At this writing, I have been coughing for 72 days. Not on and off coughing, but continuously, every day and every night, for two and a half months. And not just coughing, but whooping: doubled over, body clenched, sucking violently for air, my face reddening and my eyes watering. Sometimes, I cough so hard, I vomit. Other times, I pee myself. Both of these symptoms have become blessedly less frequent, and I have yet to break a rib coughing—also a common side effect. Nor do I still have the fatigue that felled me, often, at my desk and made me sleep for 16 hours a night on the weekends. Now I rarely choke on things like water, though it turns out laughing, which I do a lot of, is an easy trigger for a violent, paralyzing cough that doctors refer to not as a cough, but a paroxysm.
[…]So thanks a lot, anti-vaccine parents. You took an ethical stand against big pharma and the autism your baby was not going to get anyway, and, by doing so, killed some babies and gave me, an otherwise healthy 31-year-old woman, the whooping cough in the year 2013.
I think that, sooner or later, someone with a larger audience, like Glenn Beck, is going to get going on an anti-vaccine kick and it’s going to get worse. Maybe I’m wrong, since the average Glenn Beck listener is at least 30 years too old to bear a child.
But in any case idiotic bullshit, like anti-vaccinationism or Austrian economics or neoconservatism, kills people and ruins lives. We let it pass at our peril. Never forget that.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
Therein lies the paradoxysm.
Yatsuno
Too late, dude.
April
I got whooping cough. I had it for about three days. It is scary. I’m amazed that the writer has had it for so long. Is that usual? I thought the danger of whooping cough was mostly to kids who can die from it. My doctor told me that adults get whooping cough all the time and just don’t realize it because of not getting it very badly.
I agree with her about the selfishness of people who get on these anti-intellectual jags and refuse to acknowledge the harm they do.
Gravenstone
Think you’re missing a couple words here – too old to bear
ranchandsyrup
This whole thing is so bizarre. Especially because people with more education/higher incomes are less likely to vaccinate.
http://www.immunizationinfo.org/science/demographics-unvaccinated-children
WereBear
We are supposed to advance in our intellectual understanding.
As heartbreaking as this is, someone should get a grip, no?
cathyx
But if she was vaccinated, why did she get it? Isn’t that the point of vaccinations?
Gravenstone
Would it be unfair to expose anti-vaxers to smallpox? Granted, it would need to be in a controlled environment to protect the population at large, but I love the irony of killing them off with something that has largely been eradicated due to a successful vaccination effort.
Dolly Llama
I know where the post title came from, but I’m not seeing the connection to the actual post. Is there some connection between McCarthy and ….
Fuck. Nevermind. Just answered my own question as I was typing it. Not JOE McCarthy.
Yeah. Glad I got vaccinated, and glad I never had kids.
eemom
Don’t forget Kennedy asshole RFK Jr who has never apologized nor tried in any way to make amends for his part in this disgrace by initially promoting the fraud behind it. Asshole.
Omnes Omnibus
@cathyx: (To clarify: I was vaccinated against pertussis as a child, but the vaccine wears off by adulthood, which, until recently, was rarely a problem because the disease wasn’t running rampant because of people not vaccinating their kids.)
Olivia
Adults need to get re-vaccinated against whooping cough. The one you got as a child wears off. I also had whooping cough and the coughing lasted between 2 and 3 months. It was horrible. My doctor finally gave me an inhaler like asthma sufferers use and that helped a bit.
Snarki, child of Loki
if only there was a vaccine against stupidity…
StringOnAStick
@Yatsuno: They (and we) got lucky that time; the H1N1 scare in 2009 didn’t turn into a repeat of the deadly Spanish Flu pandemic. The problem is, eventually we will end up in a situation with a massively lethal flu virus mutation that causes significant mortality. Beck and Limbaugh will just make sure that their followers get sick and die first, but not before our interconnected world society transmits it to all corners. It just might be the planet’s way of dealing with this pesky human infestation that’s causing a runaway fever.
Villago Delenda Est
@Snarki, child of Loki:
In this country, the demand would exceed the supply no mater how great the supply.
Violet
I suspect I had whooping cough at around the same age. I had a terrible cough like that and it lasted a long, long time. At times I didn’t think I could breathe. Never went to the doctor because I didn’t have a doctor at that time. Just toughed it out. Miserable experience.
cathyx
@Omnes Omnibus: I keep reading stories about these outbreaks, so don’t the doctors know this? Why isn’t there a plan for continued booster shots for adults? There’s no problem for adults to get flu vaccines, they’re in every store that has a pharmacy.
And for everyone out there, did you get your booster shot for all the diseases?
Mike E
I’ve had chicken pox, mumps, and rubella. I also have small pox vaccine stabby scars, and I remember drinking
the koolaidpolio drops. Freedom isn’t free, bitchez!goblue72
@cathyx: You can still get viral illnesses even if you’ve been vaccinated against those illnesses. Its much much much less likely, but vaccines are not 100% proof against contracting the disease you’ve been vaccinated against. Some are more effective than others. MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) is 99.7% effective. Polio is 99% effective. Whooping cough is 80-90% effective, but it wanes over time.
That’s why everyone getting vaccinated is so important. Herd immunity is what protects us. SOME people within the general population may not be immune even after being vaccinated, but if all of us get vaccinated, there are so few potential hosts within the general population that the ability of the disease to spread from host to host is effectively curtailed to near 100% effective immunity for the entire herd.
Assholes like Park Slope parents who think vaccines are going to give their kids autism are effectively spreading risk to the entire herd – that is, to all of us.
