Maryn McKenna returned from India with an unpleasant surprise - whooping cough. Here she blogs about how the protective effects of childhood vaccines decay over years, as well as some unsettling info about how whooping cough has recently seen a resurgence. The cause? Apparently nothing but our own refusal to self-vaccinate.

From her blog post: "The worst news in this upsetting trend is this: We're doing it to ourselves. As far as anyone can tell, the rise in pertussis is not due to any change in the organism, or to any mysterious error among the manufacturers who make pertussis vaccines. It's due to vaccine refusal, to parents turning away from vaccines because they think the vaccines are more harmful than the diseases they prevent — or, more selfishly, because they think the wall of immunity created by other vaccinated children will protect their unimmunized ones."

Tags: whooping cough, superbug, vaccine, anti-vaccine, medicine, epidemic, Maryn McKenna,

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