One of the common arguments from vaccine rejectionists is “These diseases aren’t really that bad”. Often this includes graphs of death rates over time, with the suggestion that the diseases were already going away by themselves when the vaccination program started. It boggles the mind that intelligent people can make that claim, but they do.
The other argument is that with modern medicine and sanitation, the diseases were not a big problem. Again, mind boggling.
People will say, without any hint of irony, “I got the disease and I didn’t die.” The response being so obvious (the dead people aren’t here to speak) that I am astounded that these people make this claim.
Doctor reflects on reality of measles suffering from a UK physician, Dr. DeeTee
But recently 2 cases I saw reminded me of measles' potentially devastating legacy. The first was a patient who had lost one of her 2 children in infancy. "Measles", she said, matter-of-factly, when I asked her why. The other case was a patient in her fifties who came in for an unrelated problem, but had a lifelong severe disability because of a paralysed left side, and who had poorly-controlled epilepsy. I imagined these were the result of a congenital problem such as cerebral palsy. "No", explained her carer. "It was encephalitis from measles".
Much of my time is spent battling illnesses that are largely unavoidable, but from time to time I see things that are totally preventable, like the measles cases last summer, and it rankles, big time. Knowing that there are those who actively campaign against vaccines makes me unspeakably angry
If you think anti-vaccine loons are just crunchy left-wing New Agers, think again
There's a measles outbreak in Montgomery County, Maryland.
The officials suspect that all the cases are related to an unvaccinated adult who came down with measles after a trip to China. He, in turn, infected a co-worker. Another adult and an eight-month-old child have all come down with the disease since then.
There's a measles outbreak in Allegany and Westmoreland Counties, Pennsylvania.
As predicted, the source of the measles outbreak in southwestern Pennsylvania was a foreign visitor, a child from India.
While neither the child nor any of five other people infected with measles have been identified, their whereabouts late in March included visits to Seven Springs Mountain Resort in Somerset-Fayette counties, Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC, Alle-Kiski Medical Center in Natrona Heights and various trips on Allegheny County Port Authority buses.
The state Department of Health and Allegheny County Health Department said other "probable" cases of infection await confirmation.
But the source of infection was "a traveler from India" who arrived March 7 in the United States.
That the source was a child is confirmed by the investigation's focus at Children's Hospital, where two Westmoreland County preschool-age children contracted measles, which also infected their 33-year-old father.
There may be a mumps outbreak in Boston
There is another outbreak of a “preventable” childhood disease. This one is not measles, but mumps. There are four Northeastern University students in Boston who are suspected of having mumps. Their symptoms are consistent with mumps, but the laboratory results are not back yet to confirm the diagnosis.
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