So the U.S. is currently facing its worst whooping cough epidemic in over 50 years, and while I'm disturbed, I'm not particularly surprised. Whooping cough was the reason why I made the decision to get my daughter vaccinated 11 years ago. The vaccination debate was just hitting red-hot status back then, and I wasn't sure what to do when Charlotte was born.
On the one hand, as someone with more faith in natural and alternative approaches to health than traditional medicine, I was inclined to think maybe there was some truth to the autism/vaccine connection. On the other hand, as a new mom in a big city (Manhattan) who never wanted her baby to get sick, ever, I was inclined to innoculate against everything possible.
So I asked my pediatrician at the time (Dr. Marie Sanford, she was amazing!) to level with me: Which was the riskier choice?
I will never forget what she told me.
"Look, I'm not discounting the research about vaccines or saying there are absolutely no side effects, but I've never seen any child develop problems firsthand," she said.
"What I DO see, every year, are kids coming into the emergency room with whooping cough. And it's not pretty. In the U.S., we think of whooping cough as a disease that's been largely eradicated. But that's not true in other parts of the world, so ... especially in an international city like this ... it's conceivable that your baby could be exposed."
That was all I needed to hear. And now, over a decade later, Dr. Sanford's words seem almost prophetic. I'm not pointing fingers at specific parents or saying the anti-vax movement directly caused the whooping cough epidemic but there is definitely (obviously) a connection. The effectiveness of the whooping cough vaccine relies on what's called “herd immunity," meaning that "If enough people are immune to the bacteria, then even if someone gets sick, the disease cannot easily spread through the community. This is especially true for very young infants, who are too young to be vaccinated and whose immune systems are not yet strong enough to defeat the bacteria on their own."
I guess personal choices can affect public health after all.
What do you think is behind the whooping cough epidemic?
Image via edenpictures/Flickr
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Comments 119
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48244170#.UAsnDJHbM_w
"Some parents in California and other states have rebelled against vaccinations and gotten their children exempted from rules that require them to get their shots to enroll in school. Washington state has one of the highest exemption rates in the nation. But the CDC said that does not appear to be a major factor in the outbreak, since most of the youngsters who got sick had been vaccinated."
Oh yay! A vaccine post!
*grabs popcorn and watches the show.
For those of you commenting on mutating viruses as a result of unvaccinated children you have missed the class in biology about why things mutate. There must be a reason for something to mutate or evolve. In this case bacteria will mutate if it cannot infect a body in its current form. Vaccinations make it more difficult for whooping cough to infect the human body in it's current bacterial form because the body develops partial immunity to the bacteria but over time life finds a way to survive and it mutates and findes a way around the vaccine. The whooping cough bacteria has no need to mutate to infect an unvaccinated child because they have no immunties to the bacteria.
My dilemma is that my daughter can't be vaccinated for whooping cough because she is allergic to something in the serum. She gets all of the other vaccinations. My husband and I religiously update our vaccinations and the vaccinations of our other children. However, it has happened now twice that she has been exposed to whooping cough by non-vaxed kids. She then has to go on a regiment of very serious antibiotics and we pray that it doesn't develop into anything serious. This disease can kill children...the herd immunity is what would protect my daughter. Alas, the herd immunity is no longer strong enough to combat this illness.
@jagamama; So, quoting a portion of my post and then repeating what the rest of it said in your word? XD You can call me obnoxious if you want, I did not say that my child would not be there with children that are not vaccinated. If you read my entire post, I clearly stated that do what you want! Yes I would rather everyone vaccinate so my child has a smaller risk of being exposed to the things that can kill her. I simply pointed out information that people are avoiding or overlooking and then said if you are going to make ANY DECISIONS make it an educated one.
And thank you Toshia Parker, for that post. That was what I have been hearing over and over again about this WC out break. I don't see what there is to debate. It seems that vaccinating your kids against WC is OBVIOUSLY not effective. I personally had an 8 mo old, a 2 yr old and a 4 yr old, all get mild cases of WC At about the same time, (4 yr old vaccinated, two younger kids were not) and was able to get them over it with homeopathic methods. And of course they stayed at home while sick. What's the big deal? The parents of new babies should use caution, as well as the elderly, vaxed or not. That's all you can do.
I find it extremely obnoxious that people assume that parents who don't vaccinate their children make that choice because they think vaccines cause autism or for any reason involving Jenny McCarthy. For most non-vaxing parents, autism and celebrities has nothing to do with it.