Another Wildly Stupid Idea, Skip the Measles Vaccination
It is hard to believe that people would risk their lives or their children’s lives by not getting the measles vaccine. It was bad when we were growing up in the fifties. I am sure Joel can add to this information. A worldwide crisis only because we let it become one through ignorance.
Measles Is Preventable. How Did the World End Up Back Here?
by Ava Easton
MedPage Today
I remember being very sick when I had measles as a child. I was confined to a darkened room for more than a week, and there was concern that it would affect my vision. Decades later, I work with patients who have had encephalitis as a result of measles, and families who are left bereaved by the disease.
Because of the success of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, most people have never seen a case of measles and think it is just a rash that clears up in a few days. But measles is not the innocuous childhood illness that the unfamiliar or vaccine deniers believe.
Measles is serious and deadly. Complications occur in up to 40% of patients, and may include blindness, hearing loss, pneumonia, seizures, and meningitis. The numbers are alarming: between one and three in 1,000 children with measles will develop encephalitis, 10%-to-15% of whom will die, and 25% of whom will have permanent neurological damage. For children under the age of 1, one in 5,500 will develop subacute sclerosing panencephalitis a rare and fatal degenerative neurological condition that can develop years after a measles infection.
Most vulnerable are babies, young children, pregnant women, and the immunocompromised. Measles is so contagious that just a single infected person can infect nine people who are unvaccinated or never had the illness; by comparison, someone with COVID-19 may infect between one and three other unvaccinated people.
Measles kills. It is that simple.
The great irony is that measles has become a worldwide public health crisis at a time when it is one of the most vaccine-preventable diseases in existence.
A Historic Look at Measles
Let’s look back to a time before the vaccine existed.
Take the case of Barbara Leonhard, who contracted measles along with her siblings when she was 6 going on 7 years old. Her siblings recovered, but she developed encephalitis, was totally paralyzed, and spent 30 days hospitalized in a coma. She was lucky: doctors said she’d never walk again, but she learned how to walk. Though the disease left her with memory and learning issues, she excelled and became a sign language instructor at the University of Missouri, as well as a poet, author, and editor.
That was in 1958 — 66 years ago — when Leonhard became one of 763,094 people in the U.S. to contract measles, the highest number of cases in a single year. In 1963, when the measles vaccine became available, her parents jumped at the chance to have their children vaccinated. Viewed as a miracle, the vaccine reduced measles cases by 95% over the next 5 years; by 2000, the disease was declared eliminated in the U.S.
Fast forward. Since October 2023, there have been 1,109 confirmed measles casesin England. Meanwhile, in 2022-2023, MMR vaccinations for children under 2 had fallen to 89.2% (herd immunity requires 95% of the population be fully vaccinated). In the U.S., the CDC reports that MMR vaccination rates fell from 95% in 2019-2020 to 93.1% for the 2022-2023 school year; this two-point drop means 250,000 kindergartners are at higher risk for developing measles. Herd immunity is critically important because it allows us to accommodate people who can’t be vaccinated for medical, personal, or religious reasons.
How Did We Get Here?
One of the primary contributors to the current anti-vaccine movement was the 1998 publication of a now-retracted paper in The Lancet by disgraced former physician Andrew Wakefield, who inaccurately linked the MMR vaccine to autism.
In addition to misinformation about vaccine safety, the current crisis has been fueled by complacency, vaccination delays during the pandemic, lack of access to vaccines in some cases, international travel, mistrust in the government and the pharmaceutical industry, and the expansion of medical and religious exemptions.
The biggest hurdle we face is convincing skeptics that most vaccines are safe. This is despite the fact that the science is clear: only one or two people in a million develop some kind of adverse event because of vaccination.
But sometimes parents who have lost children or whose children have life-changing disabilities may believe vaccination was the cause. I have seen and heard from these parents — their loss and distress are palpable and heartbreaking. In addition to the patients and families affected by the complications of measles, these parents are victims of erroneous and misguided information.
