Students Contract Whooping Cough at School with 99.5 Percent Vaccination Rate

[donnay]

Students Contract Whooping Cough at School with 99.5 Percent Vaccination Rate
Health authorities continue to recommend DTaP vaccines despite their apparent inefficacy


Image Credits: Greg Hinson / Flickr

by Adan Salazar | Infowars.com | March 26, 2015

Officials at a school in California are baffled as to why four of their students were diagnosed with pertussis, despite the children being fully vaccinated.

The Monterey Park Elementary School in Salinas enrolls 524 students who have a vaccination rate of 99.5 percent, according to KSBW News, meaning only about two or three children at the school are unvaccinated.

But despite the high rate of compliance with current vaccine requirements, one child contracted the infection on February 25.

Shortly after, three more of his or her fifth-grade peers acquired the disease, also known as whooping cough, characterized by a persistent severe cough and a whooping sound when breathing in.

To school officials’ surprise, all four children were fully vaccinated against the disease.

The spread of whooping cough at the school seemingly negates the concept of herd immunity, defined by Salon as: “when enough people in a community are vaccinated against a disease, the entire population — including those too young or immunocompromised to receive the vaccine — is protected, because the virus is no longer able to find enough hosts through which to sustain itself.”

KSBW consulted a pediatrician who merely pitched Big Pharma talking points saying the “simplest way to combat pertussis is to get vaccinated,” but the latest outbreak will likely make parents rethink that advice, and rightly so.

Aside from the vaccine’s apparent inefficacy, parents may also be skeptical over its potential severe adverse events, which according to vaccine inserts include Guillain-Barré syndrome, muscle spasms and other immune and nervous system disorders.

Pertussis vaccines, particularly the current incarnation’s predecessor, also have a deadly history.

Continued...

[Zippyjuan]

Which means that 99.3% of the kids didn't get whooping cough and that pretty much matches the vaccination rate at the school. (vaccines don't claim 100% efficacy). Four out of 324.

In another case, http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013...cough-epidemic

When the whooping cough vaccine was invented in the 1940s, doctors thought they had finally licked the illness, which is especially dangerous for babies. But then it came roaring back.

In 2010, a whooping cough outbreak in California sickened 9,120 people, more than in any year since 1947. Ten infants died; babies are too young to be vaccinated.

Public health officials suspected that the increased numbers of parents who refused to vaccinate their children played a role, but they couldn't be sure.

Vaccine refusal was indeed a factor, researchers now say. They compared the location and number of whooping cough, or pertussis, cases in that outbreak with the personal belief exemptions filed by parents who chose not to vaccinate for reasons other than a child's health. (Some children with compromised immune systems aren't able to be vaccinated.)

Pertussis is very contagious, spreading quickly through a community. So the researchers had to map not only the location of outbreak clusters, but also when they appeared.

They found that people who lived in areas with high rates of personal belief exemptions were 2 1/2 times more likely to live in a place with lots of pertussis cases. "The exemptions clustered spatially and were associated with clusters of cases," Jessica Atwell, a graduate student at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and lead author on the study, told Shots. It was published online in the journal Pediatrics.

[donnay]

Blows the herd immunity theory out, nevertheless.

[Zippyjuan]

Herd immunity does not say nobody can get sick. It does say it is harder for a disease to spread. I take it you would prefer your child be like the one in the video?

But if nobody is vaccinated, you can be pretty sure that a lot of kids will get sick.

Whooping cough also requires a booster.

From November: http://www.nydailynews.com/life-styl...icle-1.2039189

Nearly 10,000 cases of whooping cough have been reported in California as of Nov. 26 — 1,000 more than were present during the state's last major whooping cough outbreak in 2010.

Whooping cough — also known as pertussis — is caused by a type of bacteria that binds to the cilia, the small hair-like pieces lining the upper respiratory system.

This current outbreak in California is the worst in 70 years. There have been 9,935 reported cases as of Nov. 26 and experts fear the disease could spread.

"The last time a series of outbreaks occurred across the country, California started the parade," Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., told ABC News. "And so this is a harbinger we are fearful of."

http://www.mercurynews.com/health/ci...ant-death-from

Third baby dies from whooping cough in California

SACRAMENTO -- California's growing whooping cough epidemic has claimed the life of a third infant, a tragic reminder that the very youngest are most at risk of hospitalization and death from the highly contagious bacterial disease, state health officials said Friday.

The officials continue to be alarmed that the number of cases has soared since Jan. 1, as the traditional peak month of July approaches. The number of cases is now at 4,558 -- almost double the 2,532 reported for all of 2013.

The year-old baby, who contracted the disease at 3 weeks of age, was from Sacramento County. Officials did not reveal the gender of the infant, citing privacy reasons.


The two other infants who died this year from whooping cough, also called pertussis, were from Placer and Riverside counties. One of those infants -- both 2 months old -- contracted the disease last year.

The deaths are troubling to state health officials, who last faced a whooping cough epidemic in 2010 that took the lives of 10 infants. Since then, no pertussis-related deaths had been reported until February.

[angelatc]

Herd immunity does not say nobody can get sick. It does say it is harder for a disease to spread. I take it you would prefer your child be like the one in the video?

It is like her head is a sieve. We have gone through this again and again. The DTaP is not as effective as the DTP, but it has less side effects. There's no way the DTP will be brought back just because of that, even though kids are getting sick again.

This is actually what DonnaY and her ilk want - they are celebrating sick children.

[heavenlyboy34]

It is like her head is a sieve. We have gone through this again and again. The DTaP is not as effective as the DTP, but it has less side effects. There's no way the DTP will be brought back just because of that, even though kids are getting sick again.

This is what DonnaY and her ilk want - they are celebrating sick children.

That's more than a little over-the-top, don't you think?

[Zippyjuan]

Petrussis cases by year (more than ten times as many cases as in the 1980's).

2010 27,550
2011 18,719
2012 48,277
2013 28,639
2014 28,660*
* 2014 numbers are provisional and are expected to increase as case counts are reconcile

1976 1010
1977 2177
1978 2063
1979 1623
1980 1730
1981 1248
1982 1895
1983 2463
1984 2276

[donnay]

Flashback:

Those Vaccinated With The Pertussis Vaccine Are Spreading Disease

December 3rd 2013
By: Toni Bark, MD

The recent news articles to hit the mainstream media in the past week finally states what public health officials and epidemiologists have known for some time: those vaccinated against pertussis are carrying and spreading the bacteria and are responsible for most of the outbreaks.

This news raises the question:

Should we hold those vaccinated with the pertussis vaccine, legally liable for outbreaks?

And, if you look up scholarly articles about previous outbreaks of measles, you'll find academic papers on an entity termed "the paradox of measles"; a paradox because those vaccinated are the ones contracting the disease whilst the unvaccinated in many communities with outbreaks, are unscathed.

In addition, the rise in shingles over the past decade or so, is due to the chicken pox vaccine. This link is not denied in academic literature and was even predicted by mathematical biologists and epidemiologists, and was confirmed by another study funded by the CDC.

If vaccinated children and adults are capable of spreading disease, shall we hold them and their parents legally liable for outbreaks? Shall we mandate 'unvaccination' as a requirement for public school? Since we can't 'unvaccinate,' shall vaccinated children be kicked out of public school?

While the above statements seem absurd, they are equivalent arguments bioethicist, Art Caplan has and continues to make.

Continued...

[donnay]

That's more than a little over-the-top, don't you think?

Ignore her, I do. Besides she'll be busy campaigning for Ted Cruz soon.

[PaulConventionWV]

That's more than a little over-the-top, don't you think?

Nothing spared in the quest for compliance and submission.

[Zippyjuan]

In addition, the rise in shingles over the past decade or so, is due to the chicken pox vaccine. This link is not denied in academic literature and was even predicted by mathematical biologists and epidemiologists, and was confirmed by another study funded by the CDC.

Shingles is most common in older people who were exposed to chicken pox and did not receive the chicken pox vaccine. Chicken Pox vaccine has only been around for about a decade. More incorrect information. This study looked as three million people (which is a huge sample):

http://www.webmd.com/children/vaccin...les-study-says

Chickenpox Vaccine Not Responsible for Rise in Shingles, Study Says

MONDAY, Dec. 2, 2013 (HealthDay News) -- The prevalence of a painful condition known as shingles is increasing in the United States, but new research says the chickenpox vaccine isn't to blame.

Shingles is caused by the same virus that causes chickenpox, the varicella zoster virus. Researchers have theorized that widespread chickenpox vaccination since the 1990s might have given shingles an unintended boost. But that theory didn't pan out in a study of nearly 3 million older adults.

"The chickenpox vaccine program was introduced in 1996, so we looked at the incidence of shingles from the early '90s to 2010, and found that shingles was already increasing before the vaccine program started," said study author Dr. Craig Hales, a medical epidemiologist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "And as immunization coverage in children reached 90 percent, shingles continued at the same rate."

Once someone has had chickenpox, the varicella zoster virus stays in the body. It lies dormant for years, often even for decades, but then something happens to reactivate it. When it's reactivated, it's called herpes zoster or shingles.

They also found that the rate of shingles didn't vary from state to state where there were different rates of chickenpox vaccine coverage.

[donnay]

CHICKENPOX: Varivax Package Insert Shedding: Section 5.4
http://www.merck.com/…/pi_circulars/...varivax_pi.pdf

SHINGLES: "Some patients inoculated with Zostavax, Merck's shingles vaccine, shed the virus used for the vaccine through their saliva for one month after immunization, according to a researcher from the University of Texas, Houston. Zostavax uses a live accentuated varicella zoster virus to provide protection from shingles, and in January, a retrospective study showed it halved the risk of developing shingles, leading the CDC to recommend all adults over 60 receive the vaccine"
http://www.fiercevaccines.com/…/viru...30;/2011-03-09

SHINGLES: "Inoculation site samples taken within 10 minutes after vaccination were positive for Zostavax VZV DNA in 18 (50%) of 36 subjects. The VZV DNA copy number per nanogram of total DNA ranged from 28 to 2.1 × 106 (Table 1), possibly reflecting the presence of infectious virus since no alcohol or other agent was used to wipe the skin after inoculation. No saliva specimen collected immediately before immunization contained VZV DNA. During the first week after immunization, VZV DNA was detected in saliva of 21 (58%) of 36 subjects (13 men and 8 women). During the 28-day study period, VZV DNA was found in 11 (31%) of 36 subjects (5 men and 6 women) at day 14, in 10 (28%) of 36 subjects (6 men and 4 women) at day 21, and in 2 (6%) of 36 subjects (1 man and 1 woman) at day 28. Figure 1 shows the percent of immunized subjects who shed VZV DNA during the 28-day study period. VZV DNA copy numbers per nanogram of total DNA ranged from 20 to 248 (Table 1). Genotypic analysis of DNA from 9 random saliva samples revealed vaccine virus DNA in all instances (Table 1, bold); wild-type VZV DNA was not detected. In 15 (42%) of 36 vaccine recipients (6 men, 9 women), VZV DNA was not detected in saliva at any time during the 28-day study period.
FULL TEXT http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3096786/

SHINGLES: Zostavax Package Insert. Shedding: Section 5.2
http://www.merck.com/…/pi_circu…/z/z...stavax_pi2.pdf

https://www.facebook.com/RageAgainst...99593960178513

[Zippyjuan]

On the issue of shedding, your study notes in its conclusion:

transmission of vaccine virus has not been found among vaccine recipients

No chicken pox vaccine recipient has ever been found to have infected any other person with the disease. Theoretically possible, yes. But has never been found to have actually occurred. Vaccinated people are NOT making others sick.

[donnay]

[Zippyjuan]

Dr Sears says a person getting vaccinated could possibly get the disease from the vaccine- says that such cases are rare and often mild and nothing to be worried about. "But I don't consider that a valid reason to stay away from vaccines". His answer to shedding was cut short and edited from the program.

Don't like to use Wiki often but found this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_...28physician%29

Although he is characterized as an anti-vaccine doctor[5][6][7] and a vaccine delayer,[8][9] he does admit that vaccines work: "Chicken pox, measles, whooping cough, polio, diphtheria, all these diseases that we no longer see very much of anymore, I do say that the vaccines are responsible for getting rid of these."[10] Sears is against mandatory vaccination.[17]

Sears has encouraged those parents who choose not to vaccinate their children to not tell others of their decision. He writes, "I also warn them not to share their fears with their neighbors, because if too many people avoid the MMR, we'll likely see the diseases increase significantly."

He promotes "free riding"- taking advantage of herd immunity. But if too many people do that, the diseases re-emerge in bigger numbers again- as we are seeing with measles and whooping cough.

He thus encourages "free riding" on the herd immunity created by others. His position has been criticized: "Such free-riding is immoral...because it demonstrates a willingness to make unfair use of the contributions others have made to social cooperation."

[dannno]

Petrussis cases by year (more than ten times as many cases as in the 1980's).

Are you admitting the vaccine may be less safe and less effective now than in the 80s?

[Zippyjuan]

No. Vaccination rates have declined (some increase can be explained by population growth but the population did not grow tenfold in that time period). Population did grow 46% since 1980. If pertussis rates were the same per capita, we could expect some 2,500 cases- not 25,000 cases. The pertussis vaccination rate has fallen to about 85%. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/whooping-cough.htm It was 90% as recently as 2007.

[donnay]

[Zippyjuan]

Bob Sears on his vaccine book: http://www.askdrsears.com/topics/hea...e-vaccine-book

I am not going to discuss mercury or thimerosal, because fortunately these have been taken out of virtually all vaccines. I will tell you which shots still have very small traces of mercury (about 1% of the amount that used to be there) and alert you to the few shots that still contain a full dose of mercury, but I’m not going to discuss how bad mercury is (or was). This issue is tragic for those families who feel their child was affected by mercury, but for those of you who are making the decision today, mercury needn’t be part of the equation. If you use the right vaccine brands, and know where mercury is still present, you can get the complete vaccine series 100% mercury free. On page 228 I’ll give you all the pertinent facts you need to know about mercury.

I am not going to discuss the lengthy history of infectious diseases and vaccine discovery and evolution over this past century. While this is an interesting topic, I feel it’s just information overload for the purpose of this book.

I am not going to discuss every last conspiracy theory and possible shred of evidence suggesting that vaccines are harmful. We all know that vaccines have possible side effects. Just read any product insert; some of these side effects are potentially fatal. But fortunately they are extremely rare.

I want to be very clear on something right up front. This is not an anti-vaccine book. There are plenty of books out there that over-emphasize the potential dangers of vaccines and leave parents even more fearful and confused.

Vaccine opponents claim the harm from the less important vaccines is worse than the occasional death from a disease. Anti-vaccine books seem to claim that all shots are bad, the diseases aren’t really anything to fear, and as long as you live a natural and healthy lifestyle, you don’t have to worry. I think this is a very irresponsible approach to the vaccine issue. Vaccines are beneficial in ridding our population of both serious and non-serious diseases. But families do have the right in our country to take their chances without vaccines.

I don’t want to leave you in the hands of all the anti-vaccine books. I want you to know everything scientific there is to know about vaccines and the diseases they prevent. Because I’ve taken all my information from the vaccine product inserts and from medical journals and textbooks, you are getting the full picture your own pediatrician would probably give you if he or she had several hours to spend with you and had all this information memorized.

That’s why I’ve written this book. I did the research. I’ve spent the last 13 years learning everything I could about vaccines and the diseases they are designed to prevent and put it all together in one place so you could get all your questions answered.

There is little doubt that vaccines have played a useful role in eliminating some diseases from our population and limiting many others. Smallpox is a case-in-point. We stopped using this vaccine in 1969 because universal vaccination had succeeded in wiping the disease out of our country. Polio is another example of a disease that is no longer in the U.S. because of vaccination. Even though vaccines are important, you as a parent are still entitled to know what you are giving your child.

He supports vaccines. He also supports INFORMED choice on using them. Unfortunately too much rhetoric keeps facts hidden and sells fears instead.

[donnay]

"I do think the disease danger is low enough where I think you can safely raise an unvaccinated child in today's society" ~ Bob Sears

[specsaregood]

..

[Zippyjuan]

"I do think the disease danger is low enough where I think you can safely raise an unvaccinated child in today's society" ~ Bob Sears

Relying on everybody else being vaccinated. That only works if you don't get very many people to join you.

Bit more of what was said:

At a conference this year in Rancho Mirage, Sears told a roomful of pregnant women, new mothers and healthcare professionals that vaccines work well and are responsible for the nation's low disease rate, something parents who don't want to immunize can take advantage of.

"I do think the disease danger is low enough where I think you can safely raise an unvaccinated child in today's society," he said. "It may not be good for the public health. But … for your individual child, I think it is a safe enough choice."

http://www.latimes.com/local/orangec...ry.html#page=1

Because enough people are vaccinated, some might be able to get away with not being vaccinated. But if everybody (or enough people) does it, we will have problems. You have to rely on other people to give you the protection.

In a concept known as herd immunity, communities must be vaccinated at a high rate to avoid widespread disease outbreaks. For measles and whooping cough, at least 92% of a community needs to be immune, experts say.

Which is also why he said "don't tell your neighbors". You can't have everybody not doing it. Back to the Wiki piece:

Sears has encouraged those parents who choose not to vaccinate their children to not tell others of their decision.

"because if too many people avoid the MMR, we'll likely see the diseases increase significantly"

[Zippyjuan]

Another interview with him: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...-be-an-answer/

I got interested in the topic of vaccines way back in medical school. A friend of mine convinced me to read a book about vaccines, and it ended up being a very anti-vaccine book. It was all about an old vaccine called the DTP vaccine that we don’t use anymore. But the book talked a lot about the risks and the dangers of that vaccine. The author of that book was calling for that vaccine to no longer be used.

A number of years later, it turns out that they did discover that vaccine was causing a lot of very severe, life-threatening, even fatal side effects, so they did end up taking that vaccine off the market.

So it kind of opened my eyes to the fact that there are some very severe, fortunately very rare, side effects to vaccines, and I wanted to learn more about this issue. I started reading a lot more books.

And unfortunately, when you look at vaccine books on the market, you’ll see they’re for the most part very anti-vaccine. They only tell all the dangers and risks of vaccines, only that side of the story. I found there were no books out there that gave both sides of the story: the risks of vaccines versus the risks of the diseases. So that’s what I set out to write about, was something that gave both sides of the issue so that parents can read something that helps them make an informed, educated decision.

How were your patients’ attitudes toward vaccines changing?

The biggest fear I think every parent has about vaccines is that they don’t want their child to be one of those very rare statistics in which their child suffers a very severe vaccine reaction. … Something like 1 in 100,000 babies has a very severe reaction.

But it’s very scary for a parent to think that they could be one of those, so that just causes parents to raise questions. Exactly how safe are vaccines, and how likely is it that my baby’s going to have a severe reaction? Parents want to know those kinds of numbers so that they can feel that they’re making a more educated decision about vaccines.

I see a growing problem in America, in which more and more parents are choosing not to vaccinate. There’s a growing distrust about the safety of vaccines, so I wanted to put something together that parents can read, that gave them a fair look and an educated look about vaccines so they could understand what the possible reactions are. Fortunately they’re very rare. But parents also need to understand what the risks of the diseases is so that parents can weigh both sides of the story so they’re understanding what’s going on and they can make a decision for their child.

With the growing mistrust of vaccinations in our country, more and more parents are saying no to vaccines. They’re refusing all vaccines altogether. And I think if more and more parents keep making those decisions, we’re going to run into a lot of trouble with these diseases. Illnesses that are very rare right now, that most parents don’t have to fear, could escalate and could start killing babies left and right if fewer and fewer parents are vaccinating.

[CaptUSA]

There is an on-going breakout of pertussis at my son's school. Granted, the number of kids there who haven't been vaccinated is far higher than in the government schools. My son goes to school with a lot of anti-vaxxer parents. However, he has been vaccinated. He got the cough, but it went away.

Now, do I get all pissed off at the parents because they sent their unvaccinated kids to school with my son? No. Doesn't bother me one bit. I did the math and ran the odds when my son was born and found the odds of complications from the vaccine were far lower than the possible complications without it. In fact, the odds were rather obvious that it was almost silly that I researched it as much as I did. But I have no problem if someone else makes a different judgment.

And I can tell you this... Anything he could possibly catch at our Waldorf school is far less than concerning than what he could catch at a government school. Too bad there's no vaccine for disease of the mind. Government schools spread that disease without all these petty concerns!

[angelatc]

This was when I first realized our pediatrician didn't really know squat. When I told him we had been reading that book and were going to use the delayed schedule he lays out and he went off on a Rant about how Dr. Sears was anti-vaccine and causes nothing but problems for him. I told him straight up that he was misinformed that Dr. Sears was pro-vaccine and that perhaps he should read the book before commenting further.

The Sears vaccine schedule is based on nothing scientific. It has not been clinically tested and even Dr Sears himself says that the earlier kids get vaccines the better off they are. He just wrote the book to cash in on the fear-mongering.

[angelatc]

I did the math and ran the odds when my son was born and found the odds of complications from the vaccine were far lower than the possible complications without it.

Sure. And if your son had died because his older sister brought home pertussis you might not be so benevolent towards those that chose not to vaccinate. ANd you might get pretty angry at the lies the anti-vaxxers spread, knowing that their "advice" causes children to get sick
.

The aggressive and smarmy anti-vaxxers are a lot like drunk drivers. And the blowback from their loud and proud trumpting will be much the same as it was when society got tired of that nonsense too. I can almost guarantee you that somewhere a grieving Mom is organizing a movement....

[specsaregood]

..