Calitics has the story about that whooping cough epidemic:
With whooping cough now at epidemic levels, it's becoming clear that one of the primary culprits is the idiotic trend over the last 10 years of parents, mostly affluent whites, opting out of vaccination out of a baseless fear that the vaccines are unsafe.
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They used to hunt whooping cranes. Between that and habitat loss, the number dropped from nearly 20,0000 to a mere 1,400 during the first half of the 19th century, and continued to drop to an all time low of 15 birds in 1941.
Fifteen birds, in 1941, represented the entire species.
Texas is the winter home of the only self-sustaining wild population of Whooping Cranes Grus americana in the world and this winter record numbers have completed their migration and returned to the southern state.
A recent study finds vaccine refusals have, indeed, accelerated the resurgence of whooping cough and measles here in the U.S.
Here's a nice bit of breaking news from the conservation biology front: The birth of two Whooping Crane chicks in Wisconsin.
Vaccination rates won't recover until a sizable body count builds up.
Recovery would be faster but Wakefield is still free rather than in jail where he belongs. Still, nice to see that justice of a sort prevailed and he lost his license.
I guess a reason for not using vaccination due to safety concerns can be an issue, but I think economic factor can play a bigger role. Ideally, costs shouldn't matter when it comes to health. Unfortunately, avoiding high costs at the expense of maintaining good health is becoming problematic. This can be the case for Californians.
Recovery would be faster but Wakefield is still free rather than in jail where he belongs. Still, nice to see that justice of a sort prevailed and he lost his license.
Please don't think I am being mean spirited and spiteful when I hope that this kind of behavior might reduce the frequency of deleterious genes in the pool. Of course, the loss of herd immunity may put innocents who cannot be vaccinated for valid medical reasons at risk, too, and that is the real tragedy here.
Okay. Maybe that was mean-spirited and spiteful, but the point remains.
@Sam - as pointed out in the article, it is mostly stupid affluent people who intentionally opting out.