Spread the Vaccine Love!
Posted by mattusmaximus on June 13, 2012
Well, we’re ramping up again for another summer of skeptical awesomeness (including SkepchickCon at CONvergence, The Amazing Meeting 10, and Dragon*Con), and as in years past I am assisting with vaccine promotion. Along these lines, I wanted to pass along to you a recent blog post over at Skepchick by my colleague, Elyse Anders. Read on and please consider donating to help support this worthy cause:
How to Help Vaccinate Everyone!
From the Vaccine Clinic at TAM9: Who’s that handsome guy next to me? Oh yeah, it’s just Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer 🙂
Right now, we are in the middle of a severe pertussis (whooping cough) epidemic. In Washington state alone, cases over tentupled (which is a word that I made up for up more than times) since last year. In 2011, there were 146 confirmed pertusis cases through the first 20 weeks of the year. This year? 1738. That’s really bad, people. Really bad. And Washington, frankly, I’m a little disappointed in you.
Pertussis is a disease that, if contracted, often kills infants. And once they contract the disease, the only treatment they receive is to stop them form spreading it. There is no shortening of the illness. There is no medicine to help the body fight it. There’s just medication to stop you from spreading it.
And that “whoop” that gives whooping cough it’s name? That’s the sound of the sufferer struggling for air, being suffocated from inside their own body.
But worst of all, where they usually catch it is from an adult who hasn’t been vaccinated against pertussis.
So over here, in my little corner of the internet, with my tiny organization, we’re trying to fix this in every way we can… which is the only way we can, and that’s by vaccinating people against pertussis. If you can’t get infected with it, you can’t spread it.
The Women Thinking Free and the Hug Me! I’m Vaccinated campaign have partnered with the JREF and will be bringing yet another Tdap clinic to TAM2012. …
Read the rest of Elyse’s post at http://skepchick.org/2012/05/how-to-help-vaccinate-everyone/
The Skeptical Teacher 
Korrie E said
thank you for spreading the word about vaccines and pertussis! 2 of my children contracted it this year- they are both vaccinated- and my younger child, my 9 yr old son. missed 3 months of school due to the illness and spent 6 months on medication. He has Down syndrome and lung damage due to contracting RSV as a newborn. He’s been under the care of a pulmonologist since birth. His school claims they have a 100% vaccination rate but as we live in Texas, I call BS on that one. I told the school nurse as much. My belief is either an unvaccinated child or adult infected him. The school did the ” cover your a$$” move when I started making a fuss about it all too.