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As Pleasanton Unified School District classes resumed from winter break this week, some Foothill High School parents were notified of a new reported case of pertussis, or whooping cough.
Foothill parents whose children were potentially exposed received an email notice from the school Monday, according to PUSD spokesman Patrick Gannon.
That marks the latest of a “handful” of reported cases of whooping cough that started at the school after Thanksgiving break and that the district has been working closely with the Alameda County Public Health Department on the matter.
Whooping cough typically starts like a cold, with symptoms including a stuffy or runny nose, a mild cough and a low fever or no fever at all, according to the county health department.
The cough steadily worsens to where coughing fits or spasms occur, causing one to have problems catching their breath or to gag or vomit after coughing. Occasionally when someone with pertussis inhales after a coughing fit, they make a high-pitched “whooping” sound.
Whooping cough is spread when a sick person coughs or sneezes in another person’s face; shares a confined space for more than one hour; and by kissing, health officials said. Symptoms usually start within a week to 10 days after contact with the ill person but can take up to three weeks to develop.
“This is one of the childhood immunizations, so kids are protected if they’re properly immunized and people around them are as well,” public health spokeswoman Sherri Willis said last month.
Aren’t they supposed to show they have their shots BEFORE they are allowed to go to school?
This is a vaccination our kids get when they are small but it does start to lose its effectiveness as they get older. They can actually get a booster shot from their pediatrician. But yes- if everyone receives their vaccinations we would all be protected.
It would be good to know if this student had been vaccinated as a child. It is possible that the vaccine is ineffective and actually causes the disease. look up Dr. Russell Blaylock on line for accurate and timely information on vaccination before blindly subjecting your children to possible harm because it’s the accepted thing to do.
Respectfully disagree Mary d from Livermore. Vaccinations are not just “an acceptable thing to do”. Medical science is involved. Vaccinations protect against serious illnesses.
anyone ever considered that these kids might have came from a place other then the US and maybe didn’t have their vaccs up to date ?
You, MaryD and liberals like you who follow the “new” thinking no matter where it leads you, are the reason these diseases keep showing up in our schools. People who don’t vaccinate their children are exposing our children to their kid’s germs and that is not acceptable. If you would educate yourself on the effectiveness of vaccinations, you would know that children who are vaccinated are healthier, more attentive, in general happier because they are not sick all the time. Saying that vaccinations are just “an acceptable thing to do” is stupid and uninformed. Don’t you recall the doctor in the UK who published false research several years ago telling people not to vaccinate their kids because vaccinations cause Autism? It was in every paper and on every TV new station in the country and the world because it was such a scandal. It resulted in practically a whole generation of kids not being protected against terrible diseases because people listened to one stupid doctor who was lying to them in order to make money. Do me a favor, keep your kids away from mine!!
The whooping cough vaccines don’t work particularly the forumlation of the vaccine for the TDAP. The Pertussis prevention does not work. https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/10/10/pertussis-vaccine-whooping-cough-reemergence.aspx
My pediatrician told me that all of her patients she has seen with whooping cough the last 5 years had up to date vaccinations.
The vaccine simply doesn’t work anymore.
I’ve never heard of a ‘mild’ case of whooping cough.
The problem is that the people in Alameda County are getting whooping cough over and over again in spite of the fact that they are supposedly vaccinated.
After all, each of the students currently enrolled at Foothill were required to get mandatory vaccinations in the 7th grade. In the 2011-2012 school year, all students entering into 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th or 12 th grades needed proof of an adolescent whooping cough booster shot (called “TDAP”) before starting school and after that, every 7th grader needed proof.
But the bottom line is that TDAP vaccine does not work for many people and various strains of pertussis that is going around.
I am a Foothill student who received whooping cough. I received the vaccination like all others in my grade, and yet I still contracted whooping cough. It is not the kids or parents fault that the whooping cough is going around because it is possible to still contract it vaccination or not. Stop hating!
My family is all up to date on the vaccinations and we’ve all had whooping cough in the last few years.
Rather than the media telling the truth (i.e. that the vaccines don’t really protect you from getting whooping cough), they go around telling people to be vacciinated.
Another problem is that most ERs around here don’t actually test for it. Also they often say it is bronchitis or cough variant asthma or asthma when it is in fact whooping cough.
Those that do suspect it is whooping cough give patients zithromax, but it doesn’t really help.
Whooping cough lasts for weeks and sometimes months. Also once you have had whooping cough, you can get it again. And again.
Kaiser did a study and determined that the protection from whooping cough only lasts a matter of months. http://www.latimes.com/health/la-me-whooping-cough-20160205-story.html
The reason is that in the last decade or so the drug manufacturer has reformulated the vaccine so that it only prevents pertussis/whooping cough for a very short snapshop in time after the vaccine is given to a patient.
If I remember correctly, PUSD required all middle school students to be vaccinated against Whopping Cough a few years ago when there was an epidemic of cases. Chances are, students from third world countries recently immigrated here and didn’t receive those vaccinations back home. The world is getting smaller!
Please get vaccinated!
@Get Real,
It isn’t really a liberal or conservative thing. The person that “mary d” refers to above is popular with conservatives. He espouses wild conspiracy theories, like chemtrails and government mind control, on sites like newsmax and infowars. There is so much nonsense and misinformation out there, and it is surprising that so many people believe it.
@VI,
“People who get the whooping cough vaccine and still come down with the illness are more likely to have a mild case, compared with those who never got the vaccine, the epidemiological staff said.”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/whooping-cough-outbreak-how-effective-is-the-vaccine/
@VI,
Getting the TDAP vaccine is clearly better than not getting it. And don’t forget that the “T” and “D” parts are very effective. It makes no sense not to get the vaccine because it is not 100% effective.
@VI,
But you’re better off getting the vaccine than not. So it is good advice to get it. You also get very effective protection from tetanus.