Whooping Cough

The government is declaring an epidemic in the state of California for an increase in cases of whooping cough.

My first thought is of how they declared the swine flu epidemic last year.

I see that they try to create a panic. The attempts to control the public & get them to do what they want (vaccinate) they use fear to do so. If they scare the people enough the people will give in & accept just about anything. (I am reminded of the whole 911 issue in regards to this, but I don't want to get that far off topic)

I would bet some serious money that there is another reason behind them pushing the whooping cough deal. They have an excess of vaccine sitting around or some other reason like that.

Now there are more cases than usual of whooping cough in the state of California, but of the 900 & something cases there have only been 5 deaths. And those deaths were all in children less than 3 months old.

As a nurse I know that whooping cough is most dangerous for those less than 3 months old & it's still somewhat of a risk for anyone less than 1 year old. My first thought is that no vaccine is ever going to protect a child less than 3 months old. The whooping cough has a series of 3 or 4 vaccines (it varies depending on which schedule you're following). Full immunity is not achieved until all of those shots are given, which certainly isn't going to be at less than 3 months of age. Sure you can argue that even if your kid doesn't DIE it can still get sick. But I have to scratch my head & wonder about everyone acting like getting sick is such a bad thing. I was sick as a kid, many times as I recall. It's a normal part of life & helps build the immune system. It's the way God designed it. There's nothing abnormal or wrong about getting sick. And we are way too rushed in this day & age & country--and I very strongly dislike this attitude I see of not having time to deal with sickness, especially for a parent to not have time to deal with a sick child. That's just totally ridiculous to me.

I know that in the Mexican culture (at least in the old days) you weren't supposed to take a baby out of a house until it was at least 3 months old. This may sound silly & it may be hard to do in this day & age & country, but it really is good advice. By keeping the baby at home you decrease all the germs it will be exposed to out in public, etc during the early days when it's immune system is weakest. I know there's the other side of the fence that likes to argue that exposing the child to germs builds the immune system. And I do agree, up to a point. Being exposed to germs DOES build up the immune system, but I don't think it's a good idea to just let them be exposed to absolutely everything under the sun. There are some really deadly man-made germs out there these days. I personally was not able to keep little J at home at all when he was brand new. Life was just too busy & I had to go grocery shopping & banking & other errands, etc & of course there was church. He's been in a church nursery since he was 6 days old!

And my second thought in regards to the whooping cough issue is this: the vast majority of adults are no longer immune to whooping cough. You must get a booster shot every 10 years to maintain immunity. So I have to wonder, & I am quite irritated about, the govt pointing the finger at unvaccinated kids spreading whooping cough when all these adults are perfectly capable of spreading it to all kids that are unvaccinated & also those too young to have completed their vaccine series.

I am sure there will be some who think I only feel this way because little J is already over a year old & out of the supposed danger zone. But I can assure you that is not the case at all.

I did stop to consider what I would do if little J was a newborn RIGHT NOW with this going on. Would I change my mind & get him vaccinated? But no, I wouldn't. To me our biggest risk is the nursery at church. When we were at our last church little J got sick from there twice I think. Of course the system there was not very good in retrospect. You weren't allowed to take children into the sanctuary & the so-called "family friendly" overflow building asked us to take him to the nursery the one time we went there with him. And no one at the nursery ever spoke up if an obviously sick kid came through, especially if it was a pastor's kid, etc.

Here at our new church they turn away obviously sick kids & kids are welcome in the sanctuary (though they do ask you to sit in the back & they have seats reserved in the back for parents with kids). While little J had the chicken pox we left him at home with big sister for 3 weeks because he was contagious, but once all his scabs were off we went back, he was no longer contagious. They have a pager system here & not even 5 minutes after we dropped him off they were paging us. We went back & they had him in a quarantine room (with one of the nursery workers holding him, he was totally calm & fine about it, they didn't do it in a way that scared him) & they wanted to know what all the spots on him were. They said they couldn't have him with the other kids until they knew what they were dealing with. Once we explained that he had just had the chicken pox they were totally fine, but we were glad to see how thorough they are.

Anyways, back to the point. When little J was a newborn the whole swine flu thing was going on. I did take him to the nursery (at our old church even), which was a risk, I just prayed over him each time & when I went out in public, like grocery shopping, he was in his car seat & I would put a thick blanket over it to try to keep any germs flying through the air away from him, since flu is airborn transmission (so is whoopping cough). I know that the germ particles are small enough to pass through a blanket, but at least it's one extra layer of protection, better than having nothing there at all.

That's my ranting for now, I just wanted to share my thoughts (& possibly give an alternate way of looking at the govt's doings) on the whole whooping cough issue that's going on.