The punishment should be exile from the herd. Have fun in Somalia, Park Slope Moms.
trollhattan
@April:
Work with someone whose husband and two of their three kids got it (and they were vaccinated). The kids had it for about a month and the husband, nearly half a year. Our fair state of California has had infant deaths from it over the last few years.
April
If you haven’t experienced a whooping cough whoop, it’s hard to describe how scary it is. It’s uncontrollable. Breathing stops. The body flails in a huge horrible spasm. I can’t stand the though of a baby suffering with it.
StringOnAStick
Huh, FYWP wouldn’t let me add the following to my comment:
I read a book about the Spanish Influenza of 1916-1918, and while it was fascinating scientifically and sociologically, it was also scary as hell because it isn’t a matter of “if”. Flu virus mutates at an amazing rate, and sooner or later something truly nasty with no resistance to it in the majority of the world population is bound to come up. And I’ll bet that McCarthy, Beck, and Limbaugh will be first in line for help after selling their followers on the anti-vax approach right up to the end, flu or whooping cough.
MattR
@Omnes Omnibus: According to the CDC, they also think it is possible that the new vaccine, with fewer side effects, wears off quicker so more adults are walking around unknowingly unprotected.
This post was a good reminder to check with my doctor when I see him in the near future. I should make sure I am up to date now that I spend time around my baby niece.
Violet
@April: Yeah, if what I had was whooping cough, it’s incredibly scary. I couldn’t breathe. I’d practically vomit trying to gasp for air. It would go on forever. I’d had tears streaming down my face trying to catch a breath. Like the author says, my abs were probably great too from all the coughing. People were scared to be around me. It came at the tail end of a cold, so I just figured it was the after-effects. Never got checked but didn’t even think of something like whooping cough. The cough lasted forever.
MoeLarryAndJesus
I hope Jenny McCarthy gets whooping cough herself. That would be some rough justice.
SiubhanDuinne
@Dolly Llama:
I did the same. I think it might have something to do with being…OLD. My mind immediately went to Joe McCarthy. Secondarily to Eugene McCarthy, but I liked him, so that didn’t work. If it weren’t for all the noise surrounding her opposition to vaccination, I wouldn’t know who Jenny McCarthy even is. (In fact, I still don’t. Is she someone, apart from her wingnutty anti-science polemics?)
Churchlady
OMG – I had whooping cough in 1993, and I seriously thought I would die. Then I was terrified I would NOT. I’ve never had anything so bad before or since. You have my total empathy! I coughed so hard I threw up. Not just once but often. I don’t know if the ‘anti immunization’ zealots had any impact on this – it might have been too early in the game – but I dread being around groups of kids now even though I have been immunized for practically everything. I would love to track down the faux scientist who faked ALL his data on the immunization-autism link. And why, now that he is discredited, are parents STILL adhering to this idiocy? I hope you get well FAST because my ribs ache just thinking of your misery. I’m so sorry this happened to you!
cathyx
@goblue72: This woman didn’t get a mild case. If she were vaccinated and they’re supposed to work, she wouldn’t have gotten it, or not as bad as she did.
Churchlady
@Mike E: I had all the childhood ick, too, and had both the injected AND the liquid anti-polio treatments. I also have a smallpox scar. And it infuriates me that people will expose their kids to these preventable – and too often dangerous – diseases over the work of a scientist who totally falsified his data. Now he has been exposed, do we have a sensible reaction? NO! So whenever we mock the Baggers and End Timers, we have to add the anti-vaccine crowd to the pile of people for whom facts cannot change their minds.
Ahh says fywp
@ranchandsyrup: It’s like Nobel prize winner quackery: Dunning-Krugar, think your shit don’t stink, mastery in one area does not imply mastery in all areas.
cathyx
@Churchlady: You’ll never get it again.
sparrow
@April: My boyfriend and I got it in Lisbon this summer. It was a serious kick in the pants for our vacation, and to date the longest illness I’ve ever had, with bad effects lasting about 2 weeks. But my bf, who is 20 years older than me, had a much tougher time of it and still has lingering effects months later, with a cough and hoarseness that is still lingering.
MikeJ
@cathyx: Immunity doesn’t last 30 years.It doesn’t mean the vaccine doesn’t work.
JPL
It’s not just vaccinations. My son, after extensive research, decided that Louis Pasteur wasn’t that great. Of course, a large percentage of raw milk is better but I’m not about rolling the dice. I actually like Louis Pasteur. Also, too, according to son, honey is actually only good for you unless it comes from the state you live in.
Ahh says fywp
@cathyx: bzzt, wrong. Google ‘herd immunity’. Out of every thousand jabs, a few are duds every time… And u dont know you got a dud until herd immunity breaks down. Thanks, selfish, delusional people.
Also at risk are those with immune disorders who rely on the rest of us being inoculated so deadly diseases don’t spread.
shelly
What’s so scary about whooping cough is there doesn’t seem to be any real treatment for it. Cough suppressents don’t work. Nothing seems to relieve the relentless coughing except time.
aimai
@Churchlady: I had an accidental spasm like whooping cough for just half an hour a week ago–where you can’t breathe, feel like you are going to vomit and pass out, pee accidentally, just from inhaling something like a droplet of water. I can not imagine what it would be like to endure what you endured or what the author of the article is enduring for 72 days. It was just terrifying. I nearly knocked myself out on the kitchen counter doubling up and gasping.
PhoenixRising
I had to throw down to get my health plan to pay for an MMR booster last fall, which seemed crazy to me. Their rationale was, You only need those shots because you’re traveling to a developing country, it’s on your dime. My oncologist’s reply was, Measles you can get in CA. Because idiots refuse to vaccinate.
