Measles On The Rise!
Submitted by Dr. Gwenn Is In
The headline alone should cause us all to worry: CDC reports largest measles rise since 2001. This story is all over the news - ABC News, The New York Times, The Associated Press on Yahoo, to name a few.
As all the news stories point out, there are a number of likely contributing factors to this rise in measles. First, we learned this week from the CDC that many children are being given their vaccines too early which likely causes those vaccines to not be quite as effective. We have to worry that the early vaccination of these kids is a factor in this measles outbreak.
Then, there are the issues of parents opting to not give their kids vaccinations either due to religious reasons or out of fear of vaccine safety or vaccines causing autism. I’m not going to address those issues today. Today is about numbers. Today is about the fact that in the last 4 months, the CDC has been reported 64 confirmed cases of measles in 9 states. According to ABC News,
“Of the 59 measles cases among U.S. residents, 21 of the people were between 16 months and 19 years old — and 14 of them claimed vaccination exemptions due to religious or personal beliefs.”
Keep in mind that there is no cure for the measles and before the development of the measles vaccine, this illness spread in epidemic proportions. As the New York Times reported in their story:
“Before 1963, when the vaccine became available in this country, there were three million to four million cases of measles annually. The disease killed 400 to 500 children a year and put 48,000 in the hospital.
The vaccine wiped out transmission here by 2000, but the disease can easily be imported because there are so many cases overseas. Worldwide, measles still kills 242,000 children a year.”
The American Academy of Pediatrics has this to say about stopping measles vaccination:
“Measles is one of the most infectious diseases in the world, and is frequently imported into the U.S. If vaccinations were stopped, 2.7 million measles deaths worldwide could be expected.”
The question to ask yourself is this, do we really want to go back to pre-1963 life? Do we really want our kids exposed to infectious diseases complete with those horrible medical consequences if we have a way to prevent them? The time has come for the doubters of vaccines to take a step back, put aside their emotions and look at the statistics more objectively because it is their children at risk - and all the other kids not vaccinated or vaccinated incorrectly now at risk. What infuriates, and saddens me, is this is all so preventable and in our control.
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