Vaccination gaps raise whooping cough risks

May. 26th, 2009 by Scott Hensley
Filed under: Studies 

The evidence keeps piling up to show that kids who don’t get vaccinated carry real risks of catching diseases once thought to have been vanquished.


pertussisPhotomicrograph of Bordetella (Haemophilus) pertussis bacteria from the CDC’s Public Health Image Library.

Researchers found that kids whose parents refused to have them vaccinated against whooping cough were 23 times more likely to contract the illness, which is marked by uncontrollable coughing spells, than those who got the shots.

In a study of kids in a Kaiser Permanente health plan, 12 percent of the unvaccinated kids developed whooping caught compared with 0.5 percent who got the shot. The results appear in the latest issue of Pediatrics.

Before vaccination against whooping cough became common, the disease was a major cause of childhood death. The vaccine is potent but not 100 percent effective. So it’s important to vaccinate all children to create “herd immunity” for the community, Sean O’Leary, an infectious-disease specialist at Children’s Hospital in Denver, told USA Today.

A measles outbreak in San Diego last year provided another reminder of the risk of skipped immunizations. An unvaccinated 7-year-old boy who came down with measles after a trip to Switzerland spread the infection to other unvaccinated children. The CDC reported 11 other cases linked to the boy. About 70 unvaccinated kids had to be quarantined.

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Comments

2 Comments on Vaccination gaps raise whooping cough risks

  1. Autism and vaccines: A failure to communicate : Covering Health on Fri, 29th May 2009 8:01 AM

    2. [...] One in four Americans still believes vaccines cause autism, notes an exhaustive and fascinating analysis of the enduring controversy over vaccine risk published by PLoS Biology. An unfortunate fact is now indisputable: As parents shun vaccines, infectious diseases ranging from measles to whooping cough have mounted a comeback. [...]

  2. Sorry Oprah. Signing Jenny McCarthy? You’ve Lost This Fan at Every Patient’s Advocate on Fri, 29th May 2009 1:39 PM

    3. [...] The second problem — that vaccines have been developed strictly to destroy the diseases that destroy lives, but they can’t do their job if they aren’t being used.  Think of the millions who were injured or killed by polio before the polio vaccine.  Today, the only people getting polio are those who have not been vaccinated.  If children are not vaccinated they will risk polio and it’s their parents who, by choosing not to have their children vaccinated, will put their children at risk.  That’s true, too, for every other childhood disease. [...]

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