California has had zero deaths from whooping cough in the last 55 years.
The toll this year: 9 babies dead of whooping cough. So far.
There is something about that link above that makes me angry. The source given for the terrible statistic is the Huffington Post — a site which has done far more than its share to promulgate lies and fear about vaccination, and which should bear a portion of the guilt for those dead children.
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They used to hunt whooping cranes. Between that and habitat loss, the number dropped from nearly 20,0000 to a mere 1,400 during the first half of the 19th century, and continued to drop to an all time low of 15 birds in 1941.
Fifteen birds, in 1941, represented the entire species.
Texas is the winter home of the only self-sustaining wild population of Whooping Cranes Grus americana in the world and this winter record numbers have completed their migration and returned to the southern state.
A recent study finds vaccine refusals have, indeed, accelerated the resurgence of whooping cough and measles here in the U.S.
Calitics has the story about that whooping cough epidemic: