Intro to Public Health - Blog 6

This week the entire class was assigned to read an article recently published in the Washington Post entitled “Whooping Cough Makes a Comeback.” While many people may think that whooping cough “is a disease of the past”, it has been becoming more and more prevalent over the past few years. In California alone, nine infants have already died this year while 600 more have become extremely ill. 4,100 cases have been reported in what people are calling the worst outbreak of pertussis in the state’s history since 1955.  The article discusses a couple of possible reasons for the spike in amount of cases. In California, it is much easier than in Maryland, for example, to a parent to refuse vaccination for their child. Although it has been discredited, many parents believe that vaccines can cause autism in their children. The article mentions that in 2009 in Marin County, an affluent county north of San Francisco, 13 percent of kindergarten parents refused vaccination of their children. Marin County is one of the highest infected counties of the year. Another possible cause listed by the article is the vaccine itself. In the mid-90’s the vaccines changed from acellular vaccines to whole-cell vaccines.  The whole-cell vaccines were effective against the cough but causes seizures, high fevers, and have been blamed for rare brain damage. The new vaccine does not always protect from the cough but patients often get lighter versions of the disease. The article does say, although, that increased vaccination is the best way to lower the increased rates of whooping cough. This refers to the public health theory of “herd immunity.” This is when the immunization of a certain amount of the population protects the portion of the population that has not been immunized. The more people that are vaccinated, the lower the chance a susceptible individual will come in contact with someone infected with the disease. While this theory is true to some extent, the more people that rely on this, the larger the portion of the population that does not have the vaccination.

There are a variety of reasons why a child would not receive a vaccine. Two reasons that originate from parents include fear of developing a disease like autism or too high of a reliance on the idea of “herd immunity.” A physician may discourage a vaccination because he or she has never seen it in any of their patients. The article actually mentions a woman who had whooping cough with an infant son and whose doctor told her she didn’t need to wear a mask because “we don’t see it anymore.” Reasons not to get immunized relating back to the healthcare system may be that a family simply can’t afford the shot because they don’t have a healthcare plan. 

Clearly, the priority of public health policymakers should be focused on increasing vaccine rates throughout the country.  In order to get this accomplished, strict restrictions on vaccinations must be made mandatory in every state. But even with these strict rules, parents will still be nervous. One way to deal with that would be to have some sort of database where they could read all the information pertaining to vaccines. Often parents base their fears off of silly rumors without really doing any thorough research.