Melb baby dies of whooping cough...

[nothing2lose]

I will be honest and admit I don't know much about the vax debate. My own child is fully immunized. But I can't help wondering how prolific and how deadly these diseases would be if no one was immunised. Even if they are not effective for absolutely everyone surely it is better for society if more people were vaccinated than not.

[nothing2lose]

I should also say as a child i watched my sister in months and months of agony while hospitalised with whooping cough. She had two tracheotomies and eventually died aged 18 months of a collapsed larynx. I will never forget the barking cough which was almost inhuman or her turning blue because she could not breathe. Nor will I forget my mum's scream when she found her after she had taken her last breath. So for me it is personal. I couldn't imagine not vaxing. To do so would somehow be disrespectful to both my sister and my mum.

[Dollyroux]

I am absolutely pro-vaccines. 100%. I do agree that big pharma need further scrutiny.
I was a fully vaccinated child who caught whopping cough AND mumps (early 80s, separate occasions) If I wasn't vaccinated, I may have likely died. Vaccinated children who catch the disease they were vaccinated against are more likely to get a milder form of the disease.


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[Inertia]

Have not read every reply so if this has been covered, then just ignore me.

A study in Canada (dealing with serious whooping cough outbreaks) has found that the best protection for newborns is for mum to be vaxed immediately after birth. It takes a week to two weeks (depending on if they were vaxed as a child) for the antibodies to develop. Then they pass that onto their baby in breast milk. So long as they stay bfed, baby is fed pertussis antibodies for 6 months until they finally work their way out of mums system.

But this is the thing, and this is why Vax is a con.

It trains your body to develop antibodies. In most cases this only reduces the severity and duration of the illness. It does not stop it all together. You can still catch it, you can still be contagious. All that is happening is your body is fighting it quicker and more efficiently because it has 'encountered' it before.

That said, I do not think it is my public duty to inject six diseases into my childs body even if they are 'inactive'. They can still get sick because the body is reacting how it will if they get the real disease. That is too much to ask of a 2 month old.

Yes, six in the one needle. NSW uses Infanrix Hexa.

I should probably add as it is probably relevant - I am a delay vaxxer who goes out of her way to find someone who does not use Hexa.

[*Sparklez*]

This is such a sad story and i can do nothing but symapthise with this family... that poor baby would of had the fight of his/her life and no one could help which is even worse...

I had Whooping cough when i was 18 and i had it for 3 months before anyone (dr) could tell me what was wrong with me.. i felt as though i was literally dying and thati would go into one massive coughing fit and die from suffocating of lack of being able to breathe through the cough i still am haunted by what i went through cause it was just devastating for me..
And also due to not knowing what i had and trying to be vigilant of my ds's at the time, my ds2 actually caught it and he was 1 yrs old.. Already having being vaccinated and also having lung problems he only caught a mild case but due to other complications he still suffered alot and was hospitalised in case he stopped breathing or his lungs collapsed due to the stress.. i was so frustrated and felt so guilty that he had caught it.. it was horrible..

When a person contracts whooping cough the dr's are actually meant to contact the health authorities in which contact you to get a list of whom you have been in contact with and who your children/partner have also been near.. you may carry the virus without even becoming ill.. Whooping cough is an actual airborn virus, from what i have been told all i had to do was cough into the air and the particules would do the work and infect someone else..

I have children who are all vaccinated and i would say im happy with it but i also second guess them, i know they arent 100% reliable but i know that if they get something it probably wont be as severe.
My kids have been vaccinated and have caught chicken pox my son had measles, also whooping cough.
But i dont condemn those who dont thats their choice.. and i respect it i have often thought of not vaccinating plenty, i also delay them dd is 3 months and only just got her 8 week shots yesterday..
I have 2 boys who react quite severly to immunisation and have since 8 weeks old but i do get scared if i dont vaccinate it will be my fault if they get something and dont survive..
Its always a lose/win situation and its definently scary.. you never know what will happen with or without vaccination..
sorry for babbling

[entreat]

, if your baby is vax'd then it wouldnt get it?

I'm not sure why you would assume that vaccinated people don't ever get the disease. I was vaccinated & I got whooping cough as a child. But unlike the unvaccinated kids in my class, I didn't get admitted into hospital. That's a really peculiar thing to assume as a Dr would never advocate that. It reduces the impact of the disease on the body as the body is primed to fight it better - it's not a force shield. I'm not sure why there is a misconception that, for a single person, to be vaccinated makes you 100% immune to the things you're being vaccinated against.

I'm also not sure why the article was claimed to be propaganda (except that it's in the Herald Sun!!). What if the family would like to spread the word about vaccinating because it might have saved their child? Isn't popular media a good choice to get the word out to lots of people? Pro-breastfeeding articles are in news papers (and magazines) more & mroe frequently. does that mean the ABA are scare-mongering? No, of course not! It's an effective way to get a message out to many people (1.3 million for the HS).

[Yeddi]

The definition of Propaganda - Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position.
As opposed to impartially providing information, propaganda, in its most basic sense, presents information primarily to influence an audience. "

The article didn't provide both sides, but is one sided and biased. It completely ignores ALL the studies that shows there is absolutely no clustering of outbreaks amongst the unvaccinated, yet blames the unvaccinated for spreading the disease. It ignores the fact that vaccination for some reason does not effect infection rates with a whopping 85% of whooping cough cases occuring in the fully vaccinated, and the bulk of the 15% unvaccinated are under the age of vaccination or elderly who are always the most vulnerable because of their immature immunes systems (which would be the case vaccinated or not). The article doesn't touch on the fact that vaccination can be ineffective, it doesn't touch on the side effects, but touts plenty of assumed and untested theory as fact, especially the holy grail of untested theories "heard immunity". Aka propaganda. Ethical news is meant to present binary facts, not push an agenda, otherwise it's not news anymore.

[nothing2lose]

The article didn't provide both sides, but is one sided and biased.

That's the Feral Scum for you....errrrr...I mean, the Herald Sun...

[entreat]

Yeah, what N2L said - it's the Herald Sun!! They have never published anything impartially.

So these 'absolutely no clusting of outbreaks' - how does that reconcile with polio rates in third world countries compared to polio rates in Australia?

[Marlene]

It trains your body to develop antibodies. In most cases this only reduces the severity and duration of the illness. It does not stop it all together. You can still catch it, you can still be contagious. All that is happening is your body is fighting it quicker and more efficiently because it has 'encountered' it before.

Well, that's good enough for me!!

[Yeddi]

Yeah, what N2L said - it's the Herald Sun!! They have never published anything impartially.

So these 'absolutely no clusting of outbreaks' - how does that reconcile with polio rates in third world countries compared to polio rates in Australia?

I said, "No clustering of outbreaks amongst the unvaccinated". This doesn't mean there isn't disease clusters (or areas/times where it is more prevalent) within general populations but that there isn't a higher ratio of infection amongst the unvaccinated as compared to the vaccinated within those populations. So say there was an outbreak in a population that had a 90% vaccination rate, logically you would think that a higher proportion of the 10% (i.e 70% of that 10%) of unvaccinated would catch the disease and less of the 90% (i.e. 30% of that 90%) would catch it, but this isn't the case. Clusters are actually occurring in the vaccinated not the unvaccinated... that should be concerning, but instead of investigating it, we get the "vaccines will mean you just get a milder case" which isn't always true either. A-typical measles (which only occurs in the vaccinated) is far more deadly than the original because instead of the pustules coming out on the skin, they occur on internal organs, and because it's not visible the same there can be a huge delay in receiving treatment.

Polio rates in third world countries are quite easy to reconcile, seeing they have a lack of resources/hygiene and nutritional issues (water/food/sanitation) and still, in general, use the OPV live polio vaccine. The reason IPV is used in Western countries is because we know that the OPV can actually give people polio.

[Miss.B]

RIP little bubba. So so sad

[Inertia]

Well, that's good enough for me!!

Yes, but the point is, it debunks the mythos that babies unable to be vaxxed are catching it because of the great unwash...er, unvaxxed. They can catch it from either.

[sunshine_sieben]

My heart goes out to this family and all others who have lost a child. No parent should outlive their child.

I know there are diseases that are beating vaccines at the moment, my niece was vaccinated against chicken pox and she still caught it this year from a kid from overseas. Then she exposed us to it as well. DS didn't catch it, presumably because he has been vaccinated and it did protect him in this instance. But doctors hardly ever see chicken pox now, when I was a child everyone expected to have it. So vaccines clearly do protect a huge number of people.

Doctors hardly ever see chickenpox... because you usually don't need to go to the doctor when you have chickenpox. My kids both had it. It didn't even occur to me to go to the doc unless there were complications - what for?

If anything - and I have discussed this with some European doctors at length - herd immunity might be WEAKENED in the long run with the chickenpox vax. This is why: when we were little most kids got chickenpox and developed natural LIFE-LONG immunity. These days, most kids get vaccinated which will wear off eventually. It is a fact that adults are pretty slack with getting boosters. So these vaccinated kids are quite likely to get chickenpox as adults, when it is a much worse disease. They might get it when pregnant or pass it on to newborns, too young to have been vaccinated. Or get it when they are older and immune suppressed.

While I am glad we got the chickenpox thing over and done with, I have seen firsthand that it is NOT true that vaccinated children get a milder form. My friends 2 boys and some of the other kids at kindy who caught it from them, had much more severe cases than mine (both not vaxed for CP). My 3yo only had one night where she was uncomfortable and took a pinetarsol bath. I gave her daily oatmeal baths for a few days, but that just cause I felt I should be doing something. She was her normal, energetic self. My son, who was just over 1 at the time had a few pustules but they seemed neither itchy nor did he have a temperature or anything. He slept well, ate well and if it hadn't been for the spots, I would have sworn he didn't have CP.

Also, my friend thought nothing of taking her (vaxed) younger son to kindy when her (also vaxed) older son had contracted CP at school. This is how CP got introduced into DD's kindy and it spread like wildfire within this mostly vaxed community. I on the other hand knew DD would be likely getting it from my friend's son, so I quarantined her before she was even symptomatic and then I quarantined DS before he showed symptoms (CP is the most infectious the from a couple of days before spots appear. So no-one could have caught it from us). Yes, it was soooo frustrating, essentially being stuck at home for a month. And it wouldn't be easy to do that when you have to work.
So, in my opinion, it is the NEED to send our children to daycare/school so that we can go to work that has to carry some of the blame for the rapid spread of diseases like this. Please know, I am not judging working mums or blaming them. But it is understandable that it is much harder to isolate a child on a mere suspicion when you have to try and keep a job.

I do agree with your anger towards people who come to see a newborn while knowingly sick. I don't understand that, that is just careless. I am in mo way someone to ask for virtual "sterility" around small children. But people have to use some common sense.

Sasa

I should ad: I am a partial vaxer. My kids have most of the common vaccines. But I decided against CP and I delayed HepB.

[Freya]

So sad

I choose to vaccinate my kids, I feel if it affords them the difference between illness or death then its worth the risk. So far we've been exposed to whooping cough, measles, chicken pox and mumps with none of us catching any of them. I guess we are lucky.

My GP actually told me when I had my WC booster last year that its ADULTS spreading the disease. Theyve noticed alot of adults in their 50's and older who are suddenly catching the disease even though they were vaccinated as children and realised that the vaccination must have worn off; allowing them to catch and spread the disease. Alot of these people are probably grandparents and have no idea theyre at risk of spreading the disease to children. Which is why they have now started the campaign for booster shots for all those adults who come into contact with kids on a regular basis.

I wonder how many people would think to just wander into their GPs office and have their immunity tested. I had it done for my nursing degree and have amazing immunity for everything from varicella to Hep B and C. I had to have no boosters whatsoever. I was vaccinated as per the schedule 26 years ago and caught chicken pox naturally at age 6. My sister just had to be tested in order to work in a healthcare setting as a social worker and she had to have boosters of Hep B, MMR and something else because her immunity was low enough to put her at high risk of contracting and spreading any of those diseases. So it proves the theory that different people get different immunity from the vaccines; we were both vaccinated the same yet I have the higher immunity.

[entreat]

It is a fact that adults are pretty slack with getting boosters.

I think most adults don't realise they need boosters. Vaccinations don't last forever, unfortunately.
I read on a poster in my Paed's office that something like 70% of infant WC cases are caught from their mother. I know how guilty I would feel if I gave my baby WC!

[trishalishous]

such a tragedy!
I really wish we had an adult vaxx schedule, so that people received boosters and provided the herd immunity for our kids! I had pertussis as a newborn, and was also vaxxed against it (delayed though) and I *STILL* dont keep immunity! I had a booster for DDs sake, but they dont think that it will "hold" in my body.
Still though an 85% chance of DD not getting sick/as sick is worth it for me.

[sunshine_sieben]

I remember when I was at my doctor's one of the interns said that she had had the Hepatitis shots 4 times and just doesn't develop immunity. How annoying would that be?