Ugh. Local pertussis "epidemic": guess who's to blame!

[EVC]

So I was watching the local news last night and the big story was how a local school has temporarily closed in an effort to contain the "raging pertussis epidemic." They have 16 confirmed cases out of 300 or so students. OK. They reported the facts as outlined above and then started showing interviews with doctors and parents about how all the unvacciinated children at the school were to blame. Even the newscaster reporting the story went into a tirade about nonvax'ed children threatening the health of others.

There was no mention of the fact that the pertussis vax doesn't prevent transmission, so there's chance that VAX'ED children could be spreading the disease. No mention of the fact that if clinical cases of the disease are appearing among the vax'ed student population then the vax must not be all that effective. Just fear mongering and BLAME.

And of course she noted that more and more parents are not vaxx'ing because of "fears of a connection with autism". Just goes to show how little they really understand the issue at all :

[T&D2005]

Ugh is right! Too bad they didn't interview people like me who were FULLY vax but still got pertussis as a child. I'm so sick of all these people pointing the finger when they don't know what they are talking about!

[AutumnMama]

So then, were all 16 cases so far in only unvaxed children? I bet not.

[rredhead]

I live in Contra Costa County too. I saw this on the news at my mom's and did she get an earful! She mostly smiles and nods when I go off about vaccines.

[CanidFL]

Originally Posted by rredhead

I live in Contra Costa County too. I saw this on the news at my mom's and did she get an earful! She mostly smiles and nods when I go off about vaccines.

lol smiles and nods. Sounds like someone I know.

[mommy2abigail]

Why are they complaining? If they don't want to deal with it, just get vaxxed??? I'm sure MOST of the cases were among people who were vaxxed though, so why are the non-vaxxing mama's to blame? Sheesh.

[columbusmomma]

Originally Posted by mommy2abigail

Why are they complaining? If they don't want to deal with it, just get vaxxed??? I'm sure MOST of the cases were among people who were vaxxed though, so why are the non-vaxxing mama's to blame? Sheesh.

:
And now time to start advocating for the booster that the whole school "should get"!

[thefragile7393]

If any of these people complaining had half an understanding of how the pertussis vax works, this wouldn't even be an issue.

[california_mom]

I live in Nevada County, and I thought the outbreak was in Sacramento County, primarily at a Waldorf School. A teacher had Whooping cough as well as students. The news media absolutely blamed it on the non-vaxers. I did a search on www.sacbee.com and www.theunion.com but didn't find any articles pertaining to the recent outbreak (?) I guess it wasn't important enough to make the papers, just the nightly local news.

[EVC]

It was el sobrante. here are some articles:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...BAN310JQVL.DTL

The school has an "unusually high number of children" who have not been vaccinated against whooping cough, which is also known as pertussis, health officials said. California law allows parents not to have their children immunized against the sickness.

"If children are immunized against pertussis, most of them won't get the illness and if they do, they won't be as infectious and their symptoms won't be as severe," Brunner said. "This is why it is so important for everyone to get vaccinated against preventable diseases."

http://www.insidebayarea.com/trivall...ews/ci_9207819

"There certainly is a high level of concern at the East Bay Waldorf School; everyone wants to protect everyone in the school community and also the at-large community. The dialog has been opened about the importance of vaccines.

"We hope that the parents of Waldorf School will reconsider their choices about immunization."

Nice, huh?