We refer to the dollar movie theater next to the mall as the Pertussis 8, because I have never been in there without a kid coughing something awful, but seriously babies die and adults think it might not be a bad thing to die from this bug.
cathyx
@Ahh says fywp: A few duds you say? We should blame them. Who are the unimmunized children getting it from?
Violet
@cathyx: Maybe someone in a country where vaccines are less readily available–developing countries. Air travel means things travel and diseases can travel too. Unless something has been completely eradicated, the possibility that someone can get it still exists. And you do not know who has it or when you’ll be exposed.
Comrade Mary
@cathyx:
1) People with genuinely compromised immune systems should not be vaccinated. This means it’s up to the rest of us to keep them safe(r).
2) People with normal immune systems should be vaccinated. The vast majority of people who get vaccinated develop antibodies. They will not catch the targeted illness as long as those antibodies stay in their system. Over the years, their immunity can wear off.
3) People with normal immune systems should be vaccinated. A small minority of people who get vaccinated do NOT develop antibodies and never get any immunity from the vaccine. This doesn’t mean that vaccines ‘don’t work”: it means that immune systems vary. Some people are “non-responders” to certain vaccines, just as some people are “non-responders” to certain drugs.
People who don’t respond to vaccines DON’T KNOW that they are non-responders. We are not talking about dud doses (although some vaccine formulations may be more effective than others) or dud people.
(Did you know that about 97% of the world’s population may have a knee ligament that wasn’t positively identified until this year? The lack of that ligament in 3% of the population doesn’t mean that the research is wrong, or that people who lack the ligament are “duds”.)
This is a pretty good layperson’s summary about vaccine efficacy.
CaseyL
If you see a doctor annually, or have laceration injuries that get you into an ER, chances are that either your doctor has your vax history and/or the folks at the ER vaccinated you.
I cut my foot open a few years ago, and when I went to the ER I told them it had been a while since my last tetanus shot. They gave me a 3-in-1: tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis (whooping cough). They said doing so was routine: anyone who shows up needing one vaccination gets the whole kit. This was in 2009. SFAIK I’m not due for any boosters yet.
(Had a strong reaction to that 3-in-1, incidentally. Felt like I had the flu for about 2 days. Which is still way, way better than getting tetanus, diphtheria or whooping cough.)
Omnes Omnibus
@cathyx:
You want to blame people for having received a vaccine that is ineffective? According to Wikipedia (take it for what it’s worth), “[t]he multi-component acellular pertussis vaccine, for example, is between 71-85% effective with greater effectiveness for more severe disease.”
Bordetella pertussis bacteria.
schrodinger's cat
DougJ@top
Especially for you, whiny totebagger rant in NYT about Obamacare.
satby
It took 3 vaccinations over 10 years before I finally had a successful smallpox vaccine. I was young but I remember the Dr. telling my mother at the time that some people just were immune to the weakened viruses used in the vaccines. Finally when I was going overseas at 16 I had one that took. Most people never realize theirs wasn’t’t effective, but I was having blood tests for some other thing and that’s how they knew the antibodies weren’t present.
cathyx
@Violet: @CaseyL: So maybe maybe maybe. Maybe someone who traveled to a foreign land which doesn’t have reliable vaccines came in contact with someone who has the disease. Or maybe someone with a compromised immunity and doesn’t develop antibodies came in contact with someone who has the disease. But those people aren’t being blamed for getting the disease, it’s the ones who weren’t vaccinated who are being blamed.
fleeting expletive
When I was a kid so long ago, the treatment for whooping cough was to fill the bathtub with hot water and hold the kid in the bathroom, like a sauna.
CaseyL
If anyone’s interested, the Mayo Clinic has a handy guide to which vaxes and boosters one should get throughout one’s life:
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/vaccines/MY01188
cathyx
@Omnes Omnibus: Who do they get it from?
taylormattd
@cathyx: You are wrong. The vaccine for children is just that: for children. Adolescents and adults need a booster to have immunity.
Edit:
“The childhood vaccine is called DTaP. The whooping cough booster vaccine for adolescents and adults is called Tdap.”
“Td is a tetanus-diphtheria vaccine given to adolescents and adults as a booster shot every 10 years, or after an exposure to tetanus under some circumstances. Tdap is similar to Td but also containing protection against pertussis.”
http://www.cdc.gov/VACCINES/VPD-VAC/pertussis/default.htm
CaseyL
@cathyx: I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make.
People who can be vaccinated, should be.
People who are due or overdue for boosters should get boosters.
People with compromised immune systems particularly have to rely on everyone else getting vaccinated.
People traveling to countries where there are no, or few, vaccination programs are supposed to do some research ahead of time, and get shots if they need to. For some countries, you can’t get a visa until your medical record is updated to confirm you’ve gotten the necessary vaccinations.
Comrade Mary
How long does pertussis immunity last?
If you’re vaccinated: 4-12 years, typically.
If you get immunity by actually getting sick, maybe 7-20 years.
Recommendations: Holy shit, we really have to figure out some appropriate booster shot schedules and get people to follow them.
So as some people have argued (including the researchers I just linked to), waning immunity from vaccinations can contribute to the recent rise in pertussis cases.
But given the explosion of cases that we see now (and not in the first 15 years after the vaccine started getting used in freakin’ 1948), and the way outbreaks can cluster in areas where a significant proportion of people are avoiding immunization, selfish or ignorant vaccine skeptics are making it worse by raising a lot of terribly cute little vectors who could get terribly, even fatally ill themselves.
Won’t somebody think of the children, indeed.
JPL
@fleeting expletive: The treatment for croup. Since my children had vaccinations for whooping cough, I didn’t know that would work. .
PhoenixRising
@taylormattd: TDap is the one they give you when you ‘splain that the puncture wound on your finger is from trying to unwrap a wire flag from the spindle of your lawn mower…not that I’d do anything THAT stupid. Without a glove on.
