Whooping cough outbreak at S.C. college (Bob Jones)

[maseman]

Source: MSNBC/AP

GREENVILLE, S.C. - Sixteen students at Bob Jones University have or are suspected of having whooping cough, leading officials to end the fall semester about a week early, officials said.

The college ended its semester Friday and canceled several public events.

“Based on information from health officials we do not believe the illness will spread as our students go home to their families,” university spokeswoman Carol Keirstead said.



Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22169547/

---

Probably due to the fact that the kids there are screwing each others brains out. You know the more fundamental, the more you push back.

[Hand]

1. Hmm... maybe God has a sense of humor after all. nt

[stray cat]

2. spread like the flu (ie not sexually transmitted)

[maseman]

20. When two people are invading their own personal spaces

it is much easier to share a virus like the flu. Of course it isn't sexually transmitted.

[kestrel91316]

56. French kissing is particularly effective at spreading this sort of thing.......

[AngryAmish]

3. Stupid anti-vaccination fundys

How many of these kids were home schooled? I bet a lot.

Vaccines work. Whooping cough sucks and can kill. But the selfish anti-science fundys don't get their kids vaccinated. Morons.

[stray cat]

5. The vaccine wears off and so pertussis is infecting more adults

previously vaccinated adults. Nearly 20% of bronchitis cases are currently believed to be due to pertussis break throughs in previously vaccinated individuals.

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pertussis-guide/downloads/chapter1.pdf
Pertussis may occur among
persons at any age regardless of vaccination status and may be relatively common among
adolescents and adults,21,22 although infants aged <1 year have the highest rates of
reported disease.1,3

[shraby]

9. For the most part the wearing off of

the pertussis vaccine is due to age..the ones who are in their 50's and 60's are vulnerable and could use a booster.

[Hekate]

11. I thought it was older adults who were most affected, rather than late teens...

...and by older adults I mean us baby boomers. Our parents were told the DPT series conferred lifetime immunity. The parents of the baby boom generation were all-too-familiar with how deadly "childhood diseases" can be, and they thought vaccinations were a gift from God via Science.

The anti-vaccination fad came along later, so these teens and early-twenties college students were very likely never vaccinated in the first place.

Hekate

[stray cat]

12. Me too until I was diagnosed with it and checked out the CDC info

[jmm]

42. My junior year of high school it spread around

many of the schools in my city. Maybe it did affect some adults but the only people I knew who got it were junior high and high school students and some of them were vaccinated.

[Changenow]

45. Vaccinated school age children

can get it now, my son caught it when he was in the fourth grade. Because he was vaccinated it took forever to diagnose, and that was before it was as common as it is now. The germ is most dangerous to infants and babies. Antibiotics can stop the spread to others, but unless it is caught rather early it takes forever to heal.

[havocmom]

49. A few years ago, they found teens were getting it again

Vaccine seems to work about 10 years or so is what doctors were guessing.

Lots of hospitals in our state decided to limit visits to people three years ago, due to the high rate or Pertussis they found out there in the general population. Would suggest there has been a lot of it for years and doctors were not even considering it due to the belief the vaccine had it out of the mix.

[rexcat]

62. I have seen entire families come down with pertussis...

Moms, dads, adolescent children along with the infants. It usually is only a problem with infants. About 20% of the infants who come down with whooping cough will die. Another 40% will have brain damage (mild to severe in nature). Another 20% will have other sequelae leaving about 20% with no issues. Even if you are vaccinated you can come down with the disease but it is usually very mild because the vaccine protects you from the toxins but not from being infected with the bacteria. Patients are treated with erythromycin but patients are usually diagnosed to late and the disease runs its entire course. Erythromycin is given just to eliminate the bug from the respiratory tract so others won't be infected even if diagnosed too late.

There are some very interesting studies done in Australia showing that 20-40% of chronic bronchitis with coughs are caused by Bortetella pertussis (whooping cough bug).

Whooping cough is usually seen sporadically across the country. Communities will have epidemics of whooping cough. The herd immunity thing kicks in and it will pop up somewhere else. Also there are asymptomatic carries in the general population that keeps the bug going.

On edit: I also saw an older women with pneumonia on a ventolator who was diagnosed with whooping cough. I think she was in her early 50's at the time.

[AngryAmish]

14. Yikes, I didn't know it wore off

Aren't college kids supposed to get boosters?

[slackmaster]

52. When I entered college, proof of various vaccinations was required for admission

I believe a recent pertussis booster was one of them.

[kestrel91316]

57. That probably explains a couple of REALLY nasty "colds" that

I have suffered through in recent years. You know, the kind where you honk like a goose and think you are gonna cough your lungs out for WEEKS, and the cough lingers and lingers and lingers.

I jokingly call it Whooping Cough when I get it, and lol, now it turns out it probably is........

[depakid]

6. That was my thought exactly

I also think that "relgious beliefs" ought NOT to be something one can show their schools as a excuse for willfully failing to vaccinate one's kids (which in effect, is child neglect).

As with many deals that Fundy's push -this affects the public health, i.e. everyone's health.

[Windy]

7. I agree. We will be seeing a lot more new outbreaks of these diseases that were eradicated

Its a shame that ignorance trumps science and common sense.

and I know that there are a lot of anti-vaccination proponents here at DU so my asbestos suit has been donned!

But this is a perfect example of the dangers of non vaccinating your children. Luckily these are college age kids that have a better chance of fighting it off as there lungs are more developed.

[AngryAmish]

15. let them flame, they are morons

I have great contempt for anti-vaccination nutters. Many stupid crazy people only hurt themselves. These folks are actually dangerous to many people.

[havocmom]

50. I know lots of people who ended up with pertussis in the past 6 years

Every one of them HAD BEEN VACCINATED. Problem is we were all told the vaccine lasted a lifetime. Even doctors thought so. So, how many thousands (tens of thousands more likely) cases were misdiagnosed due to the belief it couldn't be pertussis as the patient had been vaccinated?

Spread was due more to misconceptions (especially on the part of medical practitioners) that It can't be pertussis, we've eradicated it with vaccine. If the doctors didn't recognize and treat it correctly, we all spread it around. Hey, we all got those shots that said we would never get this nasty disease.

My guess is, without the internet and frustrated sick people doing their own casual research then asking their doctors questions, we still wouldn't be aware of the resurgence of this disease and the fact that the vaccine needs boosters throughout life.

[kimmerspixelated]

13. People should have the right to refuse vaccinations.

Maybe they don't believe in playing russian roulette.

[AngryAmish]

16. That is a dangerous idea

It gets people killed.

[kimmerspixelated]

19. You are way off base with a retort like that.

[comtec]

22. NO HE'S NOT

oops caps, sorry.
It is idiotic NOT to get vaccinated against what were once very common, killer diseases!
I know this bullshit about vaccines killing you has been out there a very long time, it started..
late 70's early 80's? It was only fringers back then, and my parents, thank god, have always been too sensible for this kind of dangerous nonsense... and they're bloody christian scientists! (reformed ;) )

I won't deny that the chance of getting a bad vaccination is slight, minute, but does exist. The chance of it making yuo sick is slim, of it actually killing yu is even smaller, the chance of whooping cough, mumps, and teh rest of killing you if yu get then is VERY HIGH!

You are not just endangering your OWN life, however (selfish pricks - not meaning anyone in particular REALLY!) you are endangering the population at large!

If you manage to somehow get one of these really evil bugs, you would then spread it too their who may have been under vaccinated, or whose vaccination has run it's life cycle (say OLD PEOPLE!), or other nutters who distrust vaccinations!

I'm not saying the possibility doesn't exist, but compare that to the very real mass death caused, and is being caused by these assholes who didn't take proper care of their children, and possibly themselves, and all the people who WILL DIE FROM THIS!

Also consider recent immigrants who have not had the benefit of our medical system (fucked up as it is) since childhood, who don't even have a old, tired vaccination to help them survive, who will ALSO DIE HORRIBLY!

SO... consider it.. it's not just your life you are seriously risking and that of your family, and children, their friends, and their families, et al, but of innocents, dozens, maybe even hundreds or thousands of them!

