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Subscribe to RSSThe bacterial infection also known as pertussis can be very serious for children under the age of 12 months. The biggest outbreak is currently in Washington State, where there were more than 3,000 cases through July 14. NBC's Robert Bazell reports.
Whooping cough is causing the worst epidemic seen in the United States in more than 50 years, health officials said Thursday, and they’re calling for mass vaccination of adults.
The epidemic has killed nine babies so far and babies are by far the most vulnerable to the disease, also known as pertussis, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. The best way to protect them is to vaccinate the adults around them, and to vaccinate pregnant women so their babies are born with some immunity.
“As of today, nationwide nearly 18,000 cases have been reported to the CDC,” the CDC’s Dr. Anne Schuchat told reporters in a conference call. “That is nearly twice as many as reported last year. We may be on track for a record high pertussis rate this year,” she added.
“We may need to go back to 1959 to find as many cases. I think there may be more coming to a place near you.”
The last record year was 2010, when 27,000 cases were reported and 27 people died. In 1959, 40,000 cases were reported.
In 2008, whooping cough killed 195,000 people globally, according to the World Health Organization.
Whooping cough is caused by a bacterial infection. It gets its name from the nagging cough it causes that can make children breathless. They often gasp for air, making a distinctive whooping sound. But it’s not so serious in adults and they may not realize that a persistent cough is being caused by pertussis.
Related: Obesity may increase adults' whooping cough risk
Washington state is having an especially bad time with whooping cough this year, with 3,000 cases so far, compared to 20 at the same time last year, said Mary Selecky, secretary of the Washington State Department of Health. “For every case that we know about, we suspect that there are many people out there who have pertussis and don’t know it,’ Selecky said.
“In many cases, babies get this illness from their mothers or others close to them. It’s absolutely tragic.”
The state has distributed 27,000 doses of a booster vaccine for uninsured adults and has ordered more. “This disease is very easy to catch,” Selecky said. “It has certainly gotten hold of our population in Washington state.”
The CDC is trying to figure out what's going on, but Schuchat said a couple of factors are clearly at work. The formulation for the whooping cough vaccine was changed in 1997, and kids hitting age 13 and 14 now are the first to have been fully vaccinated with five doses of the new vaccine. The new formulation causes less of a reaction, but it may also wear off sooner, Schuchat said.
The older vaccine was made using a whole pertussis bacterium. It was very effective, but it did cause swelling in some kids who got it, and sometimes caused a fever -- something that scared parents. It also was widely blamed for causing rare but serious neurological reactions, although Schuchat said studies have not confirmed this.
“Vaccines have done a good job of reducing the incidence of pertussis but our vaccines aren’t perfect,” Schuchat said. “We wish we had better ways of controlling pertussis. Given how dangerous pertussis is for babies, preventing infection in babies is our priority.”
Schuchat says people who are not vaccinated have eight times the risk of infection compared to people who are fully vaccinated against whooping cough. And if someone who’s been vaccinated does get whooping cough, the disease is usually less serious and they are far less likely to infect someone else.
The CDC says 95 percent of toddlers aged up to three years have received at least three doses of the vaccine and 84 percent have four doses. And in 2010 69 percent of 13- to 17-year-olds got a fifth booster dose. Kids should get five doses to be fully protected.
And while adults are supposed to have at least one dose of whooping cough vaccine, only 8.2 percent of U.S. adults have done so.
Related stories:
- Whooping cough: 8 things you need to know
- US on track for whooping cough record year
- Oregon parents delay vaccines for kids
- Five myths about vaccination
Health officials in Washington state say whooping cough has reached epidemic levels. Hundreds of cases have been reported so far this year, six times more compared to the same period in 2011. NBC's Mike Taibbi reports.
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“As of today, nationwide nearly 18,000 cases have been reported to the CDC,” the CDC’s Dr. Anne Schuchat told reporters in a conference call.
Wow! 18,000 cases! Call me when we have a REAL epidemic. Mass inoculations of adults? Not this adult. Here's a clue for all you parnets out there. STOP COUGHING ON YOUR BABIES!
