16 Sep An unnecessary epidemic fueled by delusional, self-indulgent thinking

As North Americans watch West Africa’s Ebola epidemic with rising fascination and fear, an entirely preventable epidemic is tearing through the second largest US city, attracting little notice.

So far, three children have died—all in their first two months of life. Of 8,000 reported cases in California, mostly affecting children, 267 have required treatment in hospital, 58 in intensive care. The illness is highly contagious, and antibiotics have little impact.

“A number of them have been… very, very sick,” says Dr. Jeffrey Bender, an infectious disease specialist at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. “They cough so hard, it turns into vomiting and broken ribs; they end up intubated, to ventilate their lungs.”

The disease? Whooping cough, an illness that once caused more than a thousand child deaths a year in the US, but was nearly wiped out by vaccination programs.

Cause of the upsurge? Upscale parents in West Los Angeles, enamoured of magical thinking promoted by Hollywood starlets like Jenny McCarthy and Ione Skye, are refusing to get their children vaccinated in such large numbers immunization rates have fallen below the levels needed to confer what physicians call “herd immunity.”

Immunization rates in some schools are as low as those seen in impoverished developing countries like Chad and South Sudan. But it’s not happening in poor neighbourhoods. The outbreaks are centred in upscale schools and child care centres of posh neighbourhoods stretching from Malibu south to Marina del Rey.

The Hollywood Reporter has the sorry details.

Childhood vaccinations are free in Nova Scotia (schedules here and here). There’s is a recommended schedule for adults, too. Here’s the scoop on other provinces. Don’t be taken in by quacks. Get your child immunized.