PBS Newshour: Whooping Cough Outbreak Stirs Debate

[Turquesa]

OK, so we've nearly beaten this topic to a pulp, lol!  Can you handle one more pertussis thread?? 

In my experience, most "news" articles about vaccination are wildly inflammatory and full of black-and-white thinking and rehashed cliches and platitudes. 

For this reason, I found this article from PBS refreshing in that it acknowledges the complexity of the whole pertussis issue.  DH and I chose the pertussis vax for our kids.  We were reluctant to get the vax and reluctant to skip it. 

You can either watch the vid or read the transcript.  Either way, make sure to read the comments because one of the interviewed women provides some eloquent and civil responses. 

To some degree, I can actually understand where BOTH of these women are coming from and would love to hear some of your thoughtful responses. 

I just felt compelled to share this because rarely do I see mainstream media giving this issue such fair and thorough treatment.  (In fact, I thought that the PBS Vaccine Wars documentary sucked, lol!) 

Anyway, here are some interesting highlights.  Hopefully I'm withing copyright guidelines. 

As I went along, my husband has a science background, and just at some point, he just put his foot down and said, 'Enough is enough. Vaccines are incredible. They're safe.' ... And he kind of put a stop to that with me.

People think, 'Well I'm vaccinated, I don't need to worry about it.' We have so many vaccinated people running around, saying, 'I don't need to worry about it. I can cough around any newborn because I'm vaccinated.' That's a problem.

Any thoughts?

[shiningpearl]

One thing I thought was funny was the woman who was pro-vax said 

Quote:

"I do think that it's arrogant to think that you can outsmart a microbe and a virus ."

Does anyone else find this funny?

[Minerva23]

neither one convinced me. i think they just did not do their research very well( movie nights and restaurants for a prick - come on)

When you look on the official sites like CDC etc. there is too much 'believing' and 'supposing' going on. To me that is just another way of saying 'We don't know anything'

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/believe

[Marnica]

Interesting.

I thought Winter sounded much more informed, like she had actually done some research. Yarkin basically said my husband had a science background and I just went along with what he said which vaccines are great and if you don't have a science background you have no clue how to do research.....whatever.

[jupitermama]

Ugh, I read the transcript and that Yarkin woman drove me nuts! Cause like, you know, my husband has a science background and, you know, vaccines save lives and, you know, I want my kids to be protected, and you know.... So annoying! I really wasn't impressed with either of them though.