Article form 2007
For months, nearly everyone involved thought the medical center had had a huge whooping cough outbreak, with extensive ramifications.
Nearly 1,000 health care workers at the hospital in Lebanon, N.H., were given a preliminary test and
furloughed from work until their results were in; 142 people, including Dr. Herndon,
were told they appeared to have the disease; and thousands were given antibiotics and a
vaccine for protection. Hospital beds were taken out of commission, including some in intensive care.
Then, about eight months later, health care workers were dumbfounded to receive an
e-mail message from the hospital administration informing them that the whole thing was a false alarm.
Not a single case of whooping cough was confirmed with the definitive test, growing the
bacterium, Bordetella pertussis, in the laboratory. Instead, it appears the health care workers probably were afflicted with ordinary respiratory diseases like the common cold.
Now, as they look back on the episode, epidemiologists and infectious disease specialists say
the problem was that they placed too much faith in a quick and highly sensitive molecular
test that led them astray (the PCR)
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/22/health/22whoop.html
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