I will not be polite on this subject, because it's pure egotism, that ANYONE would comp,lain about the medical technology that we have access to, and say, "well we're better off with leeches, than trusting this voo doo called vaccinations". I simply turn away from anyone who says that, for they are truly lost, and belong with the Amish, because they hav no place living in the modern world.

I believe vaccinations is one of the areas the government will make sure you are taken care of because it's a hell of a lot cheaper than trying to control a epidemic!

I seriously hope anyone who is crazy enough not to get proper vaccinations never travels outside the us, or has their family exposed to these once common diseases. I sincerely hope your families are safe, and take extra precautions to prevent infections. May god protect you because literally nothing else is.

[DLnyc]

29. You must be absolutely, completely, 100% perfectly totally correct about

that. There certainly, absolutely never could ever be a vaccine promoted that did more harm than good, either by killing a percentage of those vaccinated, or by conferring incomplete immunity to large numbers who later get a worse disease. As you point out, this absolutely positively completely 100% could never ever happen.

(Unless, of course, reality turns out to be more subtle than you think.)

[comtec]

30. never said it was 100% did I?

but it's close enough.
I know when it's YOUR family member who didn't take to the vaccine good it doesn't matter.
But statistically, it's insignificant if one person out of 100, or 10,000 is ill or worse.
The good on society as a whole out weighs that reality.
My wife is diabetic, so this isn't even a possibility, even if we were crazy enough to consider it.
Every time she's ill (which is frequent in this cold, wet country I'm in) I'm worried.
Her immune system is automatically partially damaged from being Type 2 (insulin dependent, still get them mixed up).
So I'm quite aware of the risks. Every time she gets her flu shot she get ill for a day form it, every time!
But the alternative is full blown flu which could very well kill her!
I know the fucking risks!
I also know that self centered assholes that DON'T get vaccinated could very well KILL MY WIFE!

There will be deaths from this, and it's not the kids, but the parents' fault, and there will be innocent deaths, from people who happened to be in the same airport, bus station, train station, McDonalds, et all who will DIE because they thought like you, "oh no there's a really tiny chance something could maybe go wrong, so let's not do it!" and they are directly responsible for those deaths, quite directly! just like everyone who voted for * and co, after the truth about them was quite evident.

God be with you, because I can't.

[mainer]

48. Non-vaccinated kids kill or maim other kids.

It drives me crazy when parents won't let their kids be vaccinated against rubella. It's THEIR children who can then infect pregnant women, causing serious fetal malformations.

We can talk all want about being humanitarians. Yet when it comes down to vaccination, the refusal to vaccinate your children means they endanger everyone around them. Yes, your kid may not suffer greatly if he happens to come down with a childhood illness. But he can spread it to other people who may die of it.

[Lurking Dem]

53. There used to be a belief

that the public good trumped individual convenience.

Alas, that is no longer a prevailing sentiment.

[kimmerspixelated]

55. One thing that definitely kills

a lot of folks and possibly those that live with them is STRESS! You need to get a major grip on yourself. Reread my post!

I merely said, that a person should have the right to refuse the vaccination if they wanted to- to those people who want to refuse it may be as if they are dodging the roulette table.

I forgive your horrendous insults, because you obviously have issues, and are extremely afraid you will catch something because some "prick" decided not to take a chance!

I haven't refused a vaccine yet, but I no longer engage in flu shots, but I will NOT stand behind Big Pharma when it comes to plugging vaccines like Gardisil for my daughter. They HAVE killed many already and I don't play into the fear of a death sentence with cancer. I knew a woman who got cervical cancer, but guess what?.. she hadn't had a checkup for 10 years. It was totally preventable. AND, despite all that, she had surgery and is fine. We don't need cancer vaccines. We need preventative care, and NUTRITIONAL diets!

[kestrel91316]

58. WRONG. Failure to achieve adequate vaccinations among a group

as a whole endangers everyone in and out of the group who either declines for dubious tinfoilhat reasons or can't get vaccinated for medical reasons, or who hasn't finished a vaccination series.

It's called herd health. Take a university-level epidemiology course, and also virology, and immunology, and get back to me. THEN we can debate this.