Which is why I’m on a different booster schedule than the Mayo Clinic suggests on their chart.
Olivia
@Violet: Also a problem is that many doctors don’t recognize it as whooping cough. I went to an urgent care clinic when I first became ill with it. I was given antibiotics by the physician’s assistant, which made it impossible to get a diagnosis with lab work. I ended up going in for care 3 times before they figured out it was whooping cough.
Comrade Mary
@cathyx: Witches. Catholics. That guy down the road who looked at me funny. Bees.
Violet
@cathyx: Yes, because of herd immunity. Since apparently you can’t follow the suggestion to Google it for yourself, here is a link that explains it:
There is also a helpful illustration at the link, in case the quoted paragraph doesn’t explain it well enough for you.
Not everyone is eligible to be vaccinated–I’ve got someone like that in my family. They are dependent on everyone else to get vaccinated so that the likelihood of an outbreak is minimized. When enough people decline vaccinations for whatever reason–because they can’t get them due to health issues, because they aren’t available, and especially because they choose not to for whatever reason, it means the “herd immunity” isn’t effective. The more people who don’t get vaccinated, the less effective the herd immunity is. There are enough people who can’t get vaccinated that the rest of us need everyone else to get vaccinated to protect those who can’t get vaccinated.
Those special snowflakes who don’t want their little darlings to get vaccinated due to unfounded fears about autism being linked to vaccines are not only putting their kids in danger, they’re putting other in danger too. It’s selfish and stupid. Their kids may not pay the price, but others will.
BruceJ
Bigger audience that Glenny? Christ on a crutch Jenny McCarthy is on the fucking “View” which is to Glenny’s shitty little show as a supertanker is to a rowboat.
Violet
@cathyx:
Who did you get your last cold from? Are you SURE you got it from them and not someone else or from touching a shopping cart or door handle or somewhere else? How do you know?
Have you ever got the flu? Who did you get that from? Are you sure? How can you tell? Did you get a test to determine the vector? Did you give to anyone else? How do you know?
Your question is ridiculous because viruses are transmitted in various ways. None of us can be 100% sure where we get a virus or to whom we pass on the virus.
What is the point of your question? Do you need some 100% guarantee of the pertussis virus vector? You’re not going to get one.
Omnes Omnibus
@cathyx: Someone who is unable to take the vaccine or someone for whom that vaccine is ineffective did not make a choice that put people at risk. I don’t blame people for something they didn’t choose. The people who choose not to get their children vaccinated are choosing to put people at risk. They deserve blame.
taylormattd
@PhoenixRising: The TDap booster includes a booster for pertussis. That is a quote from the CDC website.
taylormattd
@Comrade Mary: BIG PHRMA GAVE IT TO THEM11111
cathyx
@CaseyL: My point is that everyone is blaming the child who isn’t vaccinated for spreading the disease, but it’s really those who are compromised or traveled and compromised who are the actual ones who are spreading the disease.
Comrade Mary
@taylormattd: OK, not bees, but not Big Pharma either.
These little bastards.
? Martin
Whooping Cough vaccine made Michelle Bachman retarded. It’s true. A member of Congress told me so.
Roger Moore
@cathyx:
Some vaccines, including pertussis, require periodic boosters to maintain good immunity. If you only get the vaccine when you’re young, you become more vulnerable as you age. You’ll still be better off if you were vaccinated, but you may still get sick. Also, not all vaccines are 100% effective, which is why the initial vaccinations are typically a course of several treatments rather than a single injection. Even with two or three shots spaced out over some time, there may still be 10% of the people who don’t get immunity.
That’s good enough, though, as long as almost everyone is getting vaccinated. You wind up with herd immunity, where there are few enough vulnerable people that the an epidemic can never get started. If people stop getting vaccinated, though, you may reach a critical point where the disease can establish itself in the vulnerable population and start to spread.
taylormattd
@cathyx: No, it’s the parents who are wacked out, imbecile luddites and who refuse to vacciniate their kids. They are no better than flat earth, anti-science christian wingnuts.
taylormattd
@Comrade Mary: God I love that episode.
Omnes Omnibus
@cathyx: No one is blaming the children. People are blaming the parents the ones who made the stupid decision.
Comrade Mary
@cathyx: Oh, FFS.
NOBODY is blaming the CHILD who was not vaccinated.
We are blaming the ADULTS who refuse to vaccinate their CHILDREN without having a good medical reason to do so.
Also: you just have to travel out of your front fucking door to potentially spread pertussis.
You want better immunity across the world? Then those who can get the shots should get the shots. They should also be told by their doctors and the government and the news that VACCINES ARE NOT FOREVER. VERY few people know that.
Now if after all this, adults who can afford medical services, can get to medical services, and have been repeatedly made aware of the need for booster shots DON’T get booster shots, shame them all you like.
But no one here is blaming CHILDREN. Sheesh. There’s enough straw in this thread to build a thatched roof.
Violet
@cathyx:
No one is blaming the child. People are blaming the parents. The kids don’t have much say in whether or not they get vaccinated. The parents are choosing not to vaccinate their kids. Where do you get that people are blaming children?
PhoenixRising
@taylormattd: My point exactly. Clumsy dumbfucks like me get our shots whether we think we need them or not.
taylormattd
@PhoenixRising: Heh.
cathyx
OMG! You people are idiots. Then why are the parents being blamed? The children are getting if from those people who are not properly immunized. They’re the ones to blame. The parents should be outraged at them.
Hal
One thing I don’t get is why the anti-vaccine parents is why they don’t have their kids vaccinated at age 3 or 4? Kids don’t develop autism at 4, not that I buy into the anti-vaccine bullshit anyway.
