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CNN reports that the number of whooping cough cases in California has officially reached epidemic proportions with 800 cases reported in the past two weeks alone. And the number of actual cases may be even higher, because past studies have shown that for every case of whooping cough that is reported, there are 10 more that are not officially counted. The public health department in California is strongly urging people to make sure their vaccinations are up to date, especially if they're pregnant. State health officials are working closely with schools and local health departments to spread the word.
But there's a vaccine for whooping cough so why is there an epidemic? According to Dylan Matthews it's hard to blame any single cause for public health problems like the recent rise in whooping cough, but it's clear that anti-vaccine activists aren't helping. Researchers at Johns Hopkins, Emory, and the California Department of Public Health found that California communities with large numbers of parents claiming "nonmedical exemptions" from vaccines from their kids (that is, parents who don't vaccinate for religious, personal, or other reasons not backed by medical professionals) were 1.73 times more likely to see outbreaks of whooping cough; another study looking at Michigan found high-exemption areas were 2.7 times as likely to experience high levels of the disease. "Unlike some other vaccine-preventable diseases, like measles, neither vaccination nor illness from pertussis offers lifetime immunity," says Dr. Ron Chapman. "However, vaccination is still the best defense against this potentially fatal disease."
(Score: 1, Troll) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Wednesday June 18 2014, @02:30PM
85% of those infected in the California pertussis epidemic are already DPT or DTaP vaccinated.
If we want to understand and promote the value of vaccination on a rational and scientific basis, rather than a witch-hunt mentality, then I suggest this epidemic NOT be used to fuel a debate. There are enough borderline-hysterical articles written, blaming the escalation as the result of vaccine refusal, but the numbers don't work.
Culture and poverty provide better demographic maps, along with the collapse of quality in a US "health care" system, which is the world's most efficient as fee extraction mechanism, and at the bottom of outcomes for dollars.
The epidemic in question hits latino families in central California the worst - mostly babies. These people get immunization, but very little "heath care".
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday June 18 2014, @04:35PM
Just imagine how much better this is going to get after the recent influx of unfettered immigration into America, given near-blanket amnesty by Grand Dictator Baraq Hussein Sotero himself, the thousands of diseased and unvaccinated being shipped everywhere by the busload! Hmm, it's as if this was all deliberately planned somehow!
Only a year and a half ago you would have labeled me a paranoid tinfoil-hat anti-Semite for saying the NSA hoovered all of your electronic information and sent it unredacted to Israel, and yet here we are. This is the Brave New World, it's all true, bubba.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 18 2014, @05:10PM
Only a year and a half ago you would have labeled me a paranoid tinfoil-hat anti-Semite for saying the NSA hoovered all of your electronic information and sent it unredacted to Israel, and yet here we are.
Second that. This person deserves to be modded up, not down.
(Score: 1) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Wednesday June 18 2014, @05:29PM
Yeah. You use the same argument that was leveled against your grandparents, fresh off the boat from Poland, in 1907.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday June 18 2014, @07:57PM
Just imagine how much better this is going to get after the recent influx of unfettered immigration into America, given near-blanket amnesty by Grand Dictator Baraq Hussein Sotero himself, the thousands of diseased and unvaccinated being shipped everywhere by the busload!
Mexican vaccination rates are better than the US.
Reference. [vaccinationnews.org]
Maybe if you based your opinions on evidence and not race people wouldn't call you a racist.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 18 2014, @08:55PM
The problem with your response is that many of the immigrants are coming from countries other than Mexico, and I did not mention Mexico specifically.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday June 19 2014, @03:35PM
Hey, how about you check the facts next time before posing this kind of COMPLETE BULLSHIT.
Obama is not lenient on immigration. He's deporting more people than *any president in US history*. He's broken records on the number of people deported per year -- and then broken his own records again. He's already deported as many people so far during his presidency as Bush did across *all eight years*.
http://www.thenation.com/article/179099/why-has-president-obama-deported-more-immigrants-any-president-us-history [thenation.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kaganar on Wednesday June 18 2014, @07:59PM
Just for fun I ran some numbers:
85% of those infected have the vaccine! Obviously it's not doing much! -- or is it? If 95% of the infectable population is vaccinated, but only 85% of those infected are vaccinated, then the proportion of non-vaccinated people infected is actually over three times larger than the proportion of vaccinated people. On the other hand, if 75% of the population is vaccinated, then you're actually nearly twice as likely to be infected if you're vaccinated. This is assuming independent random variables.
Of course, if I explain this to my family their head explodes, and the reaction is head-nodding or skepticism. However, without understood context the statistics never amount to anything other than propaganda. Since most won't understand the context, "facts" are no better than propaganda.