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In reply to the discussion: I've Got Whooping Cough. Thanks a Lot, Jenny McCarthy. [View all]SouthernLiberal
(408 posts)I got most of the childhood diseases we now have vaccines for, because we did not have them then. Measles - check. Mumps - check. Chicken Pox - check. Moms in those days used to encourage their kids to get exposed to those diseases. What 'everybody knew' back then was that the younger you got them, the better off you would be. We didn't have the pertussis vaccine, either. And I remember how scared my mom was when she heard 'that cough'. She all but kept us locked in our rooms, if there was a rumor that some kid in the neighborhood had whooping cough.
Unlike the other so-called childhood diseases, my mom, and everybody else knew what Ms. McCarthy doesn't seem to know - pertussis kills children. Babies, especially. So what she is telling mothers to do, is to put their children's lives at risk.
I cannot imagine any mother, even if the autism claim were true (and of course, it is not), would not choose an increased chance of autism over watching their child cough him or herself to death.