There’s a whooping cough outbreak in the Fraser Valley and parents of babies don’t seem to be alarmed.
At least, not many of the ones I’ve talked to. I’m not advocating all-out panic, but I’d like to know moms and dads are getting vaccinated.
As we’ve been warned since the outbreak began in early December, pertussis can be fatal to infants. Health officials are urging adults and youth who are in contact with young children who have not had the pertussis vaccine in the last five years to get vaccinated.
According to Fraser Health, three-quarters of children who get the disease catch it from their parents, and more than half of infants under one year old end up in the hospital. Fraser Health’s Chief Medical Health Officer Dr. Paul Van Buynder told me a baby girl was recently released from hospital who spent eight of the first 10 weeks of her life with whooping cough.
I’ve heard a number of vague and uninformed excuses for avoiding vaccination, and as the new mom of a chubby-cheeked cutie-pie vulnerable to such contagious diseases, this concerns me.
Yet I’ve never felt knowledgeable enough to express that concern to fellow moms and dads, telling myself I’d be wrongly criticizing a parenting decision that is theirs to make. I admit, before the birth of my baby girl I gave nary a second thought as to whether my own immunizations were up to date. It just wasn’t a priority, so it hardly seems fair for me to look down on others now.
But what if their decision not to get immunized is putting my daughter at risk?
Since I’m no expert, I spoke with Dr. Van Buynder about a few of the more common misconceptions.
Misconception 1: No one gets these diseases anymore so there is no need to be immunized.
“We are becoming the victims of our own success,” said Van Buynder.
The better the vaccinations and the higher the vaccination rate, the less people remember the diseases and their consequences. However, there are countries were vaccine-preventable diseases are still common.
Van Buynder pointed to the 2010 Winter Games as a recent example of what can happen if we slack off. A few international visitors to Vancouver during the Olympics brought measles from overseas, and an outbreak followed the Games.
2. The shot can give you the disease it’s meant to protect against.
Most vaccines, including the one for whooping cough, are not prepared from live organisms and will not cause diseases. A few, like the MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccine, are made from a live attenuated (weakened) virus and only cause disease on very, very rare occasions.
3. Vaccinations are linked to autism.
The 1998 report by a UK doctor that supposedly linked the MMR vaccine to autism has caused far-flung damage to public opinion of immunizations. Researchers have since debunked his research - unfortunately, that news has travelled much more slowly. The doctor has been stripped of his medical licence.
4. Vaccines contain mercury, which is toxic to your health.
Today, most vaccines do not contain mercury, said Van Buynder. While the flu shot does have a trace amount of mercury (in a preservative called thimerosal), it’s less than one-tenth the mercury found in a can of tuna, he said. To keep this in perspective, pregnant women are told to limit their tuna intake to one can per week because of the developing fetus.
“I think the most important thing for people to understand is many vaccines have some mild side effects – a sore arm, mild fever,” Van Buynder said. “But the reality is the disease is much, much worse than the vaccine.”
Until pertussis is no longer a threat, Fraser Health is offering the vaccine free to adults. Call your doctor or visit fraserhealth.ca/whoopingcough for pharmacists who offer the vaccine.
And the next time a parent tells me they aren’t vaccinating themselves or their children, instead of staying silent, hopefully I can alleviate some of their concerns.
Kristine Salzmann is a Black Press reporter on maternity leave and mom to 10-month-old baby girl Elise. She writes monthly for The Leader on parenting issues.