Smasharoo wrote:
During 2012, 48,277 cases of pertussis were reported to CDC, including 20 pertussis-related deaths. The majority of deaths occurred among infants younger than 3 months of age.
http://www.cdc.gov/pertussis/outbreaks/trends.html
http://www.cdc.gov/pertussis/images/incidence-graph-age.jpg
The earliest you can be vaccinated is 2 months, so no, ***hole "you're kids are vaccinated what's the problem?" doesn't work. I know pediatricians that had literally never seen a case of pertussis until about 10 years ago. Now, about a dozen children a year who can't be vaccinated because they are too young die from it. The good news is that's a small number, when you look at all infant deaths likely attributable to incomplete "heard immunity" it gets to be hundreds. That's hundreds of dead infants too young to have been vaccinated.
That completely sets aside kids who were vaccinated and for whatever reason the vaccine didn't "work". It happens. The idea is that since it happens rarely, if everyone is vaccinated there will be no vector for the outlying failed vaccinations to get infected. Unless your sister is in town, obviously. Those people die, too. Flu is a thing, by the way. People need to stop thinking "no big deal just flu" because it's common. A lot of people die from flu. Most years hundreds of kids die from flu, fortunately, about 90% of them aren't vaccinated, the other 10% probably just live near your sister.
It's a problem. For me, not for your sister. She's adding to my child's risk, just as she would be if she was driving drunk. "You're driving sober, what's the problem" isn't a compelling argument, either.
Edited, Jun 17th 2014 12:51pm by Smasharoo
This so much this. The Flu is thought to be one of the possible causes for my congestive heart failure. The virus either attacked my heart directly or my immune system attacked it mistaking it for the virus. Needless to say I learned a hard lesson, had I went to the doctor sooner or just got a flu shot then I might have been able to avoid needing a transplant. Now I'm one of the many people your sister is putting at risk and if her child ever should need a transplant they could be passed over or wait longer to receive a organ.
Edited, Jun 20th 2014 6:15am by RavennofTitan