The members of my household would like to thank the jack-wagons who have determined that three-and-a-half minutes of "research" has made them smarter than their doctors! Silly us! We have four cases of it right now; each of us in a different stage of this nasty sickness. Two of us have been immunized in the past couple of years and our our symptoms aren't as bad. The other two are nearing the end of the vaccination's effectiveness: Guess who are feeling more miserable? The neighbor across the street that is already battling esophageal cancer, is in week two and is really going to love the cough in the next several days!! And we can pretty much thank the "tin-hatters" and the illegal immigrants (of whom rarely receive any vaccinations) for how widespread this is becoming!
Jesus people! Pick a brain cell and use it!! Get vaccinated!
Uh oh, Mexicans bringing it over the border.
Tell me, were you coughed on at Home Depot?
Christ, you probably caught Whooping Cough at the Doctor's office. Hey at least it wasn't MRSA or Flesh Eating virus.
I have personally witnessed vaccination drives for those who have no insurance - including immigrants. I do not necessarily think they are the ones bringing it into the country. Whooping cough has always been here.
Patrick YOU got vaccinated, and you are all sick...so how does ME getting vaccinated make a damn difference??? Your logic is faulty. How is it illegal alien's fault that YOUR vaccines did not work??? Think about it when you are feeling better.
I think that vaccinations are important and serve a purpose. One of my 7 kids reacted violently to the pertussis vaccine as an infant, but we went ahead and finished the series with extreme caution. I however am what Dr's. call a non-reactor. For whatever reason although I've been through all of the normal childhood vaccines and boosters, I don't show any immunity to any of the diseases. Maybe alot of people are nonreactors?
Or maybe the vaccines aren't nearly as effective as they want us to believe. I don't vax now but I was fully vaccinated growing up...I still got pertussis in high school, and I don't have any titers for rubella despite getting the damn shot about four or five times.
My titers don't show up for the MMR vaccine, even though I've had the vaccine on three separate occasions. It's not an uncommon occurrence.
My titers for MMR are the same NONE, and I had the shot several times as well...in fact my dates were'off' and my mother had me completely revaccinted... and I was sicker than I'd ever been for almost a year afterward.
Although I can't prove it, in recent years I've had some pretty horrible coughs...I question if I've had whooping cough last winter, went to MD, was NOT tested.
Trying to convince paranoid anti-vaccine people that all the evidence is against them is like talking to the wall. My sister, an otherwise intelligent person, would rather believe stories from some quack on line then fact based studies. Now by quack I mean those people online with little or no backing who heard that a friend of a friend's, sister's brother got autism right after being vaccinated (exaggeration). People like my sibling would rather believe these stories then look at the statistics.
There has never been a false study or one skewed for one's own gain. I mean numbers never lie. Amazing that the "autism" crowd has funny numbers, but the "vaccine" crowd only has concrete independent statistics.
I'm sure the AMA, Pfizer and Merck have nothing to do with any of this.
Americans are friggin dumb, we deserve to fall apart. The concept of "doubt" has been lost on us and we cry foul when wronged even though we blindly follow any numbers we find.
It's easy for those who've not looked at the actual data to point fingers at those who choose not to vaccinate (which, they often choose without ANY education from Wakefield or McCarthy) However, the data shows that the vaccines themselves are NOT effective in preventing the disease.
In Australia - they have a 95% vaccination rate, and yet, their pertussis rates have risen steadily since 2000. And clearly, here in the US pertussis incidences have risen despite a vaccination rate of about 94% of the child population. The truth is, our rates have been up to these levels in the recent past - in 2004 & 2005 we had over 25,000 cases, and in 2010 had over 27,000 cases. Even without those "Peaks" reported cases of whooping cough has risen significantly since 1990. (See the CDC charts here: )
In peer reviewed document titled "Unexpectedly limited durability of immunity following acellular pertussis vaccination in preadolescents in a North American outbreak" released in March 2012 by Witt MA, Katz PH, Witt DJ.SourceDepartment of Infectious Diseases, Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, 99 Montecillo Rd, San Rafael, CA 94903, USA. David.J.Witt@kp.org
You find the following:
Table 1 at the end of the document shows the percent of cases in vaccinated and it as follows: 86% age 2-7, 86% age 8- 12, 62% age 13-18, 81% age 2-18.
So now you know who gets more pertussis. It is not the unvaccinated.
He even says, in the introduction: “Our unvaccinated and under-vaccinated population did not appear to contribute significantly to the increased rate of clinical pertussis. Surprisingly, the highest incidence of disease was among previously vaccinated children in the eight to twelve year age group.”
The data shows that it is NOT the unvaccinated which are pushing the whooping cough incidence up.
