Whooping Cough Is Running Around

seeker

Tue, Oct 20 2015, 10:06 pm

amother wrote:

This is why it's crucial to get the pertussis vaccine and give it to your kids. Pertussis can kill babies.

According to the DOH report, 48% of the people who got pertussis had been vaccinated. So you do your best to the best of your knowledge and ability, but it's hardly as if having the vaccine makes you safe from it. Hashem yishmor on all.

Amarante

Tue, Oct 20 2015, 10:23 pm

Statistics don't tell the whole story as there is a 90% effective rate for children fully immunized. However, it is critical to get booster vaccinations as efficacy declines after about four years. So people might have been vaccinated years ago or not completed full cycle.

However statically, the herd mechanism would save people who might otherwise be susceptible which is way vaccination in as much of the population as possible is necessary because you are saving you and your family from diseas as well as creating a benefit for your community including those who for whatever reason aren't immune.

Dolly Welsh

Tue, Oct 20 2015, 10:26 pm

Ah, but you may not be looking deeply enough into "they had been vaccinated". They may have been partially or inadequately vaccinated, or not on the schedule, all sorts of complications.

Every case of the disease, active, is another chance for the disease to perform its song and modify it a little, possibly dodging the vaccine a little better, next time. The disease signed no contract to stay the same. Every case is a danger to the vaccinated. Because the disease can modify, rendering the vaccination inadequate. And of course, in time, in middle age somewhere, any vaccine can wear off.

Nature is dynamic. And there are no hundred-percents in nature. If you are looking for hundred-percents, that's not available. As you say, we do our best with what we have.

People who are too busy with other children and miss their appointments, or don't have money for the cabs, or can't get a babysitter, get sympathy, but not the on-purpose refusers.

Whatever happens, you should be able to say, "Don't look at ME. I did what could be done."

Anybody whose kid gets sick while vaccinated has only one sorrow, not two. Chas V'sh.

There is no tooth like self-reproach.

amother

Pumpkin

Wed, Oct 21 2015, 2:01 pm

How often should one get the booster/vaccine? My DH and I both got it when I was pregnant last. Same with grandparents who are local. All kids have had vaccine. But I am expecting again BH and therefore, should I remind my doctor I need it again? What about DH? And the grandparents? I want it if I should get it but I don't know if I should ask by my next appointment or not... While Doc will probably bring it up, I want to know because it takes a little bit for everyone else to get it. They need a prior authorization, go to their PCP...

I have a friend whose infant had whooping cough (the parents were vaccinated but infant was too young to get it so just caught it from elsewhere) and the little kid has asthma and had huge issues for a while...

amother

Coral

Wed, Oct 21 2015, 2:28 pm

Some protection can be passed to your infants if you get a TDaP booster in your second or third trimester and with every pregnancy. Many doctors are not up to date with these recommendations. Please have your kids and spouse get a booster every ~10 years.

Many of these children were too young to be vaccinated, their mother's weren't vaccinated during pregnancy to give some protection to their infants or were too young to have completed the entire vaccine series.

There is a resurgence of pertussis and, until the current vaccine formulation is improved, the only option is be vaccinated yourself. Basically, we all knew this was coming...

Dolly Welsh

Wed, Oct 21 2015, 3:36 pm

amother wrote:

This is a perfect description of the breakdown of herd immunity. Those who vaccinate are protecting the non-vaccinatable-yet or the no-longer-immune. Non vaxxers often say "why do you care what I do? If you are vaccinated, I am not endangering you. To each his own." but this shows they are hurting others. They break down the herd immunity.

The lady in the Jewish Press said you can get permanent damage to your vocal chords from raging coughing for so long. So, your child or you could have a weird speaking voice for the rest of your life. Charming.

Vaccinate, discriminate. Get all the vax you can for yourself and yours, and refuse to see or even be nice on the phone to people who do not.

As for "schedules", figure it out. If the kid is a good weight and health, there is no need to fight with the standard schedules. If he is not, you might delay a little. But with this going around? You might be better off with the vaccine than the disease.

Let us have stout, healthy children who can handle the vaccine. That might mean whole milk, butter, steak eating during pregnancy, and not fusspotting about being thin and trim. Be a little plumper. Ease up on the dislike of proteins and carbs. Ease up on running. Get your endorphins in bed.

Hashem_Yaazor

Wed, Oct 21 2015, 4:07 pm

I can't help myself but let it be known that pertussis can be spread by someone vaccinated. There is no way of knowing it was gotten elsewhere. Herd immunity is not a concept that can be applied to pertussis, unfortunately. The vaccine is for individual benefit. There is also a higher incidence of parapertussis amongst the vaccinated, because the vaccine doesn't help against that, which is why they are trying to come up with a more effective one.

By all means, if you want your child vaccinated, go ahead and do it. But please stop blaming everyone else for pertussis present in individuals (where half were fully vaccinated, actually -- the other half were either not at all or partially, according to this article). It is known to be a cyclical disease (look at the CDC) so there are expected to be years with higher incidences than other years. This isn't really anything all that more fearsome than other years in the past. Yes, pertussis can be dangerous in little ones, and yes it can be uncomfortable in older ones, but it's not any worse now, and it has little to do with the "anti-vaccination" movement.

goodmorning

Wed, Oct 21 2015, 4:44 pm

Hashem_Yaazor wrote:

Possibly. That theory was suggested by an experiment on baboons, but there is epidemiological evidence that seems to contradict its finding, and it is still, AFAIK, an area of active investigation. For example, see http://www.pnas.org/content/111/7/E716.full, which reaches the following conclusion:

Quote:

The baboon model pioneered by Warfel et al. (1) is without question a game-changer, shedding light on the impact of vaccination on disease and infection. However, the view it affords is clearer with respect to immunity and pathology than with respect to transmission. We point out that the extrapolation of the possibility of transmission from vaccinated baboons in the laboratory to the probability of transmission from vaccinated humans in the population is unwarranted. More work is needed to elucidate the relative transmissibility of infections in vaccinated vs. unvaccinated hosts. The evidence adduced above suggests, however, that vaccination with aP must have a strong effect on transmission as well as disease.

(For epidemiological evidence that suggests that herd immunity CAN be applied to pertussis [although with a high herd immunity threshold], see e.g. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23690587 and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7721534)

amother

Tangerine

Wed, Oct 21 2015, 4:53 pm

[quote="water_bear88"]From the article:

Quote:

Only 3 percent of the 37 mothers of infants with whooping cough received the recommended tetanus-diptheria-acellularr pertussis vaccination during pregnancy, the alert said.

This means nothing. If only 3 percent of the population vaccinate during pregnancy then it proves the vaccination is useless. Unless you have a statistic to back up this statement of what percentage of mothers have this vaccination during pregnancy it literally means nothing.

amother

Tangerine

Wed, Oct 21 2015, 4:54 pm

[quote="water_bear88"]From the article:

Quote:

Only 3 percent of the 37 mothers of infants with whooping cough received the recommended tetanus-diptheria-acellularr pertussis vaccination during pregnancy, the alert said.

amother

Coral

Wed, Oct 21 2015, 7:28 pm

Hashem_Yaazor wrote:

Yes, the aP vaccine is not as effective as the wP. But wP was too reactogenic. aP is less reactogenic but the trade off is less immunogenicity. A reminder: this vaccine was pure luck. The easy vaccines have been made. The hard ones remain. As soon as the USA switched from wP to aP, pertussis has slowly been increasing in incidence. It's a difficult one. People vaccinated can be colonized but they will not get sick. They can spread the disease through colonization. Merkel (the group from the FDA that everyone keeps citing, who by the way is also an amazing person) finds that vaccination during pregnancy protects newborns. This is our temporary answer to protecting our young. The reason this wasn't known until recently is that Merkel set up this baboon model, before him, there was no accurate model because most animals don't cough.

Hashem_Yaazor

Wed, Oct 21 2015, 8:31 pm

goodmorning wrote:

I don't know which vaccine was used in the Thailand study, but the second one is from 1994 where the wP one was used. Although, I am not sure if that makes a difference, as the study in Israel was for wP as well, showing that "The effects of whole-cell pertussis vaccine
wane after 5 to 10 years, and infection in a
vaccinated person causes nonspecific symptoms
(3-7). Vaccinated adolescents and adults may
serve as reservoirs for silent infection and
become potential transmitters to unprotected
infants (3-11). The whole-cell vaccine for
pertussis is protective only against clinical
disease, not against infection (15-17). Therefore,
even young, recently vaccinated children may
serve as reservoirs and potential transmitters of
infection" http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm.....4.pdf

And then there is this, http://www.cidd.psu.edu/resear.....ussis where there is concern over an increase in parapertussis, possibly due to the vaccination, with the same whooping cough symptoms which can be lumped together in the recorded cases (I know several people who have had 'whooping cough' without an actual lab test to see what bacterium they were infected with) -- so again, it's hard to blame those who are not vaccinated.