Nightly News   |  July 19, 2012

Don’t tempt whooping cough: ‘get immunized’

NBC’s Dr. Nancy Snyderman urges parents to immunize their children, and says older kids and adults should get the pertussis booster shots. ‘If we all get vaccinated, we can protect everyone,’ she said.

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This content comes from Closed Captioning that was broadcast along with this program.

>> our chief medical editor dr. nancy snyderman is already in london tonight part of our team covering the olympics. nancy, especially people with small kids are going to see this and worry. what can folks do about this?

>> brian, the underlying message is get immunized. immunizations are almost a victim of their own success. perhaps the greatest public health outreach that we've had in our generation. but because now so many young parents don't remember ever seeing these communicable diseases we've got a bit lax thinking i don't have to get my child immunized. with every child and young adult who goes unimmunized this very infectious agent can then strike the most vulnerable. remember there are three doses, 2, 4, and 6 months. another booster between the ages of 4 and 6 years, then another one in preteens. but pregnant women and young adults going off to college or the military, you get vaccinated, too. the underlying message is if we all get vaccinated, we can protect everyone and it takes about 90% of our population to have that herd immunity. that is what this public health message is all about. kids don't have to die this way, brian.

>> that's right. the new numbers are very troubling. nancy snyderman in our nbc news london