# Whooping Cough Vaccine **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [April 10, 2015, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whooping-cough-vaccine/717331 "2015-04-10T14:24:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2015, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whooping-cough-vaccine/717331/21 "2015-04-20T03:41:50Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > šŸ˜• So what about adults and children over 64? We get our pneumonococcus shots, we get our shingles shot. Donā€™t we get to have tetanus, diphtheria, and whooping crane protection any more? Right now, there is no recommendation to get Tdap after age 64. That may change. However, since most adults havenā€™t gotten a Tdap, in reality a family member getting pregnant is often when grandparents to be end up getting that one, regardless of age. I suggest a nice Golden Retriever or Lab for whooping crane protection. Definitely not a Corgi or Chihuahuaā€¦whooping cranes get pretty big. šŸ˜‰ ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2015, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whooping-cough-vaccine/717331/22 "2015-04-20T10:27:14Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Various posts above say pertussis immunity fades after 3? 7? whatever? years. Is a booster once every 10 years enough? Iā€™ve been getting one every 10 years for 40 years now. It used to be every 10 years with the old vaccine up to the 1990s. The vaccines used now are not as effective and when I received my booster a few months ago I was told it was good for about 6 years. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2015, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whooping-cough-vaccine/717331/23 "2015-04-20T11:27:10Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > Because of this problem, theyā€™ve dropped the minimum age for WC vaccination, and (where I am) are encouraging revaccination for parents and people working with the elderly. Iā€™m neither and I still got a booster about 5 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![qazwart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/5fc32e/32.png) [@qazwart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/qazwart)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whooping-cough-vaccine/717331/24 "2015-04-21T02:26:39Z")
Hereā€™s an interesting story about an anti-vaccer who changed her mind about vaccinations when she realized there was a measles outbreak in Ottawa. Unfortunately, her kids all caught pertussis before they could fully be immunized. [Tara Hills, Ottawa mom, changes anti-vaccination stand, but 7 kids still get sick](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/tara-hills-ottawa-mom-changes-anti-vaccination-stand-but-7-kids-still-get-sick-1.3025592) Hereā€™s a video of an [infant with pertussis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3oZrMGDMMw). This is from a training video to show doctors what pertussis looks like. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whooping-cough-vaccine/717331/25 "2015-04-21T03:44:36Z")
> [@user\_hostile](#): > > My Mom is still running around in her 80ā€™s and just canā€™t fathom why folks would be willing to throw their kids under the bus, literally, because of anecdotal evidence disguised as bad scienceā€¦ Not literally. (God, I hope not, at least). ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whooping-cough-vaccine/717331/26 "2015-04-21T04:32:09Z")
Itā€™s an example of ā€œliterallyā€ being used in a literally figurative sense. ---
**Author:** ![tommyjonq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba9def/32.png) [@tommyjonq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tommyjonq)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whooping-cough-vaccine/717331/27 "2015-04-21T11:32:42Z")
Speaking of human experiments, we have recently been conducting oneā€”an experiment on perception. Telling people that lions are dangerous is NOT the same thing as feeding one of their children to a lion. Itā€™s also an experiment in ironyā€”a generation of mothers who never saw any of their siblings or schoolmates die of diphtheria or polio simply do not believe that their own children are threatened by what have become, to them, imaginary diseases. A complete and total absence of Today show segments about the horrors of measles is compared in the minds of the public against weekly segments detailing the horrors of autism, and bingo, the fear of autism outweighs the fear of measles by several orders of magnitude. On the larger scale, we see proven, among a whopping sample population, my own hypothesis (I teach reading, writing, and social research methods) to wit: ā€œFactsā€ and ā€œLogicā€ have ZERO effect when it comes to changing peopleā€™s minds. About ANYTHING. Isnā€™t scientific research on human subjects fun? ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whooping-cough-vaccine/717331/28 "2015-04-21T12:52:52Z")
Vocational guidance counselors could learn a thing or two from you, **tommyjonq** : [- YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMOmB1q8W4Y) ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whooping-cough-vaccine/717331/29 "2015-04-22T03:24:20Z")
> [@user\_hostile](#): > > My Mom is still running around in her 80ā€™s and just canā€™t fathom why folks would be willing to throw their kids under the busā€¦ because of anecdotal evidence disguised as bad science. Good for your mom! My mom mentions my grandmother, who had polio as a child. She lived with a club foot, on a leg shorter than the other. She had several surgeries to try to help, but until her death at age 93, one leg was a few inches shorter than the other. She had terrible arthritis in the affected hip, knee, and ankle. But polio as a child with the resulting club foot/leg shortening meant that as a girl she could no longer run with the other kids, she couldnā€™t play softball. She never got to dance. And if THAT doesnā€™t workā€¦mom has stories of kids she went to school with dying of complications of various childhood diseases. (Mom was a teacher and doesnā€™t suffer fools very well.) > [@](#): > > Too bad, because watching a kid(s) die in 1951 is just as brutal as it is in 2015. Yup. One of my former bosses is a pediatrician. He saw a child die of complications of the measles when he was doing his residency and was furious that this should happen in the late-20th century, and horrified that he couldnā€™t do anything. When he was in practice, he would counsel parents who were against vaccines. Heā€™d explain how vaccines work and why they are important and what they really do and do not contain. Heā€™d explain why the Wakefield study was so wrong and why Jenny McCarthy is a nutburger. Heā€™d cozen them along for a bit, but at the end of it all, if they continued to refuse to comply with the standard vaccine schedule, heā€™d ā€œfireā€ them from his practice. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whooping-cough-vaccine/717331.md?page=1)