Whooping cough cases continue to rise in California

The number of reported whooping cough cases climbed to 2,174 last week, six times the total at this time last year in an epidemic expected to be the worst in 50 years, public health officials said.

Dr. Mark Horton, director of the California Department of Public Health, urged residents to get vaccinated against the highly contagious upper respiratory disease, also known as pertussis. (Read more: "Facts about whooping cough.")

“The pertussis epidemic is a sobering and tragic reminder that diseases long thought controlled can return with a vengeance,” Horton said in a statement Monday. “We can protect ourselves and the most vulnerable in our community by getting vaccinated today.”

Last week, officials announced that a San Diego County baby had died of whooping cough. It was the seventh pertussis death statewide. All those killed by the infection have been infants, including three babies in Los Angeles County.

In all of last year, three infants in the state died of the infection, one each in Los Angeles, Kern and San Bernardino counties.

A typical pertussis infection starts with a cough and runny nose that lasts a week or two, followed by weeks or even months of rapid coughing often accompanied by the telltale “whooping” sound, authorities said. The diagnosis is often delayed in young infants, who are less likely to cough and may just appear to be suffering from a cold.

California public-health officials recently expanded recommendations for vaccination against pertussis to include children age 7 and older; adults 64 and older; women before, during and immediately after pregnancy; and anyone who may have contact with pregnant women or infants.

They stressed that the vaccine, which is made from dead pertussis bacteria, is safe for pregnant women.

Prior to widespread vaccinations in the U.S., which began in the 1940s, pertussis regularly sickened tens of thousands or more each year and was a significant killer of infants.

-- Molly Hennessy-Fiske

Comments

[Larry]

The real story here is the "anti-vax" crusaders. Vaccines don't cause autism, but lack of vaccine most certainly causes disease!

[Randy L]

And who are the hardest hit with this and why are they not vaccinated?

[ProChoiceVax]

"A reported boom in U.S. whooping cough cases is now being questioned after health officials discovered a regularly used lab test misdiagnosed cases in suspected outbreaks in New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Tennessee.

The false test results led thousands of people to take antibiotics unnecessarily and even caused a New Hampshire hospital to limit the number of patients admitted since hospital workers were thought to be infected."

http://cbs5.com/health/whooping.cough.CDC.2.288277.html

"In 1955, the CIA conducted a biological warfare experiment where they released whooping cough bacteria from boats outside of Tampa Bay, Florida, causing a whooping cough epidemic in the city, and killing at least 12 people.[20][21][22]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_radiation_experiments_in_the_United_States#Pathogens.2C_disease.2C_and_biological_warfare_agents

"The most common pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine, Acel-Immune DtaP, lists several toxic chemicals and heavy metals on its product insert. These include formaldehyde, aluminum hydroxide, aluminum phosphate, thimerosal (mercury), and polysorbate 80 (Tween-80)...
..Now, with whooping cough cases on the rise, pharmaceutical reps are capitalizing on the opportunity to marginalize vaccine questioners. Several high profile news pieces have attempted to place the blame for the rise in pertussis infection on a decrease in demand for vaccines of all categories. The problem with this theory is that childhood immunization for whooping cough has not substantially decreased, something Dr. Cherry – professor of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of California, Los Angeles – admits..."

http://www.caivn.org/article/2010/07/03/skeptics-warn-against-vaccine-hype-whooping-cough-epidemic-hits-california

"Many vaccines still contain thimerosal (49.6% ethylmercury by weight.) While mercury is a highly toxic element second only to radioactive plutonium, when combined with other ingredients, specifically aluminum and formaldehyde, the synergistic effects increase 10,000-fold. [1][2]

[1] http://www.abundantlifeessentials.com/vaccine%20ingredients.htm
[2] http://www.informedchoice.info/cocktail.html

[Mary Carter]

People who do not vaccinate their children are playing God with their kid's lives and endangering other children also. The choice seems clear to me: get the shot and stop worrying; don't get the shot and be sure you have the money for a funeral.

[Bob]

Yes please vaccinate your kids - it has been conclusively proven that inoculations do not cause Autism. Hopefully the celebrity dingbats that espoused this connection will man, or woman, up in the near future and admit they were wrong. They have definitely caused harm to society with their erroneous conclusions, the whooping cough epidemic proves it.

[John Smith]

Thanks Jenny McCarthy!

[Bill Sundling]

The parents should be criminally charged in these cases.

[Ironica]

If autism were the only concern with vaccines, y'all might have a point. However... every time you get a vaccine, you also get a flyer listing all the things to watch for and to RUSH YOUR CHILD TO THE HOSPITAL FOR if they happen. The Federal Government has created the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) and a special fund to pay families of vaccine-damaged kids to track and manage the damage that vaccines do.

No intervention with benefit is without risk. Vaccines work by provoking the immune system; for some people, that is a perfectly safe thing to do, and for others it is not. Vaccines have a number of ingredients besides dead viruses/bacteria; some people are at risk of severe reaction from those ingredients, and some are not.

Bottom line: if ALL parents made an informed choice about vaccines, vaccine rates overall probably wouldn't go down much, but we'd have a much better understanding of why for *some* kids, the benefit isn't worth the risks.

[Allison]

The worst part is that the babies who die from this are too young to get vaccinated. They usually get the disease from a family member who's immunity has waned. My baby is due in January and I made sure to get my booster. Husband is getting his next week and my parents both just got theirs.

[Matt]

Bill Sundling,

the children who died are too young to be vaccinated. Don't blame the parents.

[Patrick Joseph, MD]

There were a tremendous number of persons with whooping cough before the 1940s because no vaccine was available. We don't have that problem today. Our problem, now, is the number of people who refuse to get this life saving vaccine. The whooping cough booster is safe and it works. It is for adolescents and adults and recently, the California Health Department has extended that recommendation to all of our elderly. It protects them, but, more importantly, it also keeps them from passing the infection on to infants.
Seven California infants have already died from whooping cough this year. We should hope that this never happens again. Please check California's expanded recommendations. Get vaccinated and help stop this epidemic. More information at www.adultvaccination.org. Patrick Joseph, M.D. Vice President, National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.

[stan]

the extreme rise in cases is due to more adults and teens being diagnosed. Remember a few years ago when the medical community refused to admit those vaccinated could get pertussis? any previously vaccinated person with a prolonged cough was told they had allergies. Or last year -H1N1. There is no hard evidence that we have an actual rise in incidence. Pertussis is cyclical and the disease rises and falls every four years or so. Even so, on average, pertussis claims the lives of 17 infants under 6 months every year (check the CDC website). We are no where near that number this year, nationwide. So we have a lot more cases being diagnosed, but absolutely no increase in mortality. What there is an increase in is pharma profit. Whole new market told they have to get vaccinated now - adults and teens! Even though the disease has been waning for 70 years without any adult/teen boosters.