasms begin in the jaw, and then progress to the rest of the body. Each spasm usually lasts for a few minutes. Spasms occur frequently for three to four weeks. Some spasms may be severe enough to fracture bones. Other symptoms of tetanus may include fever, sweating, headache, trouble swallowing, high blood pressure, and a fast heart rate. Onset of symptoms is typically 3 to 21 days following infection. Recovery may take months; about 10% of cases prove to be fatal.
Mortality and morbidity
While much is made of tetanus, it is extremely rare in the United States and the developed world. Our World in Data provides an easily searchable means for finding disease morbidity and mortality rates for diseases around the world. The following charts show U.S. mortality numbers for tetanus (top) and North America (U.S. and Canada) numbers of tetanus cases (bottom). Those above 70 years are the most likely to die from tetanus, but even then, the numbers are in the single digits.
Causes
Tetanus is the name of the disease caused by tetanospasmin, the toxin produced by the bacterium C. tetani which reproduces with spores. The spores can only produce toxin under anaerobic (without oxygen) conditions at temperatures between 35-37°C (95.666 – 98.6°F) or body temperature.
Stand for Health Freedom explains that the conditions, not the presence of the spores, that create the illness.
It is not the wound itself, nor the thing that caused the wound, that creates the illness. Your entire body could be coated in tetanus spores and you could still be free from tetanus infection. C. tetani bacterium are “obligate anaerobes,” meaning they will only reproduce in an environment without oxygen. The temperature range of 35-37 degrees Celsius (normal human body temperature) is the optimal temperature for reproduction, though it can reproduce to a lesser degree outside of that range. When the spores start reproducing to create new C. tetani, the process produces substances that are poisonous to humans and animals. The most dangerous is called “tetanospasmin,” which is the cause of what we know as tetanus. Tetanospasmin is a neurotoxin, meaning it is a poison to the nervous system.
Although doctors and hospitals will tell a person who has been wounded that they need a tetanus shot, the shot is not a treatment for tetanus or potential tetanus. The vaccine takes several weeks to produce antibodies, which will not help in the cases of an actual infection. In circumstances where tetanus is considered a real possibility antitoxin must be administered. Stand for Health Freedom explains:
Getting a tetanus shot has nothing to do with treating that particular wound. In fact, doctors have understood for a long time that a vaccine is not used to treat an infection that has already occurred. In 1959, Drs. Donald Ross and J.J. Kraut co-authored a paper for “California Medicine” that noted, “To be effective, the course of toxoid inoculations must have been completed at least 30 days before the occurrence of the wound. Toxoid given at the time of injury to a patient who has not had a toxoid series of inoculations is without value. In no such circumstances can toxoid be a substitute for antitoxin.”
Proper wound cleaning
Wounds must be properly and thoroughly cleaned in order to mitigate tetanus infection. Stand for Health Freedom explains how this is done:
Standard treatment of a wound where tetanus is a possibility hasn’t changed in a century: The wound must be thoroughly and deeply cleaned, an injection of a serum to give the sick person antibodies can be given, and antibiotics are usually prescribed. The WHO recommends benzodiazepine drugs to reduce muscle spasms. In a nonmedical setting, some use homeopathic remedies like ledum and nux vomica or high doses of vitamin C to quell infection.
No matter whether people take medical or traditional approaches, the bottom line with staving off tetanus infections is always to get potential spores out of the wound as quickly and thoroughly as possible. This is why people will watch how much a wound bleeds as an indicator of the danger level for tetanus infection. Cleaning and “debriding” the wound —flushing and scraping out any foreign matter or dead skin — is essential for the best chance of stopping the spores from reproducing, releasing toxin, and attacking the nervous system.
Not every wound contains tetanus bacterium and tetanus bacterium has been isolated from patients who do not have tetanus, according to The Vaccine Information Network (VIN). Tetanus spores, VIN explains, are ubiquitous, but few people are infected.