Emily
@April: My fully vaccinated niece, age ~12, got whooping cough a few years ago and I learned all about it from her parents. You have to take antibiotics and after just a short while you’re not going to infect anyone else, but your lungs have been irritated and so you continue to cough for two or three months. In Mexico, it’s called the 100 Day Cough.
Damien
@cathyx: Simply put, you are wrong, and you should stop trying to shift blame on this issue because it makes you look ignorant. The compromised are at risk specifically because of the decrease in uptake, and any epidemiologist worth his or her salt can look at the correlative data over the course of time and come to the conclusion that the drop is wreaking havoc.
Stop giving irresponsible people cover for their bad decisions. You are the medical equivalent of the person who says that women shouldn’t get drunk if they don’t want to get raped. There’s a reason why we blame the rapist, man.
Comrade Mary
@cathyx: So transmission is ALWAYS from Bad Adult to Innocent Child? Never from child to child? Never from child-who-should-have-been-immunized to immune-compromised adult?
Seriously, according to you, who should be immunized when?
1) All children (without exclusionary medical conditions) should be immunized at the recommended time periods?
2) Childhood immunizations should be up to the parents. Some children will not be immunized, and that’s OK with you?
3) Adults MUST get immunized (and booster shots at recommended intervals) if they have no medical contraindications?
4) All adults, even if it may kill them, because by God, no child shall be forced to have shots?
YellowJournalism
When my younger son was three months old, I got a serious case of whooping cough that lasted for about the same amount of time the author describes. I pulled muscles, bruised my ribs, and lost 25 pounds by the time it was done from throwing upfrom the force. (It ruined my gag reflex so much that now I consistently vomit when I get a coughing fit from even a minor cold or flu.)
And since it was so soon after the birth of my child, I had NO bladder control, and bought huge supplies of Poise pads to avoid having puddles at my feet while I coughed and vomited my guts out.
Of course, this was all around Christmas, and at the same time my youngest was having severe breathing and feeding problems unrelated to the whooping cough, but this put him at greater risk if he caught it. My husband did all he could at this time, but came down with it on Christmas Eve so bad he had to go to bed while I stayed up till 2 in the morning wrapping gifts and playing Santa so my oldest would have a half-decent Christmas in the sick house.
Fuck you, anti-vaccine assholes!!
cathyx
@Damien: Your argument is without any basis because you haven’t proved that unimmunized children are the reason for others catching the disease.
@Comrade Mary: Who do those afflicted with the disease get it from? You have failed to prove it is from the unimmunized children.
taylormattd
@cathyx: What the fuck are you talking about?
Why the hell *wouldn’t* we blame the half-wit, anti-science moron parents who refuse to vaccinate their kids on the basis of their deeply stupid and false beliefs about vaccines?
Mullah DougJ
@BruceJ:
Radio audiences are huge.
Roger Moore
@cathyx:
Sure. That’s because the people with compromised immune systems or whose vaccinations didn’t take at least did the best they could to protect themselves. The people who refused vaccination because they don’t trust the vaccines have not; they’ve turned down something that would help both themselves and others because of a foolish belief. That’s something that deserves condemnation.
taylormattd
@cathyx: Seriously, are you fucking dumb?
aimai
@cathyx: You really don’t understand the research, do you? the incidence of children dying and adults getting it are increasing exponentially specifically in areas in which parents are refusing to vaccinate newborns–not in areas where there has merely be an increase in overseas travel. This is not rocket science and there is no reason to flail around and try to excuse these parents and these communities when they are creating a fertile field for epidemics we can control–that we have controlled in the past. What do you have at stake in this debate, except a reputation for stubborn contrarianism, that you keep making these spurious arguments?
taylormattd
@aimai: She’s likely an anti-vaxx nut.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@JPL: Raw milk is of course natural, but then so is listeria. I survived consuming raw milk when I kind of had no choice, as a teen on an organic farm. It would require weaponry to force me to do so again.
Vaccines are not eternal. The immunity they confer will eventually diminish. With pertussis, herd immunity – because people vaccinated as advised by actual medicine – kept it out of circulation until very recently. The approved adult booster is less than 10 years old. That’s how new the phenomenon is. So a vaccinated person could easily get a bad case.
Comrade Mary
@cathyx: And I don’t know why I bother, but FFS, parents are told EXPLICITLY and REPEATEDLY that their children need vaccinations. They choose to be selfish and stupid when they don’t protect their children, and their community’s children, by making herd immunity as robust as possible.
Lots of adults DON’T KNOW that immunity wears off. Some do, and a subset of those who do selfishly shrug off getting a booster they can afford, but most DON’T. This is something people need to know about. You can’t ascribe moral responsibility to people who genuinely don’t know that they are currently unprotected.
In your scenario, Adult A, who didn’t know they were no longer protected because their immunity worse off, is to blame for infecting un-vaccinated Child A. If Child A directly passes the illness to Child B, and directly to Child C (who dies), and directly to immune-compromised Adult B (who gets seriously ill) — would you say that Adult A is still to blame, even though Child A could almost certainly have avoided being ill and a DIRECT source of infection to two children and one adult if only that child’s parents had agreed to the vaccination?
aimai
@cathyx: Oh you fucking moron: unimunized children aren’t being accused of GIVING the disease to other people–their parents are accused of permitting the disease to spread using their helpless children as a vector. In addition creating a population of school aged unvaccinated children means that when those children catch the disease they quickly spread it to the unimunized/immunosuppressed adults (such as pregnant women, old people) who remain susceptible. Disease is out there and by creating massive pockets of unvaccinated children the families that refuse vaccines are putting their own children at risk and also anyone else who, for the reasons explained to you very patiently, through no fault of their own are also at risk.
