Boy Scouts in Everett, Wash., advertise a whooping cough vaccination clinic during a community gathering in early August. Photo by Jason Kane. Olympia, Wash. | Whooping cough. Those are among the last words Jennifer Crocker expected to be weighing on her mind during a recent visit to the doctor. But she hasn’t been able to shake the recent sound bites from the local news:
- Whooping cough cases have skyrocketed throughout the nation in the last few months, reaching “epidemic” levels in Washington state as of April.
- A full 92 percent of adults are no longer inoculated against the disease — in large part because most Americans don’t know that a new booster vaccine exists for the disease.
- And if adults catch the pertussis — as the disease is formally known — they can easily transmit it to newborns, who can die from it.
“I didn’t even think about any of this before,” Crocker said, before receiving the pertussis booster. “Not until talking with my sister, who is about to have a baby.”
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