The MMR vaccine prevents hundreds of thousands of deaths and disabilities, but the vaccine-hesitant voices are very loud. To combat them, healthcare and public health professionals can show patients data demonstrating that vaccines are safe and effective.
Efforts to Encourage Vaccination
In the U.K., the government is conducting a highly successful national catch-up campaign to encourage parents to vaccinate children between 6 and 11 years old who missed their MMR vaccines. It is also targeting unvaccinated adolescents and adults. There are many forms of encephalitis that cannot be prevented, but there is no reason anyone should get encephalitis from measles.
There is still time for the U.S. to prevent the more extreme situation we are experiencing in Europe and around the world. Most measles cases in the U.S. appear to be the result of an infected person traveling from a country where measles is endemic or where there is an outbreak. In fact, just this week, CDC published a Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report article on 57 measles cases tied to a migrant shelter in Chicago.
Healthcare professionals should speak to parents to make sure children are up to date on vaccinations. This is particularly important for families who plan to travel internationally, especially to areas where there are measles outbreaks.
I’ve heard some stories about physicians refusing to treat patients who are not vaccinated against MMR. While it can be difficult to maintain patience and compassion when faced with parental resistance, we must remember that many of these parents come from a legitimate place of fear for their child’s health. Listening to and addressing their concerns may go a long way in convincing them that vaccines are safe.
It is heartbreaking to know that children are being needlessly affected by this terrible disease. We must make vaccinations more accessible and fight vaccine misinformation by overpowering it with the truth: that vaccines save millions of lives around the world each year.
once upon a time Vaccines were vaccines and could be trusted – over time and in multiple ways, its understandable why, there are those, who do not trust Vaccines and those who manufacture them – In my opinion, this distrust was earned
just me:
You have no basis for your comment other than supposition, conjecture, and innuendo.
@just,
Vaccines are still vaccines. They can be trusted, based on the evidence. The only ones saying vaccines can’t be trusted are the right-wing liars. They’re the ones who can’t be trusted; that distrust was earned.
If you have evidence that the measles vaccine can’t be trusted, post it. Take all the time you need.
As a parent of an autistic individual, I dispute this. Our son has his required vaccinations, but we got to meet a whole lot of anti-vaxxers over the years. Apart from maybe a specific libertarian streak directly related to vaccines, they skewed left notably to Cincinnati area in many ways. Policing, military, “proto-DEI”, child rearing, environment, gender. It was a spectrum of course, but if you could only pick left or right for the group, the arguments for left seemed more compelling.
@Eric,
OK, fine. The only ones disputing the safety of vaccines are the ignorant and the liars. In my experience, they are predominantly on the right these days, but I get that your experience is different from mine. There is, of course, zero evidence that vaccination has anything to do with autism, as you know.
Bull Squat
When the evidence overwhelmingly points to the safety of vaccines like MMR. Your position is, by definition, willfully ignorant.
Bill
I wouldn’t be too sure about no basis. He may have had personal experience you know nothing about.
As for “wildly stupid”…maybe a wrong decision but not wildly stupid. Most people do not know what you know, and they have no reason to trust “authorities.” Perhaps we need to find a way to educate them. But you don’t begin to educate a person by calling them wildly stupid. I know.
Consider the last three paragraphs in Easton’s essay.
Coberly:
And trump is just misunderstood.
@Bill,
Trump may have had personal experience you know nothing about.
Perhaps we need to find a way to educate Trump. But you don’t begin to educate Trump and his cult by calling him misunderstood. Fee-fees are more important than facts.
Joel:
Snark.
Educating trump . . .
Fee-fees are more important than facts.
The fact that the crowd that loves to say “f___ your feelings” is made up of the most butt-hurt individuals is so rich in irony.
