Louisiana Took Months to Sound Alarm Amid Whooping Cough Outbreak
Postedabout 2 months agoActiveabout 2 months ago
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Whooping Cough OutbreakVaccine HesitancyPublic Health
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Whooping Cough Outbreak
Vaccine Hesitancy
Public Health
Louisiana's delayed response to a whooping cough outbreak highlights the consequences of vaccine misinformation, sparking a heated discussion about the importance of vaccination and public health measures.
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Nov 12, 2025 at 7:01 PM EST
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To which I’d say… maybe?
I was able to dig up this paper that showed 66% of the COVID unvaccinated regretted their decision after hospitalization. The rest were undeterred, even after hospitalization, mostly due to ideology and conspiracies.
But the problem is that I wouldn’t be comfortable risking public health to prove 2/3 of a point to vaccine skeptics who should’ve known better anyway. The Hippocratic oath is to do no harm, and I wouldn’t want a loved one with a suppressed immune system or lung problems to get seriously sick because we let the disease spread by choice.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8950102/
But we don't have any kind of cultural immunity to the kind of propagandised and designed messaging that drives these campaigns.
In the absence of that, learning through consequences - and coming in with the messaging after they happen - is the only thing that can make a difference.
It seem like if we can find a vaccine for propaganda, we would get a lot of mileage out of it.
I don't think it was a particularly effective tactic.
Hot as in, I’m feeling kind of feverish because I’m now sick because we let whooping cough spread to prove a point to people who get their medical information from Facebook.
Of course it's horrific. But it's a predictable outcome of antivax culture.
When nothing else works, what are you supposed to do?
It's uglier this way for sure and will cause more suffering. Sucks.
Those reasons are simple. People they trust are lying to them for monetary and political gain about a subject they personally know nothing about.
That's it. That's all there is to it.
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> But to do that is to admit that MAYBE the US govt didn't handle COVID perfectly.
My friend, antivax bullshit has been swelling long before COVID. Turns out there's way more money and power in peddling these people snake oil than something that will help their health.
And secondly, whatever complaints you have about handling COVID, the vaccines for it were and are safe and effective, but no amount of evidence will ever convince them.
[0] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/people-vaccinated-covid?c...
So considering that, I suspect the loss of life would increase in the long run.
My siblings all got vaccinated after that, and my mother stopped being antivax (still taking 'alternative' medecine, but also still taking conventional one). I guess seeing your child in so much pain and develop arythmia because of your 'beliefs' can make you change. Hopefully things like this will be less and less common.
keyword being "can" there.
> Parents of Texas child who died of measles remain opposed to vaccine
https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/health/parents-of-texas-ch...
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