Should you or your children end up in the group of Whooping Cough Incidences - Please know that
The BEST treatment for Pertussis is Vit C.
Google
"THE VITAMIN C TREATMENT OF WHOOPING COUGH"
For the details!!
E. Aurore:
You are spreading complete and total nonsense, really . . .
Really! :-(
Baldenario - I've quoted studies and facts. What I've said elsewhere about the disease process comes straight from NIH, CDC and etc websites on how the disease progresses, and what occurs within the disease.
Refute me with scientific data, and then we can talk...
Otherwise, your opinion is, thankfully, none of my business.
E. Aurore, Every time you reference something you state makes your case, it turns out you have things wrong. I don't know whether you bother to read these articles and papers or whether you just don't have enough knowledge of science or even English to understand them.
BTW - Sweeping, derogatory statements without clear example, and without a careful reading of the data presented do nothing to help this conversation.
Everything I've said is there, in the full articles and reports. Their conclusions with what to do with the data, and how to fix it might be different from mine, but the numbers don't lie, regardless of what we do with that data as a result of having it.
Go look at the CDC charts for cases of Pertussis, and vaccination rates in the US to find the data I quoted FOR the US in the second paragraph. I had included the link to the first chart - cases of pertussis since 1990, but the link was removed by NBC.
See the full text of "Unexpectedly limited durability of immunity following acellular pertussis vaccination in preadolescents in a North American outbreak" (not the synopsis - the whole text) to find the table and statement listed in the 4th paragraph.
See the article "THE VITAMIN C TREATMENT OF WHOOPING COUGH" by Suzanne Humphries, MD for why I stated Vitamin C to be an appropriate treatment for Whooping Cough.
Everything I have said - is clearly there.
But, should that not be enough for you -
In regards to Percent of confirmed cases in the vaccinated vs unvaccinated population - see the following article - "Pertussis Vaccine for Whooping Cough Effects" at
articles dot mercola dot com slash sites slash articles slash archive/2012/04/17/pertussis-vaccine-for-whooping-cough-effects dot aspx
A study which suggests the vaccine itself may be responsible for the upswing in whooping cough rates, from PennStates Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics website titled
"Acellular pertussis vaccination enhances B. parapertussis colonization" Summary - "An acellular whooping cough vaccine actually enhances the colonization of Bordetella parapertussis in mice; pointing towards a rise in B. parapertussis incidence resulting from acellular vaccination, which may have contributed to the observed increase in whooping cough over the last decade."
For more on the use of Vit C as it's been studied prior to vaccinations and since -
ASCORBIC ACID (VITAMIN C) TREATMENT OF WHOOPING COUGH
From the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg.
By M. J. ORMEROD, M.B. and Byron M. UNKAUF, M.D., B.Sc.(Med.)
Journal of Applied Nutrition Vol. 23, No's 3 & 4, Winter 1971
Observations On the Dose and Administration of Ascorbic Acid When Employed Beyond the Range of A Vitamin in Human Pathology
Frederick R. Klenner, M.D., F,C,C.P.
More on who gets whooping cough - vaccinated or not vaccinated:
"Whooping Cough infections are common in an immunized population." Journal of the American Medical Association, 1998
"In 1979 Sweden abandoned the whooping cough vaccine. Out of 5,140 cases in 1978, it was found that 84% had been vaccinated three times." British Medical Journal 283:696-697, 1981
"For an individual child the risk is greater from the whooping cough vaccine than the disease." Dr. Joanne Hatem, Medical Director, Vaccine National Information Center, Virginia
"In the USA in 1978, they mandated vaccination it resulted in a three fold increase in the reported incidence of whooping cough." Viera Scheibner PhD showing graphs from Tokai Journal of Experimental Biology and Medicine, 1988
In The New England Journal of Medicine July 1994 issue a study found that over 80% of children under five years of age who had contracted whooping cough had been fully vaccinated.
"Dutch scientists are struggling to identify the exact cause of an epidemic of whooping cough that has swept throughout the country despite vaccination rates as high as 96% ("despite" or because of?) Similar problems are being reported in Norway and Denmark." British Medical Journal, 1998
Table 1 from the Witt paper clearly shows the Attack Rates Among Vaccinated Patients is half of that Among Undervaccinated and Unvaccinated Patients. Clearly you did not re4ad the paper.