[lynne]

37. There was a Whooping Cough outbreak at my sons middle school -

- about 2 years ago. This was a public school where vaccinations are required by law. I don't think that method of schooling had anything to do with this as it can occur anywhere even with vaccinations.

[knitter4democracy]

4. You do know how it's transmitted, right?

It's transmitted by coughing and someone breathing that in. The coughing is terrible, too--some adults have to be admitted to the hospital for help with breathing.

It's more likely that they've not been vacc'd or not had a recent booster.

[shraby]

8. More probably due to the fact that many many

families have neglected to vaccinate their children. Whooping cough is preventable and should be prevented. There is no excuse for not getting immunized.
I run a genealogical website for the county I live in and have been putting cause of death with the tombstone entry of all the ones I can find. The diseases that people are now not protecting their children against took thousands of lives before vaccines were discovered. I even had cases of parents attending the funeral of one child to come home from the funeral to find another child had died of the same disease..sometimes they lost as many as 5 children in one round of illness. Absolutely heartbreaking! I don't know how those parents dealt with it.
At any rate people had better start checking the history of these diseases and learn from it..lest history is allowed to repeat.

[hedgehog]

18. My understanding is that in any given batch of of the old style

pertussis vaccine, some of the bacteria were undercooked and would make people sick and some were overcooked and didn't do squat. Most of the vaccine was safe and effective. If 5% of the people vaccinated weren't protected, then they were depending on 95% of the people around them to break the chain of infection. The problem develops when enough people forgo vaccination to sustain a chain of infection.


I have no idea what percentage of people who received the old style vaccine are unprotected. I think the newer vaccine is produced in a different process that avoids the undercook/overcook problem. The immune system is taught to recognize pertussis without actually being exposed to pertussis. It's only since the new vaccine has come on the market that adults can be safely re-vaccinated.

[kestrel91316]

59. Pertussis, or Whooping Cough, is caused by the bacteria

Bordetella pertussis and Bordetella parapertussis. This is a close relative of the organism that causes "kennel cough" in dogs.

Because it is caused by a bacterium and NOT a virus, there are problems associated with the vaccine production and body's lack of adequate response to it that make it a hard disease to get good immunity to. Bacterial vaccines (bacterins) all have this unfortunate and unavoidable drawback.

The GOOD thing about bacterial diseases is that they are responsive to antibiotics (unlike viral diseases). So if you can't prevent it very well, at least you can have a decent shot at actively treating it.

You know what they say: The Lord giveth with one hand and taketh away with the other. IOW, there are always tradeoffs.

[XemaSab]

39. Amen.

People nowadays are complacent about these things. :(

[MindPilot]

10. Aren't God and Jesus supposed to protect their believers from this kind of stuff?

You know like plague and pestilence and gunfire? I mean what's the point of getting up early on Sunday to go to church if you can get sick or killed just like any regular heathen non-believer?

[spoony]

43. No, and no matter how many times you post it

thinking you're being clever it will still be absolutely, 100%, unequivocally wrong. If you anything, I mean even the slightest bit, about the religion which you have such ignorant and uniformed hatred for (nice jokes in all the church shooting threads, btw, very classy) you'd already know that:

"he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust." There is literally nothing in traditional Christian theology that says that Christians won't get sick, won't suffer hardships, etc.

[sendero]

44. Religious leaders....

... like Robertson and Falwell have REPEATEDLY made statement to the effect that when disaster strikes the US it is god's punishment.

I hear NO OUTCRY from "mainstrean Christians" when they do that, so I have to say that the poster's comments are fair game.

Don't be a hypocrite.

[spoony]

66. Sounds a lot like when RW'ers justify their hatred of Muslims

by saying the "moderates" didn't condemn 9/11 to their liking. Would you like every Christian in the world to send you a postcard every time some televangelist twit says something that doesn't make any theological sense?

[MindPilot]

63. Self delete

Another poster said it as well as I could....if not better

[kestrel91316]

60. Don't you know? ALL the bad stuff happens because we are still

tolerating gays.

We're supposed to be stoning them in the streets. Then this wouldn't happen.