Comrade Mary
@cathyx: You have failed to prove that you’re anything but a bot.
cathyx
@aimai: I’m not sure you have proven that unvaccinated children are the reason for the spread of the disease. Do you have statistics that show how many unvaccinated children get the disease, and how many of them who do get it are spreading it to everyone else?
taylormattd
@Comrade Mary: Also Mary, until the Jenny McCarthy movement started succeeding in getting parents to stop vaccinating their kids, there was essentially no need for batteries of boosters for adults. Even an isolated case starting from a person who flew in from a third world country stopped quickly because of herd immunity.
aimai
@taylormattd: Well, she’s always a cranky poster. I don’t know if she has a particular anti vaxx axe to grind but generally speaking she likes to accuse one group of being responsible for things going wrong–she’s big on accusing and finding fault. I think what is making her unhappy in this discussion is that she prefers to blame someone/anyone other than the parents of the children who are not vaccinated. She likes to make everything a moral crisis and so she can’t understand that we aren’t blaming “the children”–they are victims here–and she insists that we are. Maybe she’s motivated to leave the parents/families/anti vaxx community off the list of people to blame but that’s her central issue: she needs to blame someone for people getting sick and she doesn’t want to blame the anti vaxxers.
taylormattd
@cathyx: READ THE FUCKING ARTICLE, FFS. Nobody here is “proving” anything, because it’s already been proven and accepted by scientists and epidemiologists.
aimai
@cathyx: You can do the research, you moron. But you don’t want to. The new cases include unvaccinated children dying. Actually dying. Isn’t that enough for you? And the new cases among adults arise in situations where families are refusing to vaccinate in populations where there are now uncovered individuals. You do the math.
Comrade Mary
@cathyx: From the New England Journal of Medicine:
You’re welcome.
CaseyL
Oh, Christ on a carousel; cathyx is either an imbecile or s/he’s trolling. Which, IIRC, is about par for her/him.
Anti-vaxxer advocates should be shunned.
Anti-vaxxer parents should have their kids vaccinated by court order.
End of story.
goblue72
@cathyx: @taylormattd: Apparently so. The brain explodes with the sheer willful stupidity.
magurakurin
@cathyx:
jesus. you are such a fucking goofball. It’s always the same with you, you argue for the sake of arguing. It’s like a Monty Python sketch….only it’s not funny…at all.
taylormattd
@aimai: Maybe. But honestly, this is typical behavior of anti-vax nuts on the message boards of places like Mothering, HuffPo, and other hives of scum and villainy.
goblue72
@Comrade Mary: That’s just one article from one magazine. That’s not PROOF. [/snark]
Can we just throw the anti-vaxers off the island now please? So that the rest of us don’t catch whatever it is they have – which from all appearances may be Mad Cow Disease.
Omnes Omnibus
@goblue72:
Don’t kid yourself. She’ll do it.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@aimai: @Comrade Mary:
You’re doing yeoman’s work here. I’ve given up talking at a doorknob. Thanks for trying!
Jack the Second
Pertussis is the P in the TDAP vaccine most people get for the T — tetanus — after stepping on a rusty nail. It’s a suite of vaccines which need 3-5 year boosters to remain effective.
Vaccines are strictly superior to “natural” immunity. A classic example is chicken pox. If you get chicken pox the old fashioned way, after your body has fought off the infection and you’re “immune”, some bits will go dormant and hide out in your spine for the rest of your life. Years later it will reactivate as a second horrible disease: shingles. Hooray for natural immunity!
If you were vaccinated, you don’t have the sleepers in your spine and don’t get shingles.
taylormattd
@Jack the Second: Jack, that’s not accurate. The latency / dormancy after an actual infection (as opposed to a vaccination, where there is no unattenuated infection) happens likely because Varicella is a double-stranded DNA virus in the herpes virus family.
jonas
My GP was totally insistent I get a pertussis booster last year, mainly because of all this anti-vac idiocy going around — glad I did!
pika
@April: At the beginning of the pertussis resurgence, partner and I had it for as long as New Republic writer has had/had it. Partner actually fainted from the coughing once, which at least put to rest any lingering ‘hey, it’s fun to pretend I’m dead’ jokeyness. Three months later, the cough had finally begun to subside, but the muscle tears took so much longer to heal. Since then, I have met parents whose infants have nearly died from the pertussis that the parents carried home. The near-death + the self-blame = unspeakable. I have anger beyond anger for what Yasmin Nair calls the neo-primitivists pushing this kind of shite.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
Fucking pertussis. I had it about eleven years ago when I started my new job. Fortunately, as I worked around immunosuppressed patients, I would steal away to the bathroom for my near-syncopal inducing fits of coughing.
I don’t think I even got anybody sick. Immunizations…how do they work?
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@April:
Nobody has whooping cough for three days. I had it for two months, and it took ten days of azithromycin to knock it out.
schrodinger's cat
So why is McCarthy still on the View? Couldn’t Baba Wawa find someone better?
CaseyL
@schrodinger’s cat: A couple reasons: she attracts a demographic they want; and being “controversial” means maybe more people tune in.
Whether her opinions have any intrinsic value, and whether she is a person who in any way merits having a network perch from which to issue said opinions, is completely irrelevant.
PhoenixRising
@Jack the Second: Shingles. Funny story I’ve been waiting to share with the class about them.
I’m the younger sib, by 20 months, so I had to be wrapped in soft cloth and mittened to survive the chicken pox my older sister brought home from kindergarten, when I was 3. When I was 41 and already had eyeball cancer, something hilarious happened. Big sister developed shingles, in her eye, while I was visiting. So she attended her own birthday party dressed as a pirate (I lent her a jaunty eye patch & she covered the rash with a headscarf), which wasn’t the punchline but made it memorable.
