The Relentless School Nurse: Whooping Cough’s Comeback – The Alarming Cost of Falling Vaccination Rates

While measles outbreaks are widely reported in the media, another preventable disease is quietly making a dangerous comeback: pertussis, or whooping cough. This year alone, the U.S. has seen more than 7,000 cases. Tragically, several infants have already died, highlighting just how deadly pertussis can be for the youngest and most vulnerable.

This spike isn’t just a statistical blip, it’s a warning sign of a broader public health failure fueled by vaccine misinformation and declining immunization rates. Unlike past leaders who responded to outbreaks with robust national campaigns, current Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has yet to launch a coordinated response, even as senators and health experts call for urgent action. The silence from the nation’s top health official is especially alarming as frontline healthcare workers struggle to contain outbreaks that were once nearly eradicated by vaccination.

As nurses and public health advocates, Op-Ed Nurses Donna Gaffney and Teri Mills, urge families to understand the real risks. Pertussis isn’t just a persistent cough; it can cause severe complications, brain damage, or death in infants and children too young to be fully vaccinated. The resurgence of whooping cough is a stark reminder that vaccine hesitancy and inaction at the highest levels of government have real, sometimes tragic, consequences.

The Op-Ed co-authored by Donna and Teri was published in The Seattle Times on May 1, 2025. Here is a link to the article:

Add whooping cough to the list of preventable diseases that are back

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Add whooping cough to the list of preventable diseases that are back