Pertussis vaccine--fact and fiction.

The present paper indicates a number of unresolved problems in the metabolism of Bordetella pertussis and in the standardization of pertussis vaccines. The use of chemically defined media should enable the metabolic problems to be clarified. The problems concerned with the control and standardization of vaccines can largely be resolved in the laboratory with the introduction of reference preparations but the question of the reactivity of vaccine remains for the future.