It is found on the surface of the body, in the mouth, in the gastro-intestinal tract, in house dust and clothing. It occurs extensively in cultivated soils. The organism lives as a harmless commensal in the gut of many animals, in addition to humans (rural residents tend to have higher rates of intestinal carriage than city dwellers). In spite of the ubiquity of the so-called cause, the incidence of tetanus is significantly low.
The medical establishment has long known that, for the most part, C. Tetani is innocuous. Medical literature going back to the 1920s has shown this to be the case, as revealed by these examples that VIN provides.
[I]n 1920, Sir Leonard Hill said in a report to the Medical Research Committee, “Tetanus and gas gangrene bacilli washed clean and injected are innocuous.”
In ‘A System of Bacteriology’ Vol III, page 307, Drs Bosanquet and Eyre say “The bacilli are in pure culture incapable of vegetating in viro,” ie of multiplying in the body.
[I]n the Official History of the War, Pathology 1923, it is stated “Tetanus bacilli have been found in 20% of war wounds although no symptoms of tetanus were present, ” and “in 50% of undoubted tetanus cases the bacilli have been undiscoverable.” In the same volume also appears clostridium tetani has been “cultivated from the wound of a man showing no evidence of tetanus, 882 days after it had been inflicted,” and “it has been realised during the war that the tetanus bacillus or its spores may be present in vast numbers of wounds without producing tetanus.”
Rather, unsanitary conditions contribute to the production of the toxoids.
The real cause of tetanus is not a germ, but dirt and filth. The bacteria are harmless when placed into a surgically clean wound. Tetanus develops when drainage of a wound is checked and dirt is retained in the tissues. The bacilli do not circulate in the blood. They remain at the point of entry and produce toxins. One of these poisons, tetanospasmin, is one of the most dangerous poisons known to man which occasions vigorous activity in the nervous tissues. The other toxin, tetano-lycin, occasions a breakdown of the blood cells. If good drainage is facilitated from the beginning, tetanus will not result from a wound.
What about the vaccine?
No adult boosters needed
A 2016 study, “Durability of Vaccine-Induced Immunity Against Tetanus and Diphtheria Toxins: A Cross-sectional Analysis” published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases by Erika Hammarlund et al, found that adults who have had the entire series of tetanus vaccines (part of the DTap series) do not need boosters in adulthood. They conducted the study because while the U.S. recommends boosters every 10 years, other countries with similarly low mortality rates do not provide boosters for adults.
The safety and success of more moderate European vaccination programs with longer intervals between booster vaccinations. indicate that the current 10-year booster vaccination schedule should be reexamined. In the current study, we measured the magnitude and duration of immunity to these vaccine antigens to determine whether antibody responses declined more rapidly in an aged population and to provide an evidence-based evaluation of current tetanus and diphtheria vaccine programs.
The results showed that the vaccines afford durable protection and that boosters aren’t needed, for thirty years.
Mathematical models combining antibody magnitude and duration predict that 95% of the population will remain protected against tetanus and diphtheria for ≥30 years without requiring further booster vaccination.
A follow-up study showed that the vaccines offered lifetime immunity and no boosters are needed for adults who had been fully vaccinated as children, not even after thirty years.
The study was conducted by one of the original study’s authors, Mark K. Slifka, along with other researchers, “Incidence of Tetanus and Diphtheria in Relation to Adult Vaccination Schedules,” and was published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases in 2020.
The authors concluded:
. . . Review of >11 billion person-years of incidence data revealed no benefit associated with performing adult booster vaccinations against tetanus or diphtheria. . . .
The studies included the diphtheria vaccine as well. The tetanus vaccine is not given alone but in conjunction with the diphtheria vaccine (DT) or as part of the DTaP/TDaP vaccine.
Adverse events
For information on the risks of the vaccine, find them in vaccine studies reviewed by Learn the Risk. They can easily be found by searching the page for tetanus.
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Please note that the information provided is for educational purposes only and is not meant to take the place of consultation with a qualified health care practitioner.
