Whooping cough outbreak

[Firestormm]

Doubt and Denialism: Vaccine Myths Persist in the Face of Science

Last month, CDC officials reported more than 18,000 cases of whooping cough (or pertussis) across the country—a rate of infection they hadn’t seen so early in the year since 1959. So far, nine babies have died. California had its own epidemic in 2010, with more than 9,100 cases and 10 infant deaths.

Pertussis is a vaccine-preventable disease. But prevention depends on public compliance. And people like Schneider who doubt vaccine safety tend to consider their children’s vaccinations optional. In the 2011 poll, 86% of doubters opted out of some or all of their kids’ scheduled shots.

That’s why some blame vaccine skeptics for the current epidemic. With just 84% of toddlers fully vaccinated, it’s likely skeptics play some role.

But CDC officials aren’t sure what’s behind the epidemic, or why even vaccinated teenagers are getting sick. It’s possible that the vaccine isn’t as effective as researchers hoped or has been targeting the wrong pathogen strains.

What officials do know is that unvaccinated kids are eight times as likely to get pertussis as vaccinated kids. And when vaccinated kids do contract the disease, it’s much milder, doesn’t last as long, and tends to be less infectious.

That’s why public officials are urging adults, especially pregnant women, to get boosters to protect children still too young to be fully vaccinated. Kids get the first of five pertussis shots (plus a later booster) at 2 months.

Most pertussis deaths claim children younger than 3 months old. Nine of the 10 children who died in California during the 2010 outbreak were under 8 weeks old.

...Vaccines rarely provide 100% protection. But they’re the state-of-the-art defense against infectious disease.

What’s more, if vaccine-preventable diseases like pertussis become more virulent, and there’s some evidence that this may be true, those who refuse vaccination will have little recourse when their kids—or their neighbors’ kids—take ill.

Public health officials often say that parents who reject vaccination will realize they’ve made a terrible mistake only when these once rare childhood diseases, long controlled by vaccination, return, with tragic consequences.

Why on earth would anyone want to help a deadly agent hell-bent on survival get the upper hand?

http://science.kqed.org/quest/2012/...vaccine-myths-persist-in-the-face-of-science/

 

[natasa778]

Pertussis is a vaccine-preventable disease.

Really?? Then wtf is this?

But CDC officials aren’t sure what’s behind the epidemic, or why even vaccinated teenagers are getting sick. It’s possible that the vaccine isn’t as effective as researchers hoped or has been targeting the wrong pathogen strains.

The solution? Get vaccinated again and again and again. Even though the vaccine might not be effective. Or could simply be targeting the wrong pathogen. But never mind. Get vaccinated again. We simply can't think of anything else, so why not.

 

[Firestormm]

You know all science is about probability, right Natasa? Being vaccinated reduces the likelihood of getting whooping cough in this case. And if you do contract it, the chances are it will be relatively mild.

I think the article - and extracts - are perfectly reasonable. Far more reasonable that some I have read. Vaccine's cannot (yet) eradicate this disease. They can and do reduce the chances of contracting it.

As ever though it is your choice.

 

[natasa778]

Being vaccinated reduces the likelihood of getting whooping cough in this case. And if you do contract it, the chances are it will be relatively mild.

There is no indication that either is correct here. They just haven't a faintest idea so are resorting to wishful thinking.

 

[August59]

The Whooping Cough should be looked at to see if it has possibly mutated (if it is possible for whooping cough to mutate) or if it has developed increased resistance to the vaccine and to current treatment protocols, so that if someone should come down with it they have the effective treatment options available.

With possible overall general weakened immune systems the whole vaccination protocol should be re-evaluated to possibly doing a couple of more vaccinations with less vaccine per shot and spreading vaccines apart from other vaccinations. This would obviously lead to many more injections, so development or different delivery options need to be put into effect.

Look very hard at stopping these triple pathogen vaccination shots.

Look at the possibility of strengthening the immune system, so that 1 shot (or other form of delivery) is all that will be needed to acheive the same resistance to the disease as multiple shots would achieve.

