Fucking hippies

This reminds me: I have to get my flu shot!

According to an investigation by The Hollywood Reporter, wealthy and educated parents are forgoing vaccinations for their kids in some of the most elite and affluent areas of Los Angeles, California – all this while a potentially dangerous outbreak of whooping cough spreads through the L.A. area like “wildfire.”

In a stunning comparison, the vaccination rates in areas such as Malibu, Santa Monica and Beverly Hills are apparently on par with South Sudan.

From The Hollywood Reporter:

Across California, thousands of children and babies are coughing so violently that their bodies convulse, uncontrollably wheezing and fighting to breathe for weeks. Nearly 8,000 pertussis cases have been reported in 2014 to the state’s Department of Public Health as of Sept. 2, and 267 of those patients have been hospitalized, including 58 requiring intensive care.

Adults can contract the disease, but 94 percent of all cases reported statewide involve children — and the youngest suffer the most. So far this year, three infants under 2 months of age have died statewide from pertussis, a disease commonly known as whooping cough (named for the high-pitched sound that kids make when they inhale after coughing).

L.A.’s Children’s Hospital has seen 72 pertussis patients so far this year. Many of these children suffer broken ribs because the coughing is so violent.

“A number of them have been in the ICU and very, very sick,” says infectious disease specialist Dr. Jeffrey Bender. “They cough so hard, it turns into vomiting and broken ribs; they end up intubated, to ventilate their lungs.”