Gotta love the brilliant reporting.
http://www.thecalifornian.com/article/20100624/NEWS01/6240310
In Monterey County this year, more than 80 percent of the reported cases involve Latinos, the Health Department reported, and the state says 80 percent of the infants who have died of pertussis in California since 1998 were Latino.
But the disease should not be linked to immigration, [Dr. Lisa Hernandez of the Monterey County Health Department] said, noting that the county Health Department does not collect data on whooping cough patients’ citizenship status.
I was thinking that since it was CA where the outbreak is happening, that it would be likely it was due to whack job parents who thing vaccinating is evil and causes everything from bad vibes to autism.
I got whooping cough when I lived in Germany, shortly after getting married, merging two sets of kids, moving from an appartment in a German village to post housing all the while holding down a job. Probably my resistance was low at the time.
It was never diagnosed. I kept going to the base doc and he couldn’t find anything, except that I was coughing my brains out for months. All the military and gov’t civiliam folks I came in contact with would have had all the requisite shots - as did I, but I don’t know if pertussis was a requirement.
Here in PA, the Amish do not get vaccinated for anything and have been cited as a reservoir for these things.