Measles Resurgent Due To Fear of Vaccination

florescent_beige writes "In the September Mayo Clinic Proceedings, Gregory Poland, M.D. writes that 'More than 150 cases of measles have been reported in the United States already this year and there have been similar outbreaks in Europe, a sign the disease is making an alarming comeback (abstract). The reappearance of the potentially deadly virus is the result of unfounded fears about a link between the measles shot and autism that have turned some parents against childhood vaccination.'" This follows the recent release of a massive review of studies into the side effects of vaccination, summarized here by Nature, which did not find convincing support for the idea that MMR shots caused autism.

Comments

In a cruel twist of irony...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The MMR vaccine has not shown signs of causing neurological problems; but Measles, in the not-as-rare-as-one-might-like cases where it progresses to include Encephalitis, certainly has...

Please, please, get that shot!

[Metiu]

This year my wife mysteriously got measles (in Italy). She hadn't been vaccinated because when we were young the vaccine was not available. BUT our youngest child got it, too, because he was at the time younger than the age at which you get the shot.

I don't tell you the trouble of having a diagnosis, since the disease is so uncommon today, that after two visits, my wife finally diagnosed it herself on wikipedia (sic). And the trouble of telling all the authorities, which needed to find the lost protocols for such an infection.

To sum it up: the studies linking the shot with autism were done by an UK professor, who has been on trial for telling false results to help his own company.
When you don't get the shot and you are healthy, you're just selfishly exploiting the fact that most of "other people" will get the shot and you will be protected. BUT measles IS dangerous, and some people won't have your choice, because they are too young or too unhealthy to get that shot. They will risk severe damages by the disease, so PLEASE don't be a wimp and kindly get vaccinated.

Re:It's a shame...

[RingDev]

Evolution is an adaptive mechanism, not some endless process churning out more and more advanced forms of life.

Kinda, it is. Evolution is the change over time of propagation of mutations.

Last year there was a study published on a 40 year old strain of bacteria. What they had found was for the first x years, as mutations occured they did so at a rather consistent rate, and the population 'evolved'. Some mutations propagated, some were out compeated, and so on just as we've come to expect.

But after that first number of years, there were no more changes to the environment, but the mutations continued at a very similar rate. What they found though was that at that point, with no other pressures on the population, that the % of the mutations that lead to improved survival/proginy dropped significantly. There were still lots of mutations, they just weren't leading to any further evolution.

The organizms had advanced to the point that most negative trait mutations did not effect them significantly enough to prevent their growth rate, and that positive trait mutations did not give them enough of an advantage to out-compete other organizms.

That isn't to say that some other mutation won't occur to greatly improve their survivability, or that introducing some new stimulus wouldn't lead to a new branch of evolution. But there is a point where evolutionary pressure deminishes while the mutation rate remains.

-Rick