Calif. Teens Must Get Whooping Cough Shots

A California law that takes effect on Friday requires all students in grades 7 through 12 to get booster vaccinations to combat what state health officials say is an outbreak of the illness.

More than 9,000 cases of the bacterial infection were reported in California last year, marking the state's biggest outbreak of whooping cough, which is also known as pertussis, in over 60 years.

Ten cases led to the death of infants under two months old, California heath officials said.

Students arriving for their first day of school in the fall will need documentation to prove they received a booster shot of the vaccine for pertussis, tetanus, diphtheria.

"While everyone is taking summer vacation pertussis is not taking that vacation," said Dr. John Talarico, immunization branch chief with the California Department of Public Health.

Whooping cough, which causes violent and uncontrollable coughing, infects 30 to 50 million people a year globally and kills about 300,000, mostly children in developing countries.

There are regular outbreaks in developed countries, and the recent one in California stands out as one of the biggest in the United States in recent years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

So far this year, California has seen over 1,400 cases of whooping cough, which is above the historical average, health officials said.

All states require a whooping cough vaccination for children entering kindergarten, with exceptions provided for religious and other reasons, said CDC spokesman Jeff Dimond. But immunity tends to wane after three to five years, Talarico said.

The CDC this year recommended booster vaccinations for older children, but not all states require them and only 56 percent of teenagers in the country receive them, according to the CDC.

He said the disease can be severe for middle and high school students, even if infants are the most likely to die.

Health officials say children can get the booster shot at their family doctor as well as clinics, and those covered by the state's Medicaid program can receive it for free.

"We've all been very anxious we want people to be able to meet the requirement," said Dr. Glennah Trochet, the Sacramento County public health officer. "We believe it's necessary given the huge epidemic California has incurred."

Starting next year, only students entering the 7th grade will need proof of the booster shot before beginning school.

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions.

Comments

[Mary Aspinwall]

02:13 PM on 08/18/2011

No Shots No School is NOT True - A more accurate expression would be “No Shots or No Exemption, No School”.

Recommendations for vaccine use are issued by the federal government (Centers for Disease Control) but vaccine requirements and exemptions are a matter of state law and, while they vary from state to state, all 50 states have them. It is important to know your legal rights.
Medical Exemptions: all 50 states
Religious Exemptions: 47 states
Philosophical or Conscientious Belief Exemptions: 18 states
For detailed information on which vaccine exemptions are available in your state, please visit this Vaccine Laws and State Requirements web page. http://www.nvic.org/Vaccine-Laws/state-vaccine-requirements.aspx

[sandygottstein]

05:26 PM on 07/21/2011

For those of you who shamelessly disparage, ignore and/or dismiss virtually all VAERS data:
Level IV Evidence — Adverse Anecdote and Clinical Practice by Alison M. Stuebe, M.D.
N Engl J Med 2011; 365:8-9July 7, 2011
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1102632

PS There have been over 100,000 serious adverse vaccine-associate reactions reported to VAERS http://bit.ly/dX1rSm. We have no idea how many are actually caused by the vaccines or what number they might represent (estimates vary from between 10% and 100+% - http://bit.ly/feQ2Gu).

But we certainly should know. Isn't it time we ended the pretense and began seriously investigating the possible connections between vaccines and these oh-so-many vaccine-associated reactions, many occurring within hours or days of vaccination?

[John Richard Smith]

04:55 AM on 07/10/2011

New Scientist 2010 reports that Dutch researchers from the Dutch National Institute for Public Health are reporting changes in the Pertussis Bacteria strains.

"Vaccines are still made with strains isolated before the 1950s, he says. Mooi has evidence that circulating pertussis bacteria are mutating to evade vaccines, and producing more of a toxin that fights immunity."

Bordetella pertussis Strains with Increased Toxin Production Associated with Pertussis Resurgence - Mooi

"An important question is whether other childhood vaccines also select for pathogens that are more efficiently transmitted by primed hosts, resulting in increased virulence."

[John Richard Smith]

05:08 AM on 07/12/2011

"....Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteria called strain 19A, a growing threat to health that accounts for about 10 percent of the bacterial diseases. It became resistant to antibiotics about five years ago, Dr. Emini said, and is the major new strain attacked in the new product. "

[Dyson]

07:47 PM on 07/15/2011

There is more of this resistant strain, true, but it makes up a fraction of the invasive pneumococcal disease burden, and its "rise" is dwarfed by the massive overall reduction in invasive disease that has happened thanks to vaccination.

"However, the study found no evidence that infections caused by antimicrobial-nonsusceptible serotype 19A had different clinical syndromes or outcomes than infections caused by antimicrobial-susceptible 19A. Despite the lack of continuous surveillance data before PCV7 introduction, the overall stability of IPD incidence in Massachusetts during the study period indicates that the decline in IPD resulting from PCV7 introduction is being maintained (3,6). Furthermore, antimicrobial-nonsusceptible infections have not negated the positive impact of PCV7."
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5641a2.htm

Perspective, a sense of proportion, and an ability to look at the bigger picture.

Qualities severely lacking in some posters here.

[Josephius]

03:20 PM on 07/12/2011

Damn evolution! Because if we didn't vaccinate, nothing would evolve.

[BlackYowe]

02:15 AM on 07/07/2011

I had to get one, you can't get a tetanus shot without it in there anymore, It stinks!

[Dyson]

09:09 PM on 07/09/2011

Why do you need a tetanus shot? Don't you know diseases and infections are entirely right and natural, and our god-given immune systems will deal with them without any problem at all, and they will just make your body stronger?

[BlackYowe]

01:08 AM on 07/10/2011

Because I had deep puncture wounds and I live on a farm with horses. If you ever saw a calf twisted and dying with lock jaw you would go get the shot too.

[Dyson]

06:47 AM on 07/10/2011

Sorry, irony doesn't come accross well on a thread post - of course you need your tetanus shots, just like people need other vaccines too.
I was being facetious about the other claims in this thread that infections are not harmful and only make you strong, and your immune system will protect you.

[midlifecrysis]

12:00 AM on 07/06/2011

Oh, I'm so grateful I don't live in California. I'd be on the steps of the capital fighting this. Whooping cough ISN'T like it was in the 50's, it's treatable and doesn't leave side effects...I know, my mentally disabled daughter and my grandsons had it, were treated and are perfectly fine now. Sadly, my daughter had ONE whooping cough shot as a baby, and DIDN'T recover from it :( And those commercials that show that children get whooping cough from their parents is ridiculous!!!
SPEAK UP PEOPLE

[onionboy]

09:16 PM on 07/06/2011

Whooping cough was treatable in the 50s too...with antibiotics just like now. There's nothing "different" in the disease, just in some people's opinions.

[Dyson]

08:59 PM on 07/09/2011

Funny, it wasn't so "treatable" for the 10 babies who died in California.

[John Richard Smith]

04:48 AM on 07/10/2011

Many commentators here need to appraise the new research in this important area.

[Heather XW]

09:30 AM on 07/10/2011

Do you know the underlying health issues for these children?

[sandygottstein]

02:21 PM on 07/05/2011

Getting to the Point by Hilary Butler - "The increase in pertussis has nothing to do with the unvaccinated at all. It's all happening because doctors in Australia have finally woken up to the fact that pertussis can happen in vaccinated people and are testing for it."

http://bit.ly/kg7x3T

[onionboy]

11:18 PM on 07/05/2011

The fact that the pertussis vaccine is not 100% effective has been known since the outset. This is hardly news. It IS, however, much better than not being vaccinated.

http://www­.newswithv­iews.com/T­enpenny/sh­erri128.ht­m

She says in this article that 44-83% (depending on county) of cases in California were in people fully vaccinated­. But she also states that 98% of California­ns are fully vaccinated­. That means that just 2% of the population makes up 17-56% of the cases.

Those numbers clearly demonstrate that people not fully vaccinated against pertussis are at MUCH higher risk of infection than those who are fully vaccinated. By her numbers you're about 8-25x more likely to get whooping cough than if you're not fully vaccinated­.

So, according to Ms. Tenpenny's numbers, it's advisable for most people to vaccinate their kids.

[sandygottstein]

01:22 AM on 07/06/2011

That link didn't work for me.

[Dyson]

09:00 PM on 07/09/2011

See the video.
http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/stories/8259732/getting-the-point

The truth hurts.

[John Richard Smith]

11:01 PM on 07/09/2011

I couldn't follow your link so I used the search function for vaccines ...

http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/article/258761/the-jab-a-stab-in-the-dark

The Jab: A Stab in the Dark.

It was hailed as a miracle vaccine and it has virtually eradicated measles, mumps and rubella. It is the triple antigen called MMR.

Since its introduction 12 years ago, MMR has protected millions of children from the ravages of those childhood diseases......

But now But now there is a worldwide controversy over a possible and tragic side effect ...

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Or alternatively I found this ...

60 Minute video on whistleblower Cheryl Eckard

[sandygottstein]

03:20 AM on 07/05/2011

"Science becomes dangerous only when it imagines that it has reached its goal."
George Bernard Shaw

[Sonic hedgehog]

11:23 AM on 07/05/2011

what does this have to do with the vaccines? science has been improving the vaccines since the day one.

[Marsha McClelland]

12:41 PM on 07/05/2011

Thinking people, paying attention, know better, hedge. They are well able to get past all barriers working to dupe them. And that is the truth.

[sandygottstein]

12:49 PM on 07/05/2011

You wouldn't understand.

[onionboy]

11:12 PM on 07/05/2011

Science is all about questions. Therefore, there is no goal to reach, just an answer to one question on the way to an even more detailed one.

[sandygottstein]

08:45 PM on 07/06/2011

Yes, that's the way it should be.

[rikadarling]

10:09 PM on 07/04/2011

Look folks... the whooping cough vaccine has actually been shown to increase the number of cases of this disease... it doesn't work. Secondly the adjuvents added to this and other vaccines make them a deadly cocktail for your brain, body, immune and nervous system. Thirdly, you can opt out of getting this or any other vaccine in CA simply by having a philosophical difference with them. Just ask to opt out and they cannot deny you.

[Dyson]

09:06 PM on 07/09/2011

Citations needed.

[sandygottstein]

07:42 PM on 07/04/2011

I can't seem to post part 5 of the list of references either below or here. You can see them in my paper http://bit­.ly/exKSmI - numbers 84-94.

[sandygottstein]

08:14 PM on 07/04/2011

Part 5 showed up!

[zanmorgan1]

04:09 PM on 07/04/2011

It looks like there's a new pertussis in town. Our current vaccine isn't working as well anymore- for pertussis. It still works great for diptheria and tetanus. Which will KILL and PERMANENTLY damage your children.

[slejames]

02:32 PM on 07/04/2011

The massive level of ignorance prevalent in the comments here is simply appalling. It's horrifying that a movement based on a British doctor who engaged in fraud to further his company's medical aims by falsifying research in to one vaccine that was then hyped up by empty-headed fraud celebrity Jenny McCarthy (you people want to talk about facts, look up the history of things like her "Indigo Child" period she now tries to pretend didn't happen). While you're at it look at the actual evidence behind the "alternative health" industry.

The blind stupidity shown by all the anti-vaxers is far more dangerous to society than even the diseases spread by their push against vaccines.

[sandygottstein]

04:02 PM on 07/04/2011

slejames - I began studying vaccines in 1982 and have been finding substantial reason for concern ever since then. You show your prejudice rather than your knowledge when you diss an entire vaccine-safety/rights movement based on your hate-filled claims about Wakefield (and us).

Here's a paper I wrote in the late 80s/early 90s: Reasonable People Can Disagree: The rationale for allowing philosophical exemptions to vaccinations - Position Paper On Mandatory Vaccinations http://bit.ly/exKSmI

PS I had never heard of Wakefield when I wrote it.

[slejames]

06:15 PM on 07/04/2011

The mere fact that you'd call my invocation of REALITY in regards to Wakefield "hate filled" shows that you're divorced from any sanity or rationality on the issue.

I'm well aware that poorly informed & educated cranks such as yourself have been promoting hysteria and falsehoods about vaccines for years, and you all happily glommed on to Wakefield's falsehoods and McCarthy's celebrity hysteria to advance your idiocy. That doesn't make you or your ideas any more credible.

[sandygottstein]

07:28 PM on 07/04/2011

Part 1 - list of references in aforementioned 1989/1991 paper:

20. Toomey, James A. Reactions to pertussis vaccine. JAMA (Feb 12)1949,:448-450.

22. Anderson, Roy M. & May, Robert M. Vaccination and herd immunity to infectious diseases. Nature 318(Nov 28)1985,323-329.

25. Harris, F., Bush, G. & Lewis, Margo. (letter) The Lancet (Sept 1)1979, 472-473.

26. Bassili, W.R. & Stewart, G.T. Epidemiological evaluation of immunisation and other factors in the control of whooping cough. The Lancet (Feb 28)1976,471-474.

27. Miller,C.L., Pollock, T.M.& Clewer, A.D.E. Whooping-cough vaccination: an assessment. The Lancet (Aug 31)1974,510-513.

29. Terry, Luther L., Goddard, James L., et al. Oral poliomyelitis vaccines: report of special advisory committee on oral poliomyelitis vaccines to the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service. JAMA 190:1 (Oct 5) 1964,161-163.

30. Henderson, Donald A., Witte, John J., Morris, Leo & Langmuir, Alexander D. Paralytic disease associated with oral polio vaccines. JAMA 190:1(Oct 5)1964,153-160.

32. Burgess, Margaret A. Update on immunisation for measles, mumps, rubella and pertussis. Austr Fam Phys 15:4(April)1986,449-453.

34. Bloch, Alan B., Orenstein, Walter A. Health impact of measles vaccination in the United States. Pediatrics 76:4(Oct)1985,524-532.

35. Edmond, Elizabeth & Zealley, Helen. The impact of a rubella prevention policy on the outcome of rubella in pregnancy. Br J Obst Gyn 93(June) 1986,563-567.

[Sylmom]

12:26 PM on 07/03/2011

California has a Philosophical Exemption Law allowing parents to exempt their child based on personal beliefs against it. Parents do NOT have to have their child vaccinated in order to attend school in Californnia.

Cal Health & Saf Code § 120365 (2006)

§ 120365. Letter or affidavit stating beliefs opposed to immunization; Temporary exclusion from school

Immunization of a person shall not be required for admission to a school or other institution listed in Section 120335 if the parent or guardian or adult who has assumed responsibility for his or her care and custody in the case of a minor, or the person seeking admission if an emancipated minor, files with the governing authority a letter or affidavit stating that the immunization is contrary to his or her beliefs. However, whenever there is good cause to believe that the person has been exposed to one of the communicable diseases listed in subdivision (a) of Section 120325, that person may be temporarily excluded from the school or institution until the local health officer is satisfied that the person is no longer at risk of developing the disease.

[Marsha McClelland]

12:43 PM on 07/03/2011

True but the problem is that most parents don't know. And that's a "crying" shame.

[Sylmom]

12:48 PM on 07/03/2011

Yes, the loophole is that schools are not required to inform parents of exemption rights. Once a parent knows to ask about them, they are required to tell them their choices, but they are not bound to be the ones to tell them in the first place. That is why they can misinform parents with slogans such as "No Shots, No School". How is that for freedom on this holiday weekend?

[slejames]

02:27 PM on 07/04/2011

The shame is that it exists. It allows for idiocy & hysteria to cause herd immunity to break down because people believe garbage "science" about vaccines.

[Josephius]

05:54 PM on 07/03/2011

http://articles.sfgate.com/2011-06-30/bay-area/29720277_1_whooping-cough-100-day-cough-booster-shot

[Rita Abernathy Harris]

08:50 AM on 07/03/2011

If 10 is an epidemic, what in the world do you Call this Autism explosion? And before you say Autism doesn't kill, do your homework, it kills everyday! Also do your homework on this so called Whooping cough epidemic, The vaccine doesn't work as far as preventing it, it works as far as spreading it as in live virus.

[onionboy]

01:19 PM on 07/03/2011

I hope no parents of those kids read your post.

[Josephius]

05:37 PM on 07/03/2011

So, it's the number of deaths that defines the classification of epidemic, according to you?

It's not just the number of deaths that means anything. It's disability, it's hospitalizations, it's serious. Do your homework because it seems you havent been doing it at all.

[sabelmouse]

07:02 AM on 07/04/2011

of course the number of deaths define an epidemic .

[sabelmouse]

07:03 AM on 07/04/2011

or rather the number of cases, the number of death makes it a deathly epidemic.

[Marsha McClelland]

11:42 PM on 07/02/2011

Wow. What a find.

"News reports and studies exploding the whooping cough vaccine myth"

http://www.dailypaul.com/167931/a-collection-of-mainstream-news-reports-and-studies-exploding-the-whooping-cough-vaccine-myth

The deception & cover up has come to its end on this one as every one can see with all the proof & evidence so many posted here.

[Marsha McClelland]

11:30 PM on 07/02/2011

"OUTBREAKS PROOF THAT WHOOPING CAUGH VACCINES DON'T WORK"
By Dr. Tenpenny


http://www.newswithviews.com/Tenpenny/sherri128.htm

[onionboy]

01:30 PM on 07/03/2011

Here's also what Ms. Tenpenny says:

http://www.newswithviews.com/Tenpenny/sherri128.htm

Regardless of the title, she says in this article that 44-83% (depending on county) of cases in California were in people fully vaccinated. But she also states that 98% of Californians are fully vaccinated. That means that just 2% of the population makes up 17-56% of the cases. Wow. Think about that 2% of the population made up over half of the cases in certain cases.

Her numbers seem to show very strong evidence that vaccination works very well in the prevention of whooping cough. By her numbers you're about 8-25x more likely to get whooping cough than if you're not fully vaccinated.

Following Ms. Tenpenny's inadvertent advice...vaccinate your kids!!

[Jodi Bauter]

10:53 PM on 07/03/2011

my daughter's school nurses told me that whooping cough is going around despite vaccination....I thought vaccination was suppose to protect from whooping cough period? That it was suppose to eradicate it...I guess not....

[sandygottstein]

03:36 PM on 07/12/2011

For what it's worth, I have a different take on outbreaks and do not believe that they are particularly "proof that vaccines don't work".

Vaccine Effectiveness - An ineffective argument http://bit.ly/hCvRdl