PROTECTING BABIES FROM WHOOPING COUGH

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Protecting a baby from whooping cough by vaccinating else. This is Dr. Steven Andrew Davis, Speaking of Health. Whooping cough once caused over 5000 deaths a year in the US alone. Today, instead of hundreds of thousands of yearly cases, there are a relative handful of cases seen each year. _^ But, according to the US Centers for Disease control and Prevention, after bottoming out in 1976, whooping cough cases have been on the rise.

In some places, such as Britain, the increase in whooping cough has been linked to concern by parents that the vaccine is not safe, so fewer children have been getting vaccinated against whooping cough. Certain whooping cough vaccines are thought to be quite safe in adults and adolescents, but aggressive vaccine schedules are not given to infants. So what’s the answer?

Published articles, including one in the Journal of the AMA recently, suggest that whooping cough in infants can be better prevented by knocking out the disease in people around those infants; in other words, by vaccinating the adults and older children around them. So don’t be surprised if a pediatrician or family doctor suggests, out of the blue, that an adult or adolescent be vaccinated against pertussis – that’s “whooping cough” – because, in effect, the “life you save may be” some baby’s. Speaking of Health, I’m Dr. Steven Andrew Davis, for CBS News.

Ref: JAMA Dec. 10, 2003; 290:2968-75

J Pediatr. Nov. 2003; 143:576-581

Pediatric Alert, Jan. 8, 2004; 29:2-3

E-Mail drdavis@davishealth.com

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Dr. Steve Davis
7810 Louis Pasteur #200
San Antonio, Texas 78229
210/614-3355

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