To think friend was irresponsible to spread whooping cough around?

[Monkley]

DS (3) who is asthmatic and have a very low immune system has just be diagnosed with whooping cough, he is so ill I've been in tears (he has been vaccinated)

I have friend who is against vaccinations and therefore didn't vaccinate her three DC's which I have never had a problem with until now. Our children play together and a few weeks ago she mentioned (after a day of DC's playing together) that all hers had terrible coughs like she'd never heard before which had lasted over a month. She had given them homeopathic remedies but not been to the doctor.

I am convinced DS caught whooping cough from them and I do realise how unreasonable that sounds but I just feel she's been really irresponsible.

Google back to 2002, there were some papers published then and a report of those papers in the New Scientist.

There's also this: junkscience.com/2012/03/21/new-strain-of-whooping-cough-emerging/ linking to a reference in Journal of Infectious diseases.

If you google there's a lot recently about it, but there's been quite a bit about it over the last ten years. This for example www.newscientist.com/article/dn2223-whooping-cough-strikes-back.html

There was another article in the new scientist which I can't find now from around that time discussing strain mutation

Did find this though
mic.sgmjournals.org/content/148/7/2011.short

I don't have a new scientist subscription so can't read whole articles on there, but if you google you'll see there's been quite a bit.

In fact just google generally - there's lots out there recently because of the outbreaks in the States and Australia and the high rate of vaccine failure.

Doctors are admitting that there is a lot of Whopping cough in vaccinated children. My DD and her friends almost certainly had it at pre-school, it was milder than the full blown desease, but they were all vaccinated. I have other friends whose children have had it complete with the whooping, despite being vaccinated. So sorry but you can't necessarily blame your friend.

From what OP describes her anti-vax friend had (and has) no clue that her DC have had whooping cough.
I think if the vaccine were that ineffective then we would be seeing a huge amount more of WC.
YANBU, but I don't know what you do about it. :(

Tbh if I had a child who had a compromised immune system like your son I wouldn't be able to bring myself to spend time with some anti-vaccinations flake who undermines herd immunity on the basis of their quacky belief system. That would be the case even before I began to suspect they'd given my child a horrible illness.

yanbu imo its totally irresponsible not to vaccinate. I saw a programme last week where a very young baby caught it (was too young to be vaccinated). It was very sad and made me so angry to think the baby might have been ok if others had been less self centered.

Not vaccinating puts others at risk so its a very selfish thing to do IMO.

I have to agree with Rachel Wash above. Your first responsibility is to your on child, not some neglctful flake no matter how nice she is.

I consider allowing your child to suffer a whole month with a cough as bad as whooping cough can be without seeing a doctor to be a form of neglect. I'm personally quite keen on diet & alternative therapies rather than reaching for the antibiotics at the first sniffle like so many seem to nowadays. Having said that there is a time & a place when you have to remember what the infant mortality rate was (& still is in the 3rd world!) before the advent of modern & medicine!!!!!!!

Frankly the woman needs a good talking to from someone in authority like a social worker (bit suprised I'm saying this but they do a vital job in protecting kids at times). She's being cruel and taking a huge risk with her chidren's longterm health. If the homeopathy was gonna work it would have done so by now - does she even understand what the long term complications can be for her kids?What she's doing is nothing less than neglect.

I'm so glad YOUR child has a Mum that cares enough to do the right thing and really hope your wee one recovers soon. However if your child is already immune compromised is it realy safe to allow them to mix with this woman's children? I wouldn't take the risk personally with a child as young as 3, and fool that I am, I would have to tell the woman that I wasn't willing for my little darling to pay the price for her irresponsibility. (It's a different situation if your kid has the constitution of an ox btw, I don't believe in upsetting people for the sake of it)

Hope he gets well soon

He could have picked it up from anywhere. She chose to not vaccinate but you chose to be around them so not all her fault IMO.

For those of you banging on about herd immunity - There can not be herd immunity against whooping cough if the vaccine doesn't work or only provides limited protection. Unvaccinated children can not be blamed for this.

Also, whooping cough isn't always that severe - it can just be a persistent, irritating cough so I think calling someone neglectful is a bit extreme and unnecessary especially when there isn't much you can do for whooping cough anyway. Antibiotics are usually only prescribed early on so if you don't realise that it is whooping cough at the start then it's unlikely that you will be given ABs. They are usually given to reduce the spread of the illness and by 3 weeks you are usually no longer contagious anyway.

