Erroneous statement.

In the recent paper by Lee et al. 1 reporting reproductive toxicity testing of BVN008, a newly developed tetanus, diphtheria, and acellular pertussis vaccine, the statement is made "BVN008 is a booster vaccine identical to the current Tdap vaccines, Boostrix (GSK) and Adacel (Sanofi)." However, as the authors report, the acellular pertussis portion of BVN008 was provided by BIKEN (Japan). The composition of the BIKEN acellular pertussis product differs in important ways from the compositions of the acellular pertussis components of Boostrix and Adacel.2 Accordingly, the statement cited above is incorrect. A more appropriate statement might have been, "BVN008 is a booster vaccine similar in concept to the current Tdap vaccines, Boostrix (GSK) and Adacel (Sanofi)." • Lee et al. recently stated that BVN008 "is identical to the current Tdap vaccines". • BVN008 incorporates the BIKEN aP vaccine with 2 pertussis components. • The current Tdap vaccines contain 3 and 5 pertussis components respectively. • BVN008 therefore is not identical to the current Tdap vaccines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]