[wmorgan]

Whooping cough is a funny example, since most adults are in fact not vaccinated for it -- in the US anyway, the vaccination rate for pertussis is under 30%. The reason newborns aren't dying from whooping cough is not that we vaccinate everyone. Instead, we make the vaccine widely available for people who want it (I got my booster at one of my wife's ultrasounds), and we tell parents not to expose their newborns to anyone who isn't vaccinated, until the baby can get their own. So for whooping cough specifically, it really is up to the parents, and I would say more of an individual responsibility thing.