Bill
try reading the last three paragraphs in the post.
allow me to note that some of the people here who think people who rely on authority deserve contempt are appealing to authority right here. i was suggesting that some who don’t trust vaccines may be relying on their own experience…as opposed to your claims of authority.
you know that i do not like trump so your snark is rather misplaced.
absolutely no reason why you should have to consider anyone else’s “fee fees” unless you might need their help some day.
Moved from the North to the South recently. The world is different here. Faith over facts and data. It’s that simple. Their trusted sources are also faith-based and typically anti-science as it contradicts biblical “truth” see ie. The Creation Museum.
Can’t tell you how many people have informed me that Dr. Fauci was simply wrong about everything, that Covid wasn’t really that bad, etc. or how dangerous all the covid vaccines are and by extension all vaccines. It’s all a conspiracy of some sort that involves the government and they all have their own facts. More data will do nothing to convince them; if anything they double down.
As for personal experience with vaccines, many people (including me) have had severe adverse reactions that if one reads the data are known knowns that are statistical outliers; none of that matters to them. Vaccines are bad and for those steeped in odd notions of bodily purity it violates some faith tenant. Was side-blinded into conversation with some very nice “faith-based” social friends and have zero plans to do that again. I learned that skin cancer doesn’t really exist but is caused by sunscreen that prevents the body from making Vitamin D; the body self-heals via faith mechanisms, everything there is to know about the covid conspiracy and the government scientists, including Fauci, that are constantly experimenting on the citizenry. That was just for starters; when it veered toward immigration, crime and the “founding fathers” I understood it was merely about establishing whether I was a believer.
One can not overcome their “genuinely held beliefs” with data, facts or science. To them even when the doctors cure diseases it’s all due to prayer and divine intervention.
Bottom line: Faith is their truth and their trusted authorities deal in faith; not science. They are not stupid in terms of intelligence; but they lack critical thinking skills and don’t wish to acquire them as that would challenge their identity which is based in shared biblical beliefs and mysticism (angels and miracles). Most of them spend time reading the bible and doing bible study groups that are very similar to book clubs.
From now on, all social discussions will be about the weather, gardening, grandchildren, tennis, and pickleball.
dd:
I sense similar in AZ although my Mexican neighbors are very open to technology. We have to be careful also in what we say to certain people. I am in a cool area. A young couple on one side of us. A female couple on the other side of us. The Mexican family across the street watch out for us like they would for Grandparents. We are watching 5 of them grow up. I was invited to go and see the father become a citizen. In which case, I made it a point to go. They are so down to earth. We sprang from similar circumstance.
And you read my words, so you know what I am like.
Yet, there is another side of this too. Loud cars and trucks. Blowing fumes and smoke like the sixties. Recklessly driving at well above the speed limit. Off to church on Sunday and carrying a flag with them. Political bigots.
dd
good choice .
just for the record I ran into the same sort of thing in Massachusetts, chicago, upper peninsula michigan, oregon, you might want to check the election map. note the states where Trump won, and note the number of people who voted for him in the states where he did not win.
btw…some of the best people I have known live in Florida. or did when I was there.
i don’t know what the Northern press was like in 1850, but by then the press in the South was pretty insane. It makes a difference what you read in the papers. As far as I know the Civil War did not change the minds of the newspaper owners and other “thought leaders.” on my last trip across country (by car) the only thing you could get on the radio between Massachusetts and California was Rush. Before that it was Paul Harvey.
so before you write them all off as subhuman, consider what you might be like if that was all you heard growing up.
Wow! I didn’t write anyone off as sub-human. That is on you. I said they were not critical thinkers. I grew up in religious rigidity. It takes a lot of hard work and much time to question ingrained belief systems particularly those involving eternal damnation.
dd
good luck with finding critical thinking anywhere. the best we can manage is to be critical of those we don’t like.
you did not say you wrote of people as subhuman, but you talked about them that way.
dd
“wrote off” not “wrote of”
by the way, I said “before you write off” not “you wrote off”.
coberly:
I have difficulty imagining what people are thinking when they write. Your interpretation of what dd wrote is rejected. Given her time at AB, I accept her commenting denying your perception of what she said and you should also accept what she said.