Agree with bumbley. I strongly suspect DS2 had whooping cough (along with loads of kids in his nursery, most of whom were vaccinated I presume) and I only realised when I saw a news report giving symptoms of the 'new strain' which were identical to ds2's symptoms. It went on and on for months and he was dxed as asthmatic (but has never had symptoms since that particular cough 7 years ago so no longer has an inhaler or anything) but I had no idea it could be whooping cough for months and only went to the doctor because it was hanging around for so long, not because of severity.

Vaccination is a debate like religion - you can't influence people's opinions, you can only research all the info & make up your own mind. I'm pro-vac, but I refuse to judge others iyswim.

However once a child is ALREADY sick - to leave them without medical attention for a month just seems very, very wrong to me. We are so lucky that in this country proper qualified medical advice & medication is free for our children; it's reflected in our child mortality rates too. (Maybe I feel this way because I have relatives overseas who realy struggle to budget for decent medical care)

Complications for whooping cough are thankfully incredibly rare but can include pneumonia, kidney failure, hernia, ear infections & seizures. How hard is it REALLY over the period of a whole month not to tootle aong to the GP with your 3 sick kids and just get the doc to give 'em a quick once over? FFS?

Bowhead, I don't think many people would consider a lingering cough with no other symptoms or signs of complications as needing medical intervention. As mentioned before, there's not much that can be done for it anyway. I'm sure if the woman's children had shown any signs of a worsening illness or potential complications then she would have taken them to a doctor.

Bochead* - autocorrect, sorry!

But not as much of a problem as leaving a population unvaccinated.

Well depends how sick. When ds2 had what I now think was whooping cough he wasn't particularly ill at all. I only went when it didn't clear. Had I realised he was showing new strain whooping cough symptoms I would have gone earlier, but mainly to ask whether he should still be going to nursery and wheh he could go back. I wouldn't have taken him because he was ill.

The vast majority of coughs are viral. I haven't taken the kids to the doctor for a cough in 7 or 8 years (the last time was when I took ds2). I would only take them if I thought their chest needed listening to. Otherwise you're just cluttering up the waiting room spreading your germs to sick people when you have an illness a doctor can't treat anyway.

Very true lockets. People place a bit too much faith in vaccines even though they aren't 100% effective. Even doctors are less likely to diagnose an illness if the patient has been vaccinated.

Yes lockets - ds1 caught rubella from a vaccinated child. She had no idea her son had rubella as he'd had MMR and carried on going out and about.

DS1 we knew he'd been exposed so stayed in and didn't spread it. More than one way of being responsible (which I would say includes realising your vaccinated child can still catch and pass on the illnesses- not that I particularly blame the mother who gave us rubella, she genuinely thought he child couldn't have it).

About last night, it doesn't matter if the entire population is vaccinated if the vaccine doesn't offer long term immunity.

There is a lot about? Really?

Bloody hell. Please please please dont let DCs get it. I would be a bloody wreck.

Mind you I havent heard anything locally. DC5 just started nursery so i am awaiting CP. He is the only one who hasnt had it. He has got his first nursery snotty nose though.

I am crap when they are ill. Calm on top and a nuerotic mess underneath.

I got it from a colleague. He was vaccinated, I wasn't (don't judge my parents, when I was small we lived in a developing country with no access to the vaccine. They'd have given their eye teeth for that kind of medical care for us, and now people don't even bother to access it).
What I am aghast at is that a parent would not take 3 young children coughing that badly to a doctor. I found the coughs absolutely draining and frightening-I just could not get my breath. Why are some people so cavalier?
I do hope your DS gets better soon.

I remember having it as a child - it was horrible.

I can see why people would choose not to vaccinate their children, there are certain jabs that I won't allow my children to have. It's every parents right to make this choice.

mrsdevere I know quite a few children who have had whooping cough (perhaps my own).

I remember my friend having it in 1978, I had a close up look as I had measles so we played together as we weren't allowed back to school (how times change!)

Whooping cough can be serious in infants (although a whooping cough exposure at 4 months wasn't passed on to ds2, so I presume some immunity is passed via the placenta although it's not meant to last as long as say measles antobodies) but is rarely serious in healthy children over 1 year of age. It's not particularly pleasant, in fact can be quite unpleasant, but it is rare for it to do any sort of long term damage in healthy children who are past infancy . My friends twins were about 15 months when they had it and they were snotty and whoopy but fine. If they hadn't been whooping and she hadn't had it confirmed by the doctor we would have assumed they just had a really heavy cold.