The funny part was what mom said when I explained that the fever, rash and swollen eye were symptoms of shingles: “Can you get that from her?”
Reply: “I think I already did.”
I’m seriously getting the shingles vaccine at my earliest opportunity, because it all sucked. We made it funny, because we’re like that, but shingles suck.
JCR
@cathyx: You keep getting directed to look up “herd immunity,” but apparently are too …. what? Lazy? Stubborn? Incapable of learning new concepts? … to do so. Do your research before you complain that no one has “proved” basic concepts to you. Really.
As a friend of mine used to observe, ignorance is a condition; stupidity is a commitment.
MattR
@cathyx: I think you are both right and wrong. From the CDC page I referenced above:
It seems to be that we are losing herd immunity more because the vaccines wear off in adults than because parents are refusing to vaccinate their kids.
opiejeanne
@cathyx: I got vaccinated for everything short of dengue and yellow fever in 2005 because I was going to be treated for Hep C.
I am going to make my husband get a booster shot because we have friends down the street whose children are unable to be vaccinated. Allergic reaction, I think.
Heliopause
Similarly, the amoral pieces of shit who used vaccination programs as a ruse to find Osama bin Laden will be allowed to get away with their ruse at our peril.
chopper
@goblue72:
LOLing about park slope. I lived there for 10 years, two kids. Every mom I knew had their kids…vaccinated. Oh, cause every school requires it.
but hey, crazy people! amirite?
Sister Inspired Revolver of Freedom
As one of those people who has a compromised immune system, I hate Jenny McCarthy and Andrew Wakefield with the passion of 1000 burning suns. Between my Crohn’s Disease, and the Humira I take to treat it, I have a vulnerable immune system. I’m in the process of getting every vaccine I can handle. Unfortunately, I can’t take either the measles vaccine or the one for shingles, and we are having an outbreak of measles in Lethbridge as I write. I did just get the Tdap booster, so I’m safe from whooping cough, diphtheria, and tetanus at least.
pseudonymous in nc
My sister had whooping cough aged around 3 or 4, during a period when there was a worry about possible side-effects of the vaccine. I’m only a couple of years older than her, but I can still remember it.
This is basic public health. FFS, this is what Bill Gates is spending his billions on around the world, and he’s in Nigeria right now trying to eradicate polio.
It seems like some people need a fucking booster shot administered with the clue stick in the same way that some people need reminding that things like public fire services are a good idea.
Perhaps McCarthy and cathyx can infect themselves with tuberculosis because of the fetching effect on one’s complexion.
Chris T.
I had the three-month (100-day) cough back in the 1990s, after a trip through Anti-Vaxxer Central (aka parts of Idaho and Montana). Went to the doctor much too late (3 or 4 weeks into it) to do anything.
In some ways I was lucky: did not break any ribs, not too much cough-induced vomiting, only have some minor permanent bronchial scarring…
Ripley
That she’s a cow. It’s her regular thing.
opiejeanne
@cathyx: Do you have kids? I had three and I taught in both public and private schools and I can attest to the fact that children are germy spreaders of disease. Where they are picking up said disease is a separate issue, but kids are excellent disease vectors.
I think your other question that I don’t think anyone has addressed really is “where is the pertussis coming from that the unvaccinated children are spreading?” Is this what you are asking? Because if so, the answer is that pertussis is not extinct. There is still someone, many someones, who have the disease. I don’t know, but this may also be a virus capable of laying low for a very long time.
drfancypants
@Jack the Second: I was a child back before there was a chicken pox vaccine, so I had the misfortune of coming by my immunity the old-fashioned way. A year ago that old friend came back to visit, and I came down with shingles. The doc was surprised because I’m pretty young for a shingles-sufferer (mid-30s). I only had a minor outbreak, and I hated my life for weeks—I was in pain and tired all the damn time. I can’t even imagine how awful a serious outbreak would be.
Suffice to say that my kids will be getting the chicken pox vaccine.
Jewish Steel
@Comrade Mary: That made me bark with laughter. Brava.
liberal
@Heliopause: I’m surprised so few people make that connection.
opiejeanne
@Comrade Mary: Heh.
Omnes Omnibus
@liberal: Make it plain. If you will. Be brave.
A Humble Lurker
@Ripley:
Oh fuck off with that shit. You make idiots look better by comparison when you call people that.
Woodrowfan
@CaseyL: THANK YOU! I book-marked it.
Interrobang
I had pertussis when I was nine, because back then people didn’t really know that the first shot you get for it when you’re a baby wears off about then. I was off school for three weeks, and at one point was coughing so hard I couldn’t even keep down the baby aspirin my parents were trying to feed me. I don’t even remember much of those three weeks, except that I was exhausted and spent a lot of time on the couch because it was too hard for me to climb the stairs to the bathroom. Fortunately, I am privileged enough to have parents who made enough money so that my mom didn’t have to work and my dad could arrange lots of time off work to take care of me and my sister, who was just a baby at the time.
I also just got over a bout of the real influenza, which, while it didn’t kill me as hard as the H1N1 (which I got before the vaccine was available here), was still pretty miserable and I missed three days of work, and got a sinusitis to boot. I shouldn’t have put off getting the flu shot. I figure I must’ve had some other strain of the flu that gave me partial immunity, because as the flu goes, it wasn’t too bad, but that’s sort of like saying I’m glad I was run over by a Smart car and not a Hummer H2.
Get your flu shots, folks! Yeah, the vaccine doesn’t work overly well, but we know these things work in transmission chains, and that about 30% of people who get the flu don’t get (m)any symptoms, and if you’re the broken link who doesn’t transmit the shit around, that’s fewer people who are spreading it and don’t know it, or are spreading it and think they only have a bad cold, and fewer people who wind up in hospital with pneumonia and bronchitis because of it.
Ilya
@cathyx: Actually, whooping cough is something people are supposed to get re-vaccinated for later in life, but most people don’t (kind of like tetanus, most people don’t worry about getting boosters until they’re actually in an accident and it’s important).
@April: Whooping cough used to be called the “100 day cough”, so this experience is a lot more typical than yours. As other posters here have noted, pertussis itself usually doesn’t kill people, but the bacterial and viral pneumonias that result from pathogens taking advantage of a compromised respiratory tract can kill people. Glad you made it out okay though!
keestadoll
A very good snapshot of the autism situation globally:
http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/hghr/online/autism-on-the-rise-a-global-perspective/
“As of March 2013, the CDC estimates that one in every 50 school children are diagnosed with ASD—a 1.16% increase from the estimates revealed in 2012.”
A beyond frightening statistic. I think, as the article cites, that the real juice of this surge will be found in controlling the inflammatory response in developing brains. (Second from last paragraph). Anyway, any preggo Juicer’s out there should look into this. Can’t hurt.
Betsy
@JPL: Yeah, that honey idea is a fun-ish romantic notion, which seems like it really ought to be valid, but is total horseshit. Also, a small percentage of raw milk is dangerous, but you don’t know which until you drink it, and yuppie kids are starting to get sick from it now that there’s a trend, …only occasionally but the sickness can be life-threatening, life-altering, or worse.
Betsy
Cathyx — I would like to know your point. What’s your position? What do you think should be done about pertussis? Policy details, please.
All you’ve done on this thread is ask impertinent questions and then debate the answers that people try to provide.
But what is YOUR point? How should pertussis be prevented? Should it be prevented? What would YOU like to see happen? Nothing? Something? Anything? Hello?
keestadoll
@JPL: Rule numero uno with raw milk/raw dairy products in-general is KNOW THY SOURCE. Some dairy’s are fabulous, but most cashing in on a trend. In any case, dairy is difficult to digest and as much as I LOVE milk, I’ve been weaning myself off in favor of coconut or hazelnut milk (ps, chocolate hazelnut milk tastes like liquefied Nutella, so any fans of Nutella out there should definitely give it a shot glass!). As to your son’s conviction about honey: I think he’s throwing the baby out with the bath water. Honey has tremendous benefits no matter where it comes from, so what I think he may be jumbling is the practice of consuming locally harvested honey to build up exposure to local-specific allergies. Locals in my area (coastal Humboldt County CA) have been doing that for years to great success. This is only my second year trying this method and I would say the severity of my seasonal allergies have been cut in half. Yay honey!
Skippy-san
I was vacinatted as a child and stll got it when I was 53 after spending 2 months in an eastern european country. Whooping cough sucks. When I ask the doctor why I got it-he said that in your 40’s you normally should get a booster shot-something the Navy ( my then employer) did not do.
I cough so hard I passed out several times. It’s the closest to what I think drowning is like-and it was a long 4 weeks till I got well.
Julie
@PhoenixRising: Or the one they now give you and your immediate family before you leave the hospital with a newborn — at least out here on the West Coast, since we’ve had multiple outbreaks of whooping cough for the past couple years. The doctors and nurses all walk in with the recommendation to vaccinate with the same battle-weary air I’ve seen my dentist adopt when explaining that flouride doesn’t equal government mind control.
Meepers
@cathyx: Maybe you’re a god damned idiot.
Meepers
@Meepers: … And maybe I should read the thread instead of piling on.
johnny aquitard
@Omnes Omnibus: I believe I’ve had whooping cough twice since moving to Wisconsin, all in the last 4 years. Once real bad. Never had it before in my life. Vaccinated against it as a kid but I’ve learned it wears off.
I followed the link to TNR and clicked the link to the clip of the adult cough. It was the gasping wheeze on the intake I remember so well that’s what ID’ed it for me.The horrible sucking gasp almost to the point where I’d choke and then start to vomit. I hacked until my lower back ribs hurt like I thought I’d broken them.
My doctor never told me I had whooping cough. They play it very sly here in Madison, it seems. They did that with the H1N1 flu too. They tell you it’s no use testing to find out exactly what you got, they just say it’s a viral bug.
My wife has family members here in Madison who are anti-vaxers. Both have advanced degrees. They’re both into ‘alternate medicine’. Germ theory and the mortality of un-vaccinated human history apparently count for little against the fear of what’s in vaccines.
I’m inclined to think they do in fact understand at least half of their un-vaccinated children would likely not make it out of childhood if everyone else didn’t vaccinate. What they are doing is freeloading, getting the benefits of herd immunity of others while avoiding any (even imaginary) downsides, costs, inconveniences, tears and drama of vaccinating one’s kids. All the while degrading the overall herd immunity.
It’s pretty selfish, and they’ve found an objection they can use to get something for nothing at least for a little while longer. Because believe me, when their kids start dying from things like diphtheria, measles, polio etc, like kids did 100 years ago, they will sing a different tune.
It’s the tragedy of the commons all over again.
johnny aquitard
@keestadoll:
Fuck that glibertarian bullshit.
You ever been in a dairy barn? You ever been around cows?
The problems with farm animals, hygiene, and producing safe unpasteurized milk are huge. And all it takes is one oversight, one lax procedure, or even one literal slip in the literal shit and a lot of milk and milk handling equipment is contaminated.
What moran would take real, measurable and documented risks with their own health or their childrens’ because of imaginary fears and unproven benefits? Oh, right…