Parents in TV plea for whooping cough vaccinations (From York Press)
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Parents in TV plea for whooping cough vaccinations
8:14am Thursday 12th April 2012 in Health & Wellbeing
By Mike Laycock, Chief reporter
David and Dawn Benson’s five-week old daughter Eliza-Mae who died in December
THE parents of a baby who died from whooping cough will tell their harrowing story on national TV this evening.
David and Dawn Benson’s five-week old daughter, Eliza-Mae died in December – one of an increased number of confirmed cases in young babies in Yorkshire and The Humber during 2011.
The couple, from Sutton-on-the-Forest, near York, agreed to be filmed for ITV’s Tonight documentary programme in a bid to encourage other parents to vaccinate their children.
They have previously urged other parents through The Press to get their babies vaccinated against the disease at the earliest opportunity, when they are eight weeks old, and have advised parents to ensure their pre-school children have a booster jab to help protect babies by building “herd immunity”.
Dawn will tell on the programme how, as Eliza-Mae’s condition deteriorated, she had a massive coughing fit, vomited everywhere and then just could not get her breath.
“You could tell she was trying to get her breath and her eyes were wide open as if... And she was looking at me as if to say: ‘I can’t breathe’,” she says.
“Doctors put her on a ventilator to help control her breathing. They struggled to get the tube in her to ventilate her because there was so much mucus in her throat and her lungs.
“I was almost relieved, because we’d been watching her struggle for hours trying to breathe and it was just horrific, absolutely horrific.” She says the consultant had later prepared them for the worst. “I just knew I thought she isn’t going to make it,” she says.
“And then we sat by her bed all day on the Saturday and they fought and fought and fought and tried everything but they couldn’t save her, and at quarter past six we were in the room with her and... I said: ‘It’s time isn’t it?’ and they said: ‘Yes’.”
She says the ventilator was disconnected so they could hold Eliza-Mae in their arms. “She died in our arms very peacefully.”
The couple say they cannot believe some parents do not want to vaccinate their children against such a killer illness.
• Tonight: Are Your Kids Contagious? starts at 7.30pm on ITV.
Comments(7)
PatrickThomas
says...
1:05pm Thu 12 Apr 12
A collection of mainstream news reports and studies exploding the whooping cough vaccine myth - -
http://www.dailypaul
.com/167931/a-collec
tion-of-mainstream-n
ews-reports-and-stud
ies-exploding-the-wh
ooping-cough-vaccine
-myth
PatrickThomas
says...
1:11pm Thu 12 Apr 12
Acellular pertussis vaccination enhances B. parapertussis colonization
"....vaccination led to a 40-fold enhancement of B. parapertussis colonization in the lungs of mice.....these data suggest that the vaccine may be contributing to the observed rise in whooping cough incidence over the last decade by promoting B. parapertussis infection."
http://www.cidd.psu.
edu/research/synopse
s/acellular-vaccine-
enhancement-b.-parap
ertussis
PatrickThomas
says...
1:13pm Thu 12 Apr 12
(Excerpt): ... (the) outbreak...has grown to include more than 103 cases.....SHAPLEY-QU
INN SAID there’s no instance of a child who had not been vaccinated getting pertussis....
(SHOT DOWN !!!) Board member Tony Rose had asked for information about the number of students who don’t get vaccinations because of religious or other reasons. “I think it’s 15 kids in your entire system (who) have an exemption for medical or religious reasons,” Shapley-Quinn said. None of the pertussis cases involved those students, she said.
Bass said the system has a “really good vaccination rate,” which “raises questions about the vaccine itself” and its effectiveness in preventing the disease.
http://www.thetimesn
ews.com/news/school-
53424-department-hea
lth.html
.
PatrickThomas
says...
1:14pm Thu 12 Apr 12
Witt said that when he started the study he expected to see the illness concentrated in unvaccinated people. But more than 80 per cent of the children who developed whooping cough in Witt's study were fully vaccinated. "I was disturbed to find maybe we had a little more confidence in the vaccine than it might deserve," said the lead researcher, Dr. David Witt, chief of infectious disease at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in San Rafael, California.
http://articles.bost
on.com/2011-09-19/li
festyle/30176444_1_w
hooping-cough-booste
r-shot-highly-contag
ious-bacterial-disea
se
.
PatrickThomas
says...
1:15pm Thu 12 Apr 12
Whooping cough strain now immune to vaccine - -
“The bacteria that causes whooping cough has mutated, eroding the protection provided by the vaccine now given to children, scientists warned yesterday. Our findings suggest that the use of the acellular vaccine may be one factor contributing to these genetic changes."
http://www.dailytele
graph.com.au/news/wh
ooping-cough-strain-
now-immune-to-vaccin
e/story-e6freuy9-122
5828959714
.
Jo13
says...
4:20pm Thu 12 Apr 12
Secondly, in response to "The couple say they cannot believe some parents do not want to vaccinate their children against such a killer illness": Some parents opt not to give their children certain vaccines, because there is good evidence that some children may react badly to certian vaccines. In my case I was not given mumps or I think Whooping Cough, because these held risks for babies with a history of seziures.
It is tragic that this little baby has died and I can't imagine how awful it is for the parents, but I do think that the last sentence of this article suggests that all kids should have all vaccines and that cuts all risk for all people. These parents and others, must realise that the vaccines themselves do carry risks for some children, and it is difficult for parents to decide what to do. Obviously sometimes the risk is tiny and may be over inflated by some people, but to imply that every parent should allow their children to have all the vaccines regardless of the individual risk is wrong.
PatrickThomas says...
1:02pm Thu 12 Apr 12