Has your child been immunized against whooping cough?

The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that a 10th infant has died in California’s whooping cough epidemic.  The 10th victim, a 6-week-old in San Diego County, passed away last week. Continue reading »

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Whooping cough epidemic: blame Jenny McCarthy?

CNN is reporting that a ninth baby has died in California from the whooping cough epidemic.  “All nine infants were under three months of age,” according to the Department of Public Health.  The LA Times reported earlier that the first eight cases of infant death from pertussis had all been misdiagnosed.

There have been 4,017 cases of whooping cough in California this year, more than in any year since 1955.  Some doctors are readily admitting that they feel this outbreak is directly related to “parents who have shied away from vaccinating children due to fears, albeit unfounded, that there is a connection between vaccines and autism.”  Medical journal Pediatrics agrees.  Is Jenny McCarthy to blame? Continue reading »

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Exciting news for gay and lesbian couples in California!  The Wall Street Journal reports that San Francisco Federal Judge Vaughn Walker “lifted the stay on his ruling from last week, in which he found that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.”  Meaning that gay marriage ceremonies can once again be performed in California, starting August 18th.  In the six days between now and then, Proposition 8 supporters will surely appeal.

It’s heartening to note that, “Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown had urged Walker to permit same-sex marriages to resume.”  The other vocal supporters of gay marriage?  The children of gay parents. Continue reading »

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Strollerderby reported that whooping cough has been an epidemic in California since the end of June, but many parents have still not vaccinated their kids.  Marin County, one of the most affluent areas in the golden state, “currently accounts for about 15 percent of all reported whooping cough cases in California,” according to The New York Times. 

Why?  Parents there tend to be against vaccinating their children.  ”Of 58 counties in the state, Marin is ranked seventh — and No. 1 in the Bay Area — in parents’ choosing not to get their children the immunizations required for kindergarten. Some 7 percent of kindergartners in the county had a personal belief exemption in 2009,” the Times reports, and 13 percent of kindergartners had not been vaccinated against whooping cough.

Whooping cough, also known as pertussis, “is among the most common vaccine-preventable diseases in the United States,” per the CDC.  However, the Times notes that “the vaccine is not a cure-all; it does not always prevent the disease, and booster shots are needed to retain immunity.”  Pertussis cases are on the rise in neighboring Arizona as well, and officials are urging parents and children to get the vaccine or a booster.

We’ve talked a lot about parents who think the CDC’s vaccine schedule needles kids too much and too soon.  But in the event of an epidemic, do these parents have a cultural and social responsibility to vaccinate against the ubiquitous disease?  Continue reading »

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Health officials in California are recommending that expectant parents talk to their doctors about a pertussis booster after seeing a rise of whooping cough cases in the state.  The disease peaks every five years, and California has seen a spike in cases  — three times as many as they’d expect to see this time of year.

Young, immunized children are protected against whooping cough through the DTaP vaccine, but experts say that protection starts to wear off by middle school.  And since infants under two months aren’t vaccinated against the disease, they’re the most vulnerable population in an outbreak.  In 2005, the last time cases spiked, there were 3,182 verified cases with 574 hospitalizations and seven deaths.  At least infants have died so far this year from whooping cough.

From CNN:

“Because pertussis vaccination does not begin until two months of age and infants are not fully immune until after six months of age, the only way to protect young infants is to do everything we can to minimize their exposure,” said Mark Horton, director of the California Department of Public Health. “This means ensuring that their parents and caregivers are immunized.”

Here’s the good news for pregnant moms: The vaccine can be safely given before, during, and after pregnancy. Since researchers say that half of infected infants catch whooping cough from their parents, vaccinating all caregivers is the safest way to protect a newborn from the disease.

According to Google Health, whooping cough is a “highly contagious bacterial disease that causes uncontrollable, violent coughing. The coughing can make it hard to breathe. A deep “whooping” sound is often heard when the patient tries to take a breath.” Symptoms start out similar to the common cold, with severe coughing 10 to 12 days after symptoms start. It’s treated with antibiotics, but very young children need close supervision until they are fully recovered.

Photo: USACE Europe District, Flickr

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Annie, Get Your Gun!

That was the response of a heroic Orange County, California mom, when a neighbor’s dog attacked her six-year-old daughter yesterday morning.

The girl and her three-year-sister were playing in their home’s driveway in the suburban community of Lake Forest, when a local dog, described variously in press accounts as a boxer or pit bull , attacked the older child.  Neighbors and the child’s mom and one and fourteen-year-old brothers heard the screams, and rushed outside.

A combination of a neighbor spraying Windex in the dog’s eye’s and the older brother punching the dog allowed the mother to pull the girl away from the dog, but not before the child was bitten seven times. But the dog wasn’t done with the family. As they attempted to reach their home and safety, the crazed dog attempted to attack them again, lunging at them and snapping at the pants legs of the one-year-old boy.

And that’s when mom snapped. Continue reading »

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Is there any question more fraught than what age kids should start kindergarten? Yes, probably. But not this time of year. Parents of children born between June and January have to face it at least once in their lives — is this the year we send Junior off to kindergarten or should we red-shirt and pack him off when he’s older?

I never thought I’d get caught up in this discussion — my two daughters were born in the safe and unambiguous month of March — but then I had my son. Early December. What to do, what to do.

We live in California, which has some of the youngest kindergarteners in the nation, thanks to its age of entrance cut-off date of Dec. 2. Nearly one quarter of California kindergartners start school at 4. A bill in the Legislature could change the cut-off date to Sept. 1, and bring California in line with most of the rest of the country.

And make my decision for me. Continue reading »

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