whooping cough

[lonestarmommy]

Not sure where to post this...

Whooping cough is going around here right now. I was wondering if there is anything I should do to protect my 8 mo. old. Are there any precautions I should take? We are always out and about, so we're always coming into contact with other people.

[mamakay]

Take lots of vitamin C at the first sign of a cold.
Try to keep a distance from people who are "coming down with something".
And don't stress.
At 8 months, WC shouldn't be a big, terrifying ordeal. Major PITA, but not terribly scary.

[Plummeting]

Yeah, just stay away from sick people and take C if you start to feel bad. Sick people would include people who've been suddenly diagnosed with asthma or allergies and that cough all the time. It's very, very common for pertussis to be misdiagnosed as asthma or allergies in older children and adults, because it causes respiratory symptoms that last forever.

Pertussis is always going around everywhere. They've never gotten rid of it and they almost certainly never will.

DD had it at 5-7 months and it was no big deal.

[LongIsland]

Originally Posted by Plummeting

It's very, very common for pertussis to be misdiagnosed as asthma or allergies in older children and adults

Bronchitis too.

[LongIsland]

Originally Posted by Plummeting

Pertussis is always going around everywhere. They've never gotten rid of it and they almost certainly never will.

I also want to add that the CDC estimates there are at least 600,000 cases of pertussis which are mis/undiagnosed annually in just the adults (20+ years) . . . and I'm sure that's a conservative estimate.

[mamakay]

Originally Posted by LongIsland

I also want to add that the CDC estimates there are at least 600,000 cases of pertussis which are mis/undiagnosed annually in just the adults (20+ years) . . . and I'm sure that's a conservative estimate.

Serology tests indicate that there are millions every year in the US.
It's absolutely endemic and always has been.

[LongIsland]

Originally Posted by mamakay

Serology tests indicate that there are millions every year in the US.
It's absolutely endemic and always has been.

And isn't it a coincidence that the timing of the CDC's decision to "come clean" on the estimated hundreds of thousands of annual pertussis cases coincided with licensure of two Tdap vaccines.

[mamakay]

Originally Posted by LongIsland

And isn't it a coincidence that the timing of the CDC's decision to "come clean" on the estimated hundreds of thousands of annual pertussis cases coincided with development of two Tdap vaccines.

And isn't it funny how we knew that it was going to go down exactly like that...like...three years ago?

Honest to God, that was when I had my 'epiphany' that some elements of the antivax scene were actually correct, no two ways about it.

[LongIsland]

Originally Posted by mamakay

And isn't it funny how we knew that it was going to go down exactly like that...like...three years ago?

But wait, isn't even funnier that the incidence of pertussis is higher than the pre-vaccine era???

[Plummeting]

Originally Posted by mamakay

And isn't it funny how we knew that it was going to go down exactly like that...like...three years ago?

Honest to God, that was when I had my 'epiphany' that some elements of the antivax scene were actually correct, no two ways about it.

You know the worst part about all of it is that you can tell people exactly what's about to happen, but they still don't understand that this pattern is indicative of a breakdown in the system.

[mamakay]

Originally Posted by LongIsland

But wait, isn't even funnier that the incidence of pertussis is higher than the pre-vaccine era???

I have a feeling the clock is ticking on that little anomaly on the CDC site.
But yeah, it's funny.

Honestly, I really, really don't think anything's changed at all with pertussis. Maybe the vax might give you one or two free passes out of the 20 or 30 cases you might get over the course of your life.
And that's assuming they start vaxing every 5 years instead of 10.
And maybe it might actually help out some un-breastfed babies here and there.
But I don't really think vaxing has made it worse.

But the CDC's own cherry picked data they use to terrorize parents, used against them, is still funny.

[mamakay]

Originally Posted by Plummeting

You know the worst part about all of it is that you can tell people exactly what's about to happen, but they still don't understand that this pattern is indicative of a breakdown in the system.

I'm not sure it's a breakdown.
I think they've been able to paint "us" as fruitloops for quite a while and it pretty much gets the job done.

[LongIsland]

Originally Posted by mamakay

I'm not sure it's a breakdown.
I think they've been able to paint "us" as fruitloops for quite a while and it pretty much gets the job done.

Meanwhile the real fruitloops are the parents who don't their head when they see a nicely crafted CDC disease incidence and/or mortality graph . . . graphs which conveniently start right at the year the vaccine was introduced and don't wonder why the incidence and mortality rates prior to the introduction of the vaccine aren't on the graph.

[mamakay]

Originally Posted by LongIsland

Meanwhile the real fruitloops are the parents who don't their head when they see a nicely crafted CDC disease incidence and/or mortality graph . . . graphs which conveniently start right at the year the vaccine was introduced.

Introduced in the 60's sometimes...and then quoting the death rate during the Great Depression as the "prevaccine era".

[LongIsland]

Originally Posted by mamakay

Introduced in the 60's sometimes...and then quoting the death rate during the Great Depression as the "prevaccine era".

From the CDC Pertussis Q&A page of course:

An average of more than 160,000 cases and more than 5,000 deaths were reported every year in the 1920s-30s. At its peak during this period, the annual number of case-reports was more than 250,000 with up to 9,000 deaths. In the 1940s, whole-cell pertussis vaccine combined with diphtheria and tetanus toxoids (DTP) was introduced, and case-reports of pertussis decreased more than 99% by 1976, when the number of reported cases reached a record-low of 1,010 cases

Yeah, "at its peak during this period" occured long before the vaccine was introduced in the 1940's. They very conveniently leave out the exact year the vaccine was introduced (1948) and just put a vague time period . . . "the 1940's." Now why is that?

Wow! And cases fell by more than 99% because of the vaccine, hmmm? They also conveniently leave out that the fact that there were only about 70,000 cases of pertussis reported just prior to the introduction of the vaccine.

[mamakay]

I really really really dislike the CDC.
Really really really.
Have I mentioned that lately?

The CDC and their pseudoscientific nonsense really gets under my skin.
In a big, huge bad way.
As someone who really loves science, the CDC is blasphemous to me.
Lies hidden between truths are always the worst.
Ahhrg.