By Stan Matthews
County Website and Communications Manager
San Juan County Health officials are urging the County’s residents to make sure all adults and older children who come in contact with very young children are immunized against the disease pertussis, also known as Whooping Cough.
County Personal Health Manager Susan Leff noted that many residents of San Juan County, young and old, have suppressed immune systems and depend on “community immunity” to protect their health.
The “Tdap” vaccine, which provides protection from the Pertussis, is covered by most health insurance plans. Children under the age of 19 can also receive publically supplied vaccine through a health care provider at a reduced cost. And to insure that lower income, uninsured residents can be immunized, the San Juan County’s Health and Community Services Department has obtained several doses of the vaccine which it will administer for just the $20 cost of an office visit.
The local concern is great in the wake of the state Health Department’s report that, statewide, whooping cough has reached epidemic levels. More than 640 cases have been reported in 23 Washington Counties through the end of March. The disease is blamed for infant deaths in Snohomish and Grant counties.
Though pertussis cases were found in San Juan County in October and November, it has not reappeared here so far this year.
“With our residents traveling regularly to the mainland, we have been fortunate to avoid another flare-up of infections,” Leff said.
She said that whooping cough vaccines are recommended for all adults and for children over 12 months of age. The disease has cold-like symptoms and is highly contagious. Its long, severe cough can last for weeks and it is most dangerous for babies, though it can cause serious health problems for people of any age. The Tdap vaccine provides a high level of protection, but infants younger than 6 months cannot be inoculated which, according to Leff, is why it is extremely important that the people around them keep their vaccinations up to date.
Local residents who cannot afford to pay for the Tdap vaccine are encouraged to contact the Health Department at: 378-4474 to see if they qualify for the subsidized vaccination program.
When whooping cough went through the islands about 4 years ago, I contracted it…Of course, I had the vaccine as a child but it did not protect me…
I have never, ever been so sick in my life…I couldn’t even imagine an elderly person or an infant suffering through that. I would cough until I threw up, I could not sleep, had to be upright in a Laz-E-Boy, just to breathe and get maybe an hour of rest at a time. It hurt so much to cough, I had to grab me knees and get into a ball. I would cry from the pain.
I lost 5 weeks of work! Five weeks!
It is serious and often fatal and painful to suffer through…
Please protect yourselves and your children.
Vaccines are really incredibly dangerous and another Arm of the medical industry in this Country who profit from the sickness and dis-ease they help to create.
Before you vaccinate your child or yourself be sure to do your homework! Read about it in this link below from WantToKnow.info:
https://www.wanttoknow.info/060215vaccinesmercurydangers
In utmost sincerity, honesty, and integrity, Domenic Verbano.
Vaccines are NOT dangerous! This is ridiculous. By all means educate yourself, but make sure you find reliable sources of information that fairly cover all sides of the issue. Vaccines have saved countless lives and very rarely cause serious side effects. Nobody wants to go back to pre-vaccine days when large swaths of population died or suffered permanent impairment from smallpox, measles, rubella, tetanus, whooping cough, polio, etc. — all before the era of “the medical industry.” Washington state has one of the lowest rates of childhood vaccination in the US, and one of the highest rates of preventable childhood diseases. Go figure.
The “Want to Know” link about references “mercury” in vaccinations. Thimerosal is a mercury-containing organic compound (an organomercurial). Since the 1930s, it has been widely used as a preservative in a number of biological and drug products, including many vaccines, to help prevent potentially life threatening contamination with harmful microbes. HOWEVER, Thimerosal has been removed from or reduced to trace amounts in all vaccines routinely recommended for children 6 years of age and younger, with the exception of inactivated influenza vaccine.
NONE of the pertussis-containing vaccines used in the United states contain thimerosal preservative. For information on the thimerosal content in these vaccines, see the Food and Drug Administration at http://www.fda.gov/cber/vaccine/thimerosal.htm#t3
I did not know that. Tdap is using 2-phenoxyethanol as a preservative, “In fact, a data sheet for this chemical provided by Oxford University states: ‘Harmful if swallowed, inhaled or absorbed through the skin. May cause reproductive defects. Severe eye and skin irritant.'”
I would not rely on the FDA for accurate information, yes they are the “official” source for food and drug facts, but if you peer beneath the surface they are in collusion with big business.
An article concerning this is at:
https://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-42844396/fda-corruption-letter-authenticated-lawyers-start-your-engines/
Another article on the same story from a different news source:
https://www.naturalnews.com/025827_scientists_FDA.html
“Reuters reveals that whooping cough outbreaks are HIGHER among vaccinated children compared with unvaccinated children. This is based on a study led by Dr. David Witt, an infectious disease specialist at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in San Rafael, California.”
https://www.naturalnews.com/035466_whooping_cough_vaccines_outbreaks.html
Yet another excellent collection of mainstream news articles about vaccine dangers:
https://www.wanttoknow.info/vaccinesnewsarticles
It really does pay to be informed.
Cherry-picking findings from individual studies out-of-context that happen to conform with your pre-existing biases is not a good approach to critical thinking.
When evaluating “science” provided by those arguing against vaccination, it is useful to be familiar with some of the indicators that you are being sold pseudo-science instead:
1. Belief in authority: It is contended that some person or persons have a special ability to determine what is true or false. Others have to accept their judgments.
2.Nonrepeatable experiments: Reliance is put on experiments that cannot be repeated by others with the same outcome.
3.Handpicked examples: Handpicked examples are used although they are not representative of the general category that the investigation refers to.
4.Unwillingness to test: A theory is not tested although it is possible to test it.
5.Disregard of refuting information: Observations or experiments that conflict with a theory are neglected.
6.Built-in…
(sorry, that seems to have been cut off):
6.Built-in subterfuge: The testing of a theory is so arranged that the theory can only be confirmed, never disconfirmed, by the outcome.
7.Explanations are abandoned without replacement. Tenable explanations are given up without being replaced, so that the new theory leaves much more unexplained than the previous one.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-science/#SciPse