:sarcasm:

[BrklynLiberal]

17. "we do not believe the illness will spread as our students go home to their families,"

So instead of containing and dealing with it, they are sending the students home to spread it to their families all over the country?????:crazy:

[NBachers]

38. Keep Me Off That Bus

Who wants to fly or take the bus with these kids on it?

[kestrel91316]

61. Jeebus H. Christ. Keep those Typhoid Marys and Marks OFF

the frickin' airplanes at the holidays!!!!!!

Talk about a recipe for public health problems.......OMG.

[TechBear_Seattle]

21. "Thank you, Jesus!"

Who wants to bet that the root cause are the Talibangelicals who think it is a sin to get vaccinated because it is, after all, vaccines are an attempt to interfere with God sending disease as a punishment.

:eyes:

[Whoa_Nelly]

23. That was my EXACT thought, too, when I read this!

:hi:

[TechBear_Seattle]

26. Which was exactly your thought too?

The explanation or the "Thank you Jesus?" Or was it both? :toast:

[Whoa_Nelly]

27. Both

:rofl:

:toast:

[comtec]

25. Hee Hee please tell me that's an actual quote

from one of their tracts!

The irony I think is enough to help me survive another week of the Dems not doing a G/D thing in the congress to stop these war criminals against humanity!

BTW did you hear, that 1-800 hope number was one for a tract selling home-school university.... omfg, i'd LOVE to see (but not HAVE) their 800 bill at the end of the month. This seems to be the week(s) for God showing his/her wicked sense of humor/karma/irony against the talibangelists (great word btw)

[TechBear_Seattle]

28. Indirectly, it is

I was briefly associated with a fundamentalist (but not Talibangelical) church in my youth, and I have known more than a few fundamentalists and Talibangelicals in my life. The proper response to any misfortune or disaster is, "Thank you, Jesus!" It's in the rule book.

[Ishoutandscream2]

24. BEEEEEEE HEAAALLLLLED! CAST OUT ALL DEMONS!!!

There, that should do the trick.

[JBoy]

31. Sheesh, some kind of throat infection shouldn't be a surprise

if you go to a place called BJU.

[DLnyc]

35. DUzy!

[Arugula Latte]

32. Yew must PRAAAAAAAAAYEH tah the LOOORRRD

tah HEEEEEALLLLL yer EEEEEVILLL caaaawf!

[MadMaddie]

33. Whatever the reason....with MILLIONS unisured in this country

Whouping cough, Measles, Chickpox and other disieses will spike. Getting exensive shots or putting food on the table....what are they going to choose?

[comtec]

34. I was under the impression certain shots were free

because of the greater public safely, that is at least kids are covered - when it's most important - to be vaccinated.

[DLnyc]

36. I think you're thinking about some modern developed country . . .

not the U. S. of A.

[Changenow]

46. Most, if not all at this point,

communities provide required vaccinations for free or at minimal cost through the health departments.

That's not an act of generosity on the part of the government, it's self preservation. You are right that he state of health care in the US is deplorable, and other infectious diseases will increase as a result.

[KoKo]

40. Probably due to SC's low health insurance and their fundie folks telling them how good it is

that they don't have health insurance ...because in America, Bush is King and Larry Kudlow and the Supply Siders tell them they get sick because it's THEIR PROBLEM and that their Churches should take care of them.

[libodem]

41. Parents' must not have believed in vaccinations

I wonder if they will blame Jesus? Home schooled little vectors.

[tom_paine]

47. You're not going to go to some Liberal Doctors, are you Bushies?

Pray it away. Jesus will heal you better than any Godless Liberal Doctor and their Godless Liberal Antibiotics could.

[Doctor_J]

51. The Big Guy/Gal is visiting plagues on those who blaspheme

or otherwise use Him for amoral purposes.

[bpeale]

54. i find it hard to feel sorry for anyone at Bob Jones University.

i feel for them but i can't reach them.

[JVS]

64. "the kids there are screwing each others brains out"

You have a problem with that?

[provis99]

65. the hypocrisy is the thing we should all have a problem with

and there is mountains of it at BJU.