It’s that time of year when we should think about the grandparents’ vaccines before they meet and hold newborns. And also these vaccines protect them against their anti-vaccine relatives and friends!
According to the California Department of Public Health, infants who are too young to be fully immunized or those who are not vaccinated are most vulnerable to severe and fatal cases of pertussis. In 2014, 66 of the pertussis hospitalizations cases were children four months of age or younger. Two infants have died of pertussis in California during 2014. Continue reading “Why we vaccinate–to protect our children from pertussis”
One of the important hypotheses of vaccination is to make sure that all family members or others who may encounter a newborn child be vaccinated, especially since many vaccinations are not indicated for infants for a couple of months after birth–those newborns are very susceptible to vaccine preventable diseases until they themselves are vaccinated with the DTaP vaccine (which also protects against tetanus and diphtheria).
This protective “cocoon,” especially important with whooping cough (Bordetella pertussis), theoretically blocks the transmission of the disease to a newborn by creating a protective circle of vaccinated individuals around the newborn. A teenage sibling could catch the disease and accidentally infect the infant. Pertussis is bad enough for a teenager, but it can be deadly to a baby.
1 or 2 in 100 (1.6%) will have convulsions (violent, uncontrolled shaking)
Two thirds (67%) will have apnea (slowed or stopped breathing)
1 in 300 (0.4%) will have encephalopathy (disease of the brain)
1 or 2 in 100 (1.6%) will die
Even in adults, there are substantial complications, such as broken ribs from coughing, that can have a significant impact on the overall health of the individual.
One of larger concerns with recent outbreaks of pertussis has been that adults with lapsed immunity or unvaccinated older children may pick up the infection, then pass it to these unvaccinated or partially vaccinated infants (usually less than 1 year old).
As the report states, a child cannot be vaccinated with DTaP (the vaccine for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis) until they are about 2 months old. However, because infants are susceptible to whooping cough, all adults, children, friends, relatives, everyone, who is in contact with that child should be vaccinated against pertussis, a process called cocooning.
When an antivaccination militant says “my unvaccinated child won’t hurt your child”, this is where their lies are uncovered. For example, an unvaccinated older child may have whooping cough, and the parent take him or her to a pediatrician for the horrible cough, and that infected child passes it to other children.
According to a recent article in the Arizona Republic, the Arizona Senate’s Health and Human Services Committee has cleared a bill, SB 1108, that would allow parents, whose children aren’t fully immunized, an exemption to still get licensed to be allowed to care for foster children. There is an identical bill in the Arizona House, HB 2348, that is being heard in the House Reform and Human Services Committee.
Both proposed laws would eliminate any liability for the foster parents.
But wait! What would happen if these foster parents’ non-immunized children infected foster children who were not properly immunized? Or babies who are too young to be vaccinated, and who are protected from diseases like pertussis through cocooning, which is the strategy of protecting the baby from these diseases by vaccinating those individuals who are in close contact with them.
Am I missing something? Are we putting innocent children, those who are placed in the foster care system because of any number of problems, almost always not of their own fault, in harm’s way just to placate the antivaccination true believers? Even those parents whose children are exempt from vaccination for medical reasons do not have some inalienable right to caring for foster children, no matter how wonderful of parents they may be. I am empathetic to these parents who cannot vaccinate their children because of some medical reason (which is very rare), and who are willing to be foster parents, but why risk passing a disease to the foster child?
As I’ve said before, philosophical exemptions should be ended, they are being abused by individuals who are clueless about what vaccines do or don’t do. Religious exemptions should be ended, since there are but a handful of mainstream religions that are opposed to vaccinations. Vaccine exemptions are merely a method for vaccine denialists to get their way to not vaccinate their children using their misguided anti-science beliefs, and in the case of this law in Arizona, potentially harming innocent foster children.
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