I had whooping cough many years ago at the age of 16. It got so bad that every time I coughed I threw up. Went down to 85 lbs. Couldn't breath at all--ended up spendig a week in the hospital. The danger of whooping cough should not be minimized!
Keep allowing all the illegal aliens to pour over the border with no time spent to check them for diseases and illnesses and whooping cough and bedbugs will be the least of our worries.
Nailed it.
How are you tonight, Scrembabe?
vaccinating your kid is bad news. Didn't any of you read that report about vaccines causing autism? You know, the study that was redacted because of falsified data of all 12 participants? Denying modern medicine to kids will allow them to grow up all natural.
I hope polio makes a comeback next. whooping cough wasn't a big enough hammer to break through the thick skulled parents that should vaccinate their kids, but choose not to because doctors don't know what's good for their child. Ever.
Do you seriously think the only reason people choose to not vaccinate is the "vaccine/autism" link? Really??
Polio IS making a comeback. Because of the vaccine. Wild polio hasn't existed in the U.S. since 1975, all cases since then have been linked to vaccine strains. They should have stopped using it like they stopped doing smallpox once it was eradicated because the vaccine is doing more harm than good now.
Also I got whooping cough in high school after being fully vaccinated. So were a lot of people infected currently. We're not having an outbreak because people aren't vaccinating, we're having an outbreak because it's an ineffective vaccine to begin with.
Hey Glamour Shots,
India: Paralysis cases soar after oral polio vaccine introduced
Read more: http://digitaljournal.com/article/323371#ixzz218JZ5hxJ
The website for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) also describes the paralyzing side effects of the oral polio vaccine:
Read more: http://digitaljournal.com/article/323371#ixzz218JhrOz6
47,500 paralysis cases after polio vaccine – Deccan Chronicle
HA
in india. with a defective vaccine. proof no one should get vaccinated, your implication is obvious and completely wrong.
I can use anecdotal evidence too. I was fully vaccinated as well and I never got whooping cough.
A defective vaccine? How so? It's the same one they used here in the U.S?
We don't use the oral polio vaccine in the U.S. anymore. Not since 2000.
If youve never had a severe case of whooping cough, you dont get it. I wouldnt wish it on my worst enemy, never mind an infant. I cant actually understand how an infant survives it. In my lower 30s and in good physical shape, it was the most debilitating thing i could image, my gf also caught it but didnt get it half as severely, so it isnt always the same. If i were to catch it again, i may prefer to shoot myself in the face, it really is that bad, and im far from someone that runs to the doctor for a cold, or a broken bone..
So if you are saying people are being hypochondriacs about it, you are wrong.
Washington State is basically a sanctuary state and the 3rd world diseases will continue to erupt; including TB which was wiped out in the US until the Admin decided the illegals were no threat.
TB was NEVER fully wiped out from Canada, the United States, or any part of Europe. It is something that people would like to believe, but it was NEVER gone. With a sister that works with the homeless population in my city, she has access to the reports. Yes, cases did decrease, but not anywhere near 'none'. TB is also not just a '3rd world disease' as wealthy people have caught it as well, from the 'dawn of time'. It is more common to contract it if you are a person whose immune system is run down, but that does not exclude it from ANY population group.
Thank you Dr. Jenny McCarthy.
If you ARE A SMART PARENT THEN KEEP YOUR KIDS OUT OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS!!! They are more worried about Political correctness than your chillds safety!! Welcome to the sad world we live in!!
doesn't sound too "smart" to me.
We all should be thanking Obama and his Circumventing the laws of the Land, Turning a blind Eye to Illegal Immigration giving Work Visa's to the Carriers and Granting Amnesty to All the Disease carriers Children, Thank you Mr President you Idiot.
Vaccinate your children people.
Just getting over a case.......
The real reason whooping cough spreads so easily is that the vaccine isn't all that effective. A lot of the people coming down with it WERE vaccinated. I was fully vaccinated and still got it in high school about 10 years ago. (Interestingly enough, my unvaccinated friend didn't catch it even though most of the rest of our class did.) Not to mention that "herd immunity" is total bull, no vaccine prevents transmission, only (theoretically, if the vaccine worked) infection. If a vaccinated person comes into contact with whooping cough germs they can pass them on just as easily as an unvaccinated person. It's not a magic shot that doesn't let germs stick to your hands.
