With laws that made it easy for parents to opt out of childhood immunizations and cut backs in public health care, whooping cough is now out of control in Washington State. 
Budget Cuts Hurt Washington State’s Response to Whooping Cough Outb...



Whooping cough, or 
pertussis, a highly infectious 
respiratory diseaseonce considered doomed by science, has struck Washington State this spring with a severity that health officials say could surpass the toll of any year since the 1940s, before a vaccine went into wide use.

“It’s the largest epidemic I’ve ever seen,” said Becky Neff, the only 
registered nurse in the 3,700-student Burlington-Edison School District, 
in Skagit County. Ms. Neff said she had seen 142 suspected and confirmed cases, or 
about 3.8 percent of the student population from kindergarten through 12th grade.[emphasis mine]