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Moving on from obesity to vaccines: pertussis outbreak in WA
YAY! 
http://www.king5.com/news/local/-Whopping-cough-cases-hit-record-levels-in-Washington-145914965.html
SHORELINE, Wash. - The Washington Health Department is responding to an outbreak of hundreds of cases of whooping cough that's on a pace to set a record number this year in the state.
According to the Washington Department of Health, the number of whooping cough cases has spiked dramatically -- six times more cases compared to last year.
From January to March of this year, 549 cases of whooping cough have been reported statewide, compared to just 88 cases last year at the same time. The counties seeing the highest number of cases are Skagit, Jefferson and Cowlitz.
The disease -- known for coughing fits with a whooping sound -- is
highly contagious and spreads by coughing and sneezing. It affects
people of all ages, but is most dangerous for infants. In the past two
years, four babies have died in Washington.
Health Secretary Mary Selecky is holding a 10:30 a.m. news conference
Tuesday at a state laboratory in Shoreline to update the numbers, raise
awareness among health care providers and tell families that the
pertussis vaccine is the best prevention.
State health officials will emphasize getting vaccinated with the "TDAP booster vaccine," especially if you're around new infants, pregnant women and health care workers.
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I am a runner, knitter, scientist, DE-IVF veteran, and stage III colon cancer survivor.
Re: Moving on from obesity to vaccines: pertussis outbreak in WA
Well you guys won't be able to put me up for a good public roasting on this issue. Ha!
I am fully pro-vax. This makes me mad as hell.
"This ribbon has been reported." - lovesnina
I actually don't know much about them - they're not clustered together. Skagit is up north a bit, fairly rural. Jefferson is on the Peninsula and is one of the smaller counties (30,000 compared to 100K for Skagit and Cowlitz). Cowlitz is further south and I know nada about it. Maybe mominatrix can weigh in more. I still feel like a newb
ETA: according to wikipedia, all three are whiter than King County (where Seattle is) and have a higher rate of poverty. I would not say that any of them is a very poor county though - just poor-er than KC. I am really not sure why there are more cases there.
I am a runner, knitter, scientist, DE-IVF veteran, and stage III colon cancer survivor.
I'm only familiar with Cowlitz County, but my impression--which was somewhat borne out by some demographic statistics I was looking at recently regarding a wholly separate issue--is that it's primarily white and tends toward lower-income. Lots of logging towns, which have been hit pretty hard in the past 15+ years. I'm surprised it's on this list, as I thought the non-vax crowd tended toward the higher-income-crunchy crowd (like you'd find in Seattle), but I think all three of these counties are relatively rural.
I live in a rural county in central WA that has some of the lowest rates of vax in the state. The area I live in is a combination of lower income families and crunchy hippies. I can't remember the statistic now, but the local schools have an insane percentage of vax exceptions.
So far the recommendation is to substitute only one Td booster with Tdap.
I'm pretty sure it's 10 years, just like tetanus.
Yup! Update please!