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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: 2) by HiThere on Thursday June 19 2014, @07:45PM
The point is that different diseases are DIFFERENT. They don't all act the same way. Smallpox was easy to vaccinate against. Polio is much less so. Whooping cough is reasonably easy to vaccinate against, but it's not as effective a vaccine. And it wears off over time. And those most susceptible to the disease can't be vaccinated against it, so you need either herd immunity (and hope it's good enough) or quarantine. And the higher the level of vaccination, the stronger the herd immunity (i.e., the more quickly isolated pockets of contagion die out).
P.S.: I'm neither a doctor nor a medical student, but this stuff is BASIC. And it's as much in the field of public health (which I'm also not in) as in the field of medicine. But as I said it's basic. If you don't understand it, then you are wrong if you think you understand about vaccinations.
P.P.S.: I agree with you about the trustworthiness of corporations. But if you want me to trust in something else instead, you've got to at least suggest what. Are you advocating quarantines? That is the only known alternative that occurs to me, outside of living in extremely small groups with little transportation between them, which is, in effect, an informal implementation of quarantine.
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