Measles Cases Top Last Year's Total

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Wall Street Journal: So far this year there have been 387 confirmed U.S. measles cases, more than 2018's full-year total and the second-largest number since the disease was declared eliminated in 2000 (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source), according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The disease has spread to 15 states in 2019, with six continuing outbreaks of three or more cases each in Washington, New York, New Jersey and California. The development has sparked new policies aimed at boosting inoculation and curbing misinformation about the measles vaccine.

Measles cases have has risen since 2000 as infected travelers bring the disease to the U.S. Those travelers -- unvaccinated foreign nationals or Americans who become infected abroad -- have spread the highly contagious disease to others in the U.S. who aren't vaccinated or hadn't previously had measles. These cases have fueled outbreaks in communities where large numbers of people haven't been inoculated because of personal or religious exemptions to the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. The largest growth in infections since measles was eliminated totaled 23 outbreaks and 667 cases in 2014. Last year there were 17 outbreaks and 372 confirmed cases. The number of cases in 2019 could increase in the coming months. Measles is a seasonal disease, with cases rising in late winter and early spring in temperate climates, according to the World Health Organization.

Comments

Something missing in the head

[phantomfive]

There is something really wrong with people who don't vaccinate. I don't know what it is exactly, but they are not seeing the world clearly.

Re:Something missing in the head

[phantomfive]

Its called an IQ, they just don't have any.

That's not the problem, everyone has an IQ.

It's most likely that some of these people are actually quite intelligent, they just aren't very good at collecting correct information about the world. Some of them actually spend a lot of time and effort into researching the topic, so you can't even say they are lazy. What is it that they are missing that prevents them from collecting accurate information about the world? A lack of knowledge about statistics?

Re:Something missing in the head

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

It's a lack of critical thinking skills and/or logical reasoning ability.

These people are like large children, unable to think things through or weigh them with any sense of proportion. They're prone to magical thinking and jumping to conclusions.

Reasoning with them usually just makes them dig in their heels because a) they don't want to feel dumb, and b) they don't want to lose face.

At some point eventually even they'll know they're wrong, but they'll go down with the ship rather than admit that they bought into a load of bullshit.

Re:Something missing in the head

[Darinbob]

Affluent parents are also much more likely to be home schooled and vaccination optional, poor parents have to send kids to public schools where vaccination is mandatory.

Re:Something missing in the head

[sjames]

One issue I have heard from people who have concerns is the sheer number of vaccinations. According to the CDC, 19 vaccinations are recommended by the time a baby is 6 months old!

This creates a tendency to throw the baby out with the bath water. That is, rather than spread out the vaccinations, or just get the really important ones, get none. When everything is top priority, nothing is.

It doesn't help that there's a ton of mis-information attributing every possible bad thing that may happen to a vaccination. With so many packed into such a short time at a really vulnerable age, there's bound to be a lot of mis-attributions.

Meanwhile, the pharmaceutical industry seems bound and determined to ruin it's own reputation while giving everyone the finger, making it even harder to convince a parent that at least some of these vaccines are really important and not just yet another scheme to separate people from their money.

Re:Something missing in the head

[Joce640k]

Not true, stop repeating this. It's not a partisan issue. I have run across strong conservatives who are opposed to vaccination, and will justify it by saying the government has no right to tell them what to do. It's a stupid stance but definitely a common conservative view.

I'd have thought there's be more conservatives in the anti-vax movement - the religious ones.

Re:Something missing in the head

[F.Ultra]

While "19 vaccinations" sounds like a lot one have to understand that that very same child will be exposed to more than a million bacteria proteins during and shortly after birth so 19 is a drop in the ocean for an infants immune system.

When measuring the immune system of an infant Scientists have calculated that they can handle over 10000 vaccines at any one time: https://pediatrics.aappublicat...

Re:Something missing in the head

[F.Ultra]

An infant is exposed to over one million bacteria proteins during birth so no, new borns does not "basically have no immune system". If that had been the case then all infants would die at birth. Calculations done point to infants having enough immune system to handle over 10000 vaccinations at a time: https://pediatrics.aappublicat...

Re:Something missing in the head

[Trailer Trash]

Speaking of a sense of proportion.... in the United States you're three times as likely to die from a shark attack (1 death per year on average) as you are from from the measles (1 death every 3 years on average from 387 reported measles cases per year).

To put that into further perspective, the U.S. averages 11 deaths from fireworks and 24 from train crashes per year. Death from a literal lightning strike is 141 times as common than dying from the measles in the United States.

So let's not overreact quite yet.

Yes, there are things that kill you other than measles. The difference is that measles is pretty easily preventable - people just have to get vaccinated.

The other issue with measles - and most of the "childhood diseases" - is that they have other complications besides death.

https://www.cdc.gov/measles/ab...

"About one child out of every 1,000 who get measles will develop encephalitis (swelling of the brain) that can lead to convulsions and can leave the child deaf or with intellectual disability."

"Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) is a very rare, but fatal disease of the central nervous system that results from a measles virus infection acquired earlier in life. SSPE generally develops 7 to 10 years after a person has measles, even though the person seems to have fully recovered from the illness. Since measles was eliminated in 2000, SSPE is rarely reported in the United States."

That last line is ironic.

Re: Something missing in the head

[Anonymous Coward]

> Good luck figuring out what is true :P

That's pretty simple. In (B)

> where is the high risk of infection if everyone is vaccinated at birth?

you generalize/exaggerate from a statement "plenty of European countries also give the Hep-B vaccine at birth" to "everyone is vaccinated at birth". Europe is not the entire world, and the original statement did not even imply that the vaccine was mandatory, something which should be obvious from the topic of conversation.

Which leads me to question whether anything you claim should be taken very seriously, at least without a lot of further checking.

Re:Something missing in the head

[Jason Levine]

Part of the problem is that vaccines were too successful. Most parents nowadays have no first hand knowledge of how bad these diseases were. This is a good thing, of course, but it also means parents can easily assume that a low severity for measles ("you just get a rash for a week and then you're fine") and other diseases (Whooping cough: "you just cough for a bit"). Combine this with Internet misinformation inflating the risk of vaccines ("They've got toxins... TOXINS!!!") and you have a recipe for a bad risk calculation. Sadly, it might take a few more outbreaks before some parents really get the message that the vaccination risk is much lower than the disease risk.

Not just social media

[Uberbah]

Russia Madcow has been pushing a stupid conspiracy theory for almost three years on MSNBC. Whereas people who call BS on crap like false flags in Syria or a DNC worker being shot twice in a robbery where nothing is taken are smeared as "conspiracy theorists".

Re: Liability

[ruddk]

But why, pray tell, do you think the death count from measles are so low?

Re:Interesting question is

[gaiageek]

Measles was eliminated in the United States in 2000. Unless you're going to