the recent whooping cough outbreaks are due to the fact that the newer (safer!) acellular vaccines are just not as effective as the older (less safe) vaccines
You have one historical fact misreported there. It is clear that the current acellular vaccines were adopted because of safety concerns about former cellular pertussis vaccines. What's actually NOT clear is whether those safety concerns really necessitated changing the vaccine formula. It appears that anti-vaccine activists may have exaggerated the risk profile of cellular vaccines and understated their effectiveness while campaigning to reduce vaccine use in general.
Billions of dollars aren't spent to modify a vaccine just to mollify a small community of questioners, who weren't even that great in number at the time of conversion. If anything, it would benefit the vaccine makers - fewer side effects to impede sales, and more sales because more boosters are needed (though I doubt there's anything that nefarious at play in this specific case).
Thanks for the link, but that study was very soon after the change and ignores the issue of whether vaccine effectiveness was the same (as history appears to be showing it was not). And that is the point. A small reduction of minor reported adverse effects for a large reduction of immunization effectiveness is usually not counted as a good trade-off by epidemiologists.
You have one historical fact misreported there. It is clear that the current acellular vaccines were adopted because of safety concerns about former cellular pertussis vaccines. What's actually NOT clear is whether those safety concerns really necessitated changing the vaccine formula. It appears that anti-vaccine activists may have exaggerated the risk profile of cellular vaccines and understated their effectiveness while campaigning to reduce vaccine use in general.