Sounds like how, in 1994, my entire neighbourhood of children came down with Whooping Cough, despite the fact that we were all fully immunized. I was four years old and became decently sick, my sister at 8 less so, but still nothing pleasant. A couple of children were even hospitalized. We were ALL COMPLETELY IMMUNIZED. One dr is even pretty sure that my lingering cough this winter when I was very run down from my heart defect and university stress to begin with was whooping cough, but I have my doubts about that...then again, you never know. At least it's one thing I do not have to worry about, because getting the disease means that I am immune to it for life-possibly now to two different strains...
I know I will be attacked here but here goes. Does anyone not notice that almost everything we have gotten rid of years ago is back twice as bad??? You cannot expect to keep letting people into our country that have no clue about being clean or caughing with a hand over thier mouth. If I see one more Hispanic person but a finger to thier nose and blow oujt of the other nostril onto the street or in a store like I have I will explode!!!!!!
Our values are crumbling and so is our society. The truth has never been so unclear. One says vaccines are good another says they hurt our children. One says spend and print money another says save and repay debt. When you let your heart guide your thoughts you will be a true patriot and the truth will become more clear. Don't be scared and know there are PATRIOTS all around you.
Why will No one actually tell why the wooping cough epidemic is so high............ I guess no one wants to say anything about The Illegal immigrants that are the cause of it. Don't give me this sh.t about Oh they are so...... blaa blaa blaa. Bottom line is we are paying for you damn bleeding heart jack as...
Well, since there is no proof of that at all, and there is no epidemic in Mexico...you are probably flat wrong. They say it is because the vaccine worked, people got complacent--and the stuff wears off. Not everything can be blamed on illegals.
I have more respect for the Mexican families who cross the border and manage to have their kids vaccinated in public health clinics than for these spoiled yuppie parents who will not vaccinate their kids for fear they will get autism.
Jsaff - I was bottlefed, had all my vaccines - and I have no allergies, no autism, no emotional problems - nor do my children, or my wife - who were all the same.
Guess that means it's NOT all about the chemicals we fill ourselves with!
If you're so against vaccination, I challenge you this: Don't give your children the Polio Vaccine and then go to India for a summer... tell me what you think about vaccination and its effectiveness then.
My 7 year old grand daughter had whopping cough in June. She woke up not being able to breathe, we call the paramedics and she was rushed to the hospital, she is fine. It was very scary.
Vaccinations are perhaps the best approach against most plagues...but you know, this paranoia against them may provide an even more effective mechanism for raising average intelligence than Wall Street.
After all, as global warming continues, many amazingly lethal diseases will move north- yellow fever, malaria, all kinds of fun stuff- and those opposed to immunizations?
Darwin Award!
If you want to become unable to ever have kids and you want cancer go ahead get the shot.
in a recent TED conference presentation, Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates, who has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to new vaccine efforts, speaks on the issue of CO2 emissions and its effects on climate change. He presents a formula for tracking CO2 emissions as follows: CO2 = P x S x E x C.
P = People
S = Services per person
E = Energy per service
C = CO2 per energy unit
Then he adds that in order to get CO2 to zero, "probably one of these numbers is going to have to get pretty close to zero."
Following that, Bill Gates begins to describe how the first number -- P (for People) -- might be reduced. He says:
"The world today has 6.8 billion people... that's headed up to about 9 billion. Now if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent."
PHASE I CLINICAL TRIAL OF A WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION BIRTH CONTROL VACCINE
Immune responses to a GnRH-based anti-fertility immunogen, induced by different adjuvants and subsequent effect on vaccine efficacy
Reducing the world population through vaccines
This statement by Bill Gates was not made with any hesitation, stuttering or other indication that it might have been a mistake. It appears to have been a deliberate, calculated part of a well developed and coherent presentation.
So what does it mean when Bill Gates says "if we do a really great job on new vaccines... we could lower [world population] by 10 or 15 percent?"
Clearly, this statement implies that vaccines are a method of population reduction. So is "health care," which all NaturalNews readers already know to be more of a "sick care" system that actually harms more people than it helps.
Perhaps that's the whole point of it. Given that vaccines technology help almost no one from a scientific point of view ,it raises the question: For what purpose are vaccines being so heavily pushed in the first place?
Bill Gates seems to be saying that one of the primary purposes is to reduce the global population as a mechanism by which we can reduce CO2 emissions. Once again, watch the video yourself to hear him say it in his own words: