May 14, 2012
Is Glenn Reynolds Right About The NYT Whooping Cough Story?
Here's his post,
where he argues that the Times reporter tried to impose a narrative on our
whooping cough epidemic that doesn't fit the facts.
Who's right? (Extra credit for those who bring personal experiences or actual
numbers to the disccusion.)
Posted by Jim Miller at May 14, 2012
07:37 AM | Email This
1. Whooping Cough central is in the illegal community. That's why it started with Snohomish County mexican infants and now ground zero is in Skagit among illegals. It is also why King County is offering free vacinations in Burien where the illegal community is large and why every PSA on Whooping Cough features Mexicans.
Since we have no idea what diseases illegals are carrying or what vacination they have had, we'd be better off spending more money stopping the traffic of illegals and deporting the ones here. We are experiencing the return of illnesses long conquered becuase apparently our betters don't give a damn. Don't expect that to change. They will never mandate medical checks for those suspected of illegal entry. That would be profiling and that would be bad...cough cough
2. My spouse has a cousin who lives in North Seattle, and they are one of these liberal couples who refuse to vaccinate their children. Both kids are under 5 years old, and it makes me angry that they put their children at risk like this.
It's absolutely not a budgetary issue, vaccines can be had for little or no cost. It's the result of these people who have bought into the Jenny McCarthy scare mongering about vaccines.
3. So the article gets around to mentioning that vaccine refusal is behind this. Hmmm
4. There has been at least one fatality in this NW epidemic -- a nine-week-old Idaho infant, if memory serves. The medical risk to the unvaccinated extends beyond just those individuals, of course. This is the infectious disease concept of "herd immunity."
Whether there is a special risk factor with the illegal cohort is an interesting assertion, about which I'd welcome hard data.
I worry about scientific "illiteracy" and the rising influence of junk science. This week, for example, the long-running NAEP science test results for American middle-school kids gave one-third a passing grade. And that dismal result is consistent with recent years.
All three of my sons -- now grown -- received a full complement of vaccinations then available.
5. Hey, I know where King County has $6.1 MILLION they could spend on this health 'crisis'. A mammoth concrete overpass out here east of Redmond for animals to appease the environmental left is an utter waste of money. If we're going to tax and spend money we don't have, maybe we could spend it on HUMAN BEINGS?
Seriously, my wife is a teacher and says this Whooping Cough 'crisis' comes every other year or so. They just keep the kids out of school and it goes away. But the left is always looking for a good crisis to exploit for more taxes and spending. Whooping Cough is as good as any other. Maybe better, as it does have a basis in reality, unlike man raping the Rainforests, man destroying the Ozone, or man-made Global Warming drowning Polar Bears.
6. At least 2 kids in my son's grade at school have been diagnosed with pertussis so far this year. If this is caused by government cutbacks, I haven't seen any evidence of it. These are not disadvantaged families by any measure and I believe the kids had been vaccinated at the proper age. My son's pediatrician told us that the vaccine is only 85% effective and wears off over time. He says the disease comes around every once in a while and non-vaccinating parents are a big problem. Washington has one of (if not the) lowest rates of vaccination in the country and parts of greater Seattle lower still.
Get the booster shot, folks. I got mine at my neighborhood Walgreen's. It only took 10 minutes and even my high-deductible insurance paid for the whole thing (which isn't that much anyway).