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AUSTIN, Texas (AP) – Nearly 50 people working in the Texas Capitol have been vaccinated this week because one page has caught whooping cough, a health alert that comes as legislatures across the country are grappling with new immunization exemptions and measles outbreaks.
Texas health officials have been offering the vaccines since Monday, three days after legislators were informed that a page had caught the highly infectious disease. At least two members of the Chamber and their staff were vaccinated and a representative who often takes his 9-month-old daughter to work called her pediatrician to check the precautions.
The pertussis case is being warned at Texas House, where politically active vaccination opponents have been trying to claim a territory.
"I know this worries people," said state representative Gene Wu, a Democrat from Houston. "People are speculating on the choice of members because they have not been vaccinated."
Vaccinations are a recurring fight in states, including in Washington State, where lawmakers are trying to limit vaccine exemptions due to a measles outbreak. A bill in New York would allow minors to be vaccinated without the consent of their parents, while a California proposal would give state health officials, not local doctors, the power to decide which children can avoid vaccinations before going to school.
Whooping cough is a bacterial infection, also called whooping cough, which often starts with a mild cold, then weeks of intense coughing. The disease takes its name from the sound that some people emit at the end of a painful cough when they gasp to catch their breath. According to the Federal Centers for Disease Control, about 10,000 to 40,000 cases of pertussis are reported each year.
Forty-seven people from the Texas Capitol received the pertussis vaccines on Monday and Tuesday from state health authorities, said Lara Anton, a spokesman for Texas State Department Health Services. She said that she could not disclose details about who had contracted pertussis by invoking privacy, but the pages of the house are typically middle-aged children.
"It was a large number of potentially exposed people," Anton said.
In Texas, the number of schoolchildren applying for a vaccine exemption increased from about 2,300 students in 2003 to more than 56,000. Some laws introduced this year would facilitate the withdrawal of vaccines or prevent state health authorities from tracking data on exemptions.
On Wednesday, concerns over vaccine exemptions in Texas could even lead to a vote on a new $ 250 billion budget. A Democrat tabled an amendment that would look at vaccination levels in daycares.
"The fact that a case of pertussis has been confirmed in the House of Commons should be an immediate reminder," said Rekha Lakshmanan, director of advocacy and public policy for The Immunization Partnership, based in Houston. "The fact that this has happened among legislators should give everyone an idea of the reality".
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Follow Paul J. Weber on Twitter: https://twitter.com/pauljweber
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