Look very, very hard at what vaccinations are absolutely beyond a shadow of doubt are needed cause we cannot continue to add more and more vaccines. I just do not think an eventual bombardment of vaccinations for 15 or 20 different diseases is going to be tolerated by our immune systems.

I'm sure big pharma doesn't want to hear this, but they can get their butts busy developing different delivery options and making sure their present vaccines are targeting these pathogens or diseases in the most effcient way possible. Mumps. whooping cough, rubella and measles may not be the same as they were 20 or 30 years ago when the vaccines were developed. Especially when we have these outbreaks, which gives these pathogens a greater opportunity to mutate or develop resistance.
(Disclaimer: My verbage addressing many of these medical terms are quite possibly incorrect, but I think most anyone on this forum can substitute the correct word as they are reading. It's been an unusually brain fog filled day on the home front!)

 

[Firestormm]

22 August 2012

In Defense of Science: An Interview with NCSE’s Eugenie Scott

A few weeks ago I wrote about what happens [whooping cough etc.] when people respond to well-established science with disbelief or mistrust. As I noted, this is an occupational risk for researchers who work on vaccines (and journalists who write about them), which is why I told a cautionary tale about rejecting science in the face of super-bugs. The piece resonated with readers, but not in the way I’d hoped. Of nearly 220 comments, the vast majority opposed vaccination, for various reasons, rejecting the science.

As I considered how to respond, I wondered how science educators might deal with the chasm between scientific facts and public opinion. Then it struck me: who better to consider rebukes of mainstream science than the Bay Area’s own Eugenie Scott?

One of America’s most revered science guardians, Scott has long taught rational thought and “science as a way of knowing” as president of the Bay Area Skeptics and as executive director of the Oakland-based National Center for Science Education.

Best-known for defending the teaching of evolution in public schools, Scott led NCSE into the climate wars in January, when the center launched its climate change education initiative to help educators under attack for teaching students about climate change.

I spoke with Scott last week about the challenges of communicating science when evidence runs headlong into ideology, belief, and denial.

Gross: One thing I noticed in some of the comments last week was a tendency to glom onto rare events, like adverse reactions to vaccines, to reject an entire body of science. NCSE hasn’t taken on the anti-vaccination issue, but do you see something similar with those who reject evolution and climate change?

Scott: This kind of anomaly mongering is something that we’ve dealt with for decades with evolution. We’re starting to learn more about it with climate change. One such anomaly is the fact that 1998 was an unusually warm year. So if you measure from 1998 to 2008–the line goes down–cooling has happened, therefore global warming is not taking place.

Now, this is exactly parallel to the kind of anomaly mongering you get with creationism. Where they’ll point to the live mollusk that carbon 14 dating indicated had been dead for 3,000 years, and say, therefore radioisotopic dating is not valid, therefore the Earth is young, therefore, evolution didn’t take place. It’s a logical series of arguments in one sense except the premises are all wrong because these are anomalies.

​

​

This satirical cartoon depicting Charles Darwin as an ape, published in 1871, following the publication of Darwin's "The Descent of Man," typified reactions of those who rejected Darwin's contention that humans and apes shared common ancestry.​

In the case of the 1998 year, that’s cherry picking the data in a most egregious fashion, because if you pick just about any other year, you’ll find that the climate is getting warmer. And with the living mollusk, that article was not an attack upon radioisotopic dating, but a methodology article showing the difference between carbon absorption in lacustrine [lake] versus riverine environments and how you must consider the source of your sample.

You find the same thing with people who object to vaccines. They’ll pick some anomalous observation and say, “See, see, we told you vaccines are dangerous,” or “We told you they’re ineffective,” or something along those lines.

To understand this phenomenon you really have to dig deeper into what is motivating people. First of all, I’d like to distinguish between the people who lead these movements versus the people who follow them.

They’re not the ones generating the vaccine anomaly, so to speak, but they’ve read this literature and they’re parroting what they’ve heard. And your heart goes out to them. They’re concerned about their children. They don’t want their kids to get sick. But as many admit, they don’t fully understand the science. And your decisions are obviously going to be influenced by your emotions.

We’re human beings, not automatons. But you need to temper them with good information, empirical information, dare I say scientific information, in order to make the best decisions...

 

[natasa778]

He responds to valid, real issues by fearmongering and 'devil will punish the wicked' boogeyman talk. This is medieval attempt to hold on to position of authority, while at the same time realising that his 'authority' is built on a cloud of dust.

When criticising someone's 'misunderstanding' of science it would be good to throw in some science LOL. Like good old mechanistic biology physiopathology etc and at least an indication of REAL understanding of issues at hand.

This guy is completely clueless and useless, but is still carrying on while pretending that he has a direct line to the Almighty.

How anyone still falls for this type of empty talk puzzles me no end.

 

[Desdinova]

in the US, adults do get pertussis vaccine. they have started bundling it with tetanus and diphtheria booster.

How long have they been bundling it with the tetanus booster?

 

[Firestormm]

He responds to valid, real issues by fearmongering and 'devil will punish the wicked' boogeyman talk. This is medieval attempt to hold on to position of authority, while at the same time realising that his 'authority' is built on a cloud of dust.

When criticising someone's 'misunderstanding' of science it would be good to throw in some science LOL. Like good old mechanistic biology physiopathology etc and at least an indication of REAL understanding of issues at hand.

This guy is completely clueless and useless, but is still carrying on while pretending that he has a direct line to the Almighty.

How anyone still falls for this type of empty talk puzzles me no end.

This 'guy' is a 'gal'

 

[PNR2008]

When I was 9mos old I almost died from pertussis, this was in 1950. My parents are gone but my oldest brother remembers it well. A special courier was sent from Cleveland Clinic with meds that may have saved my life. I have no idea what it was but I wonder if any CFS/ME suffers had pertussis or was vaccinated. It's odd but when my father was alive and I had CFS already for 15 yrs, he used to wonder if that medicine made me sick in my 30's.

 

[PNR2008]

Not to mention fainting after the 4th polio shot when about 8. This was the extra shot that was recommended (it was previously 3) and before the sugar cubes.

 

[barbc56]

Wow, glad you are okay now, relatively speaking, that is. It could be a combination of the medication and the pertussis. I have no idea what kind of medication is used and you have peaked my curiosity. Take care.
Barb C.:>)

 

[WillowJ]

How long have they been bundling it with the tetanus booster?

I don't know. but it is called TDaP in the adult version.

 

[currer]

I wonder sometimes whether the DPT vaccine sparked my ME. I had the vacination as an adult and developed ME quite soon after, following a very mild virus - lasting a couple of days!

I was interested because Charles Shepherd focused on the hepatitis b vaccine and tetanus as being associated with triggering ME http://www.cfids.org/archives/2001rr/2001-rr1-article03.asp
This data (although unpublished) suggests that tetanus, typhoid, influenza, and hepatitis B are the most commonly implicated vaccines in cases of CFS.
Almost all of my cases involve adults, and in a significant minority the vaccine was administered when the person had not yet fully recovered from an infective illness such as infectious mononucleosis (known as glandular fever in the U.K.) or had already experienced an adverse reaction to a previous dose of the same vaccine (as is sometimes the case with hepatitis B accine).

 

[Desdinova]

I don't know. but it is called TDaP in the adult version.

Thanks for the reply, I was asking because in the fall of 2006 I cut my foot. My PCP stitched me up and gave me a tetanus shot. About three months latter I got a flu shot at work and a couple of days after receiving that flu shot on Friday December 15th I was hit by a virus, flu I really don't know what it was. I do know that it was unlike any illness I'd ever experienced In my life and I know that I haven't been the same since. Things that make you wonder oh well no time to speculate.

 

[WillowJ]

Thanks for the reply, I was asking because in the fall of 2006 I cut my foot. My PCP stitched me up and gave me a tetanus shot. About three months latter I got a flu shot at work and a couple of days after receiving that flu shot on Friday December 15th I was hit by a virus, flu I really don't know what it was. I do know that it was unlike any illness I'd ever experienced In my life and I know that I haven't been the same since. Things that make you wonder oh well no time to speculate.

looks like Tdap was introduced in 2005
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/meds/a607027.html

sorry to hear this

getting a vaccine and then coming down with an infectious illness, even a minor one like a cold, has always been really bad for me