Please, please, please—for the love of all that is holy, or at least your neighbor's children—if you live in Western Washington State, get a booster vaccine for Whooping Cough (aka Pertussis, aka Bordetella Pertussis, aka the Hundred Day Cough).

The vaccine is incredibly safe, incredibly effective (about 90% protective against any disease, even more so against severe disease) and about as natropathic of an intervention against our ongoing epidemic.

There is no treatment for a Pertussis infection, once you've got it. Antibiotics can reduce the chance you'll infect someone else, but will do nothing to shorten the disease. And, it's a nasty one. At best, you can expect to cough—really cough, in some cases hard enough to break ribs—for weeks. Aside from the cough, Pertussis infection and toxin can cause inflammation of the brain, anoxic brain damage in children or ill people who are infected, and seizures.

The vaccine for adults is called "TDaP", has no live organisms in it (so you cannot get sick from the vaccine), provides excellent protection for ten years and is dirt cheap. Get it now.