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Idaho infant dies from whooping cough

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Duck

Posted: May 5 2012, 06:16 PM

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The crying shame here is that it's not the anti vacc idiots that are the victims. Maybe if a few of them died from a painful preventable disease they'd listen to the advice of medical professionals backed up by good science rather than some brain dead moron peddling a book based on fantasy and scaremongering.

QUOTE

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/05/...E84402520120505

(Reuters) - Whooping cough took the life of a 9-week-old girl from Idaho this week, the first death from an outbreak of the highly contagious respiratory disease that has hit Idaho, Washington state and Montana, health officials said on Friday.

Few details were available about the infant, who was treated for whooping cough at a hospital in Pocatello, Idaho, before being flown on Wednesday to a medical center in Salt Lake City, where she later died, hospital and state health officials said.

Washington state has seen 1,132 confirmed cases so far this year, up from 961 for all of 2011. Montana has also seen an alarming rise, with 99 cases so far this year, or about double the number recorded during the same period last year.

In Idaho, 31 cases have been reported since January. The state, where the per-capita occurrence has usually risen higher than the national average since 1987, recorded its last infant death from whooping cough in 2009.

The disease, also known as pertussis, causes severe coughing attacks and is especially dangerous for infants who are younger than a year old and have yet to complete the full cycle of vaccinations against the ailment.

Worldwide, it infects 30 million to 50 million people a year and kills about 300,000 - mostly children in the developing world.

The death in Idaho and the spike in whooping cough cases elsewhere have led health officials to renew a call for the vaccination of children, and boosters for adults who are in contact with babies and young children.

"When you have something as tragic as the death of an infant, it underscores the fact that there are really nasty, severe illnesses that vaccines can prevent," said Emily Simnitt, spokeswoman with the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare.

Idaho and Washington are among 20 states that grant so-called philosophical exemptions to vaccination.

In Ravalli County in western Montana, the number of school-age children who have gained exemptions on religious or medical grounds from vaccinations caused health officials there to request 115 students stay home for three weeks - a period slated to end May 13 - to avoid contracting whooping cough.

Historically, Idaho and other Western states have had lower immunization rates for children ages 19 to 35 months. But disease experts said there was no definitive link between those rates and outbreaks of preventable illnesses.

OMGBanana	Posted: May 5 2012, 08:12 PM
Banana Queen! Group: Members Posts: 1,654 Member No.: 122 Joined: 13-March 10	i think it should be illegal for parents to withold medical treatments from their child. if someone as an adult decides to not want specific kinds of treatment, then they should be able to, but it would be wrong to put a child at risk because of their parents beliefs.

Duck	Posted: May 5 2012, 10:01 PM
Advanced Member Group: Members Posts: 4,082 Member No.: 84 Joined: 11-June 09	In many cases it is. I remember the case of the parents who chose to treat their daughter with homoeopathic remedies for a blood infection rather than follow their GP's insistence that she be treated in hospital with antibiotics. They went to prison after she died. 270 years of failure to produce even 1 clinical trail success and people still put their lives in the hands of greedy, ignorant, self serving snake oil pedallers...aka the entire Homoeopathic profession. The Anti Vaccination supporters are even more dangerous though.

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