Bill @ 12:02
“I have difficulty imagining what people are thinking when they write.”
yes. try reading what i wrote, not what you think i wrote.
Ah, well familiar with the Mexican culture and its joys. Not political bigots as such; but more savvy. That is not the Southern culture. Yes, seemingly bound by shared religious beliefs; but the evangelicals are so much more rigid in their fundamentalism. The Mexican culture understands its underclass limitations in the US but is happy to assimilate hence the move for some into evangelicalism; but much like Italians/Spanish/Irish the Catholicism is genetic. So sorting it out is a bit more complex.
Next up especially in the South is the East Asian culture; also very familiar with that. The Ramaswamy dude thinks the all white Southern Country Club set will welcome him; but alas he doesn’t fit in with their purity standards. The future is of course the very driven and ambitious children of these immigrants who have mastered “fitting in” but who knows what they will come to believe. I am optimistic knowing their young offspring are very curious and want to expand their horizons.
The real issue is how to give that same drive and motivation to the generations of Americans who have been left behind; but here too I have much hope. Lots of kids don’t see colors only fellow classmates and playmates. So things will work out. I already see that; but dealing with their parents and those of the fundamentalists mindset is still trying.
dd:
Thanks for your input. It is much appreciated.
My sense is that COVID vaccination controversies highly impacted these other, longer-established vaccines negatively. COVID vaccinations seemed on the verge of becoming a type of social credit system. Vaccine passports, OSHA rules designed to act as mandates, etc. struck a lot of people as very wrong, and they possibly then started considering ‘what else are “they” demanding we do?’ A certain percent ran with it. As a parent of an autistic, I’ve had a lot of contact with anti-vaxxers. Pre-COVID, no way would I have thought any reasonable person would try to fit these people on a left/right continuum and then see them on the right. Anti-vax then was not a political thing itself and those involved seemed quite “granola” in general….not a lot of NASCAR affinities. I look back 2 and 3 years ago and see that where we are today can easily be thought of as demonstrating a truly mean spirit behind those social credit-like policies. I’m more inclined to think it was panic more than planning, but, as just one example, what happened to all those “vaxxed only” access requirements in New York and other places? If they were sound public health ideas then, what’s changed really? We take a lot less data and talk about it far, far less, but COVID is out there and having some pretty good innings still. Another is that OSHA still had room under the Supreme Court’s decision to take action on ventilation and probably masking, but dropped it all as far as I can see once its authority to make requirements on the basis of vaccination status was curtailed. Millions remember that it was widely discussed that many, many firms would find it easier to fire people than repeatedly test them. Is it that new ventilation requirements would cost a lot and actually have a pretty clear enforcement path, but vaccine requirements were likely to just generate higher threats of losing income, with minimal testing? Who in the CDC was advising not to try stuff like that because of blowback on MMR and similar?
@Eric,
“what happened to all those “vaxxed only” access requirements in New York and other places? If they were sound public health ideas then, what’s changed really?”
One thing that changed since then was that a high proportion of people were vaccinated. That means less virus in circulation and less transmission. Effectively, herd immunity, which is a goal of vaccination.
Were all the mandates necessary? Since this was an experiment without a control, it is impossible to say for sure. My guess is that they were necessary in some places and times and unnecessary in others. But in times of plague, erring on the side of caution seems prudent. To me, losing income would be preferable to losing my life or the life of a loved one. YMMV.
@Eric,
I have never posted here or anywhere else about the myth of “forced vaccination.” Anyone who says otherwise is lying.
As for the safety of vaccines, it is not a matter of what I believe, it is a matter of the scientific evidence. The inference that the COVID vaccines are safe is not an argument from authority, it is an argument from evidence. Anyone is free to read the evidence. Healthy people who refused to get vaccinated are a danger to us all.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/safety-of-vaccines.html