Recently, I received an email from PKids on their campaign, "Silence the Sounds of Pertussis." ER Nursey was also on the email list, and tells this story:
The baby was 9 months old, his birth weight was 8 lbs 5 ounces. At six months he weighed just shy of 20 pounds. Today he weighed 15 pounds - he was a skeleton and he was dying.
Mom had brought him in after treatment by his naturopath had failed. Constant coughing had made it impossible for him to take in adequate nutrition and starvation, coupled with a raging bacterial pneumonia were conspiring to shortly end his very short life.
We worked feverishly. Intubation, IV boluses, major antibiotics, vasopressors. All futile.
At 9:03 pm, after 30 minutes of cardiopulmonary resuscitation we pronounced him dead.
This boy had pertussis. His mother choose not to vaccinate him. I won't enter that debate. Anyone who has ever watched a child die or become permanently disabled from a preventable illness supports vaccination.
Watch and listen to the sounds of pertussis.
The immunity given by vaccination in infancy wanes over time, just like the tetanus vaccine. The CDC recommends that teens receive a booster, in the form of Tetanus-diphtheria-acellular pertussis vaccine (TDaP).
Up to half of the infants who contract pertussis acquire it from a parent or other caregiver. Recently, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommended that all adults and caregivers of children to be immunized against pertussis, which will then prevent transmission to young infants.
Update: An Adult's Description of her Whooping Cough
The coughing fits were unbelievable in their intensity, I gasped for air to find none, then to feel my brain thrown sideways against my skull, as my diaphragm jerked my chest forward in another heaving spasmodic wave. I coughed none stop for thirty minutes. I know, I was watching a clock across the room. The barking sounds coming from my throat confused my dog who was whining and barking at me, tail between her legs, perhaps despairing that somehow she was displeasing me and I was yelling at her. She knew there was a problem but not what it was. I sat there on the floor, in the mess I had made, trying to reassure her non verbally, my head spinning...Finally in an effort to get up and get to the bathroom, I managed to get up and into a chair off of my knees... Only to start coughing again, and as I tried to stand, I fell forward and blacked out...
Elsewhere:
Steve Novella: The Anti-Vaccination Movement
Richard Judelsohn: Vaccine Safety: Vaccination The Great Public Health Success
Selected Previous Posts on Vaccination:
Attention Parents: Vaccinate Your Teens Against Whooping Cough
An Open Letter to Parents who Don't Vaccinate:
The email from PKIDS:
I'm writing on behalf of PKIDS, a national nonprofit whose mission is to educate the public about infectious diseases. We're trying to raise awareness of pertussis, also known as "whooping cough." I have an onlineeditors@medicalnewstoday.com, resource where you can obtain more info.
The site is: www.pkids.org/pertussis
Pertussis is a potentially deadly bacterial infection that can strike at any age, but is particularly dangerous for babies. Adults are the number one transmitter of pertussis to babies. One of the best ways to protect babies from pertussis is to make sure that anyone in close contact with them is vaccinated.
At the PKIDS web site, you can hear an audio clip of what whooping cough sounds like and get advice on how to talk to your doctor about protecting your child or children you may care for from pertussis. This is all part of a campaign to raise awareness of pertussis called "Silence the Sounds of Pertussis."
Good sources of factual information:
- Responding to Parental Refusals of Immunization of Children
- Providers' Guide: Helping Parents Who Question Vaccines
- Six Common Misconceptions about vaccination and how to respond to them
- National Network on Immunization Information
- Vaccines: The Great Debate--Autism is Only the Latest Chapter
- How to Think About Vaccination
- Vaccination: Five Triumphs and Tragedies
- Michael Fitzpatrick, MD, on the Benefits of Vaccination
- CDC: What Would Happen if We Ceased to Vaccinate
- Vaccine Safety
- Responding to Concerns About Vaccination
- Vaccinophobes' Ignorance
- Vagans (Vaccinophobes)
- Lies Anti-Vaccinators Tell
- Ethics of Vaccines
- Risk Acceptance
Previous Blog Posts On Vaccination
- Vaccination
- Dr. David Pugh's Contempible Vaccination Scam
- Revaccinate Teens Against Whooping Cough
- Pertussis Outbreak in Palo Alto
- Pertussis Isn't Trivial
- Vaccinate Your College-Bound Children Against Meningitis
- How Wakefield Hoodwinked Everyone
- Vaccine Advances In The Undeveloped World
- Vaccinated, and Got the Disease
- Ethics of Vaccines
- Vaccinate Against HPV
Anti-Vax Shills (I won't link to them, but as a service provide the URLS)
- Vaccination Risk Awareness Network http://www.vran.org/
- National Vaccine Information Center http://www.909shot.com/
- Vaccination Liberation http://www.vaclib.org/index.htm
- Joseph Mercola--Mendaciy & Fearmongering on Vaccines
- http://mercola.com/2000/oct/22/shoot_first.htm
- http://www.mercola.com/2005/jan/19/mercury_vaccines.htm
- http://www.mercola.com/2005/jun/2/vaccine_refusal.htm
- Paula Baille-Hamilton's fearmongering http://reliableanswers.com/med/childhood_vaccination.asp
- Mary Tocco, manager of a chiropractic practice, wants to eliminate vaccination: http://www.marytocco.com/marytoccobio.htm
Being a musician, I always thought it was just my inability to "tune out" the music and my internal criticism of its value. It seemed like everybody else liked it.
I'm glad to hear that I'm not alone.
Posted by: jordan 11 | Tuesday, November 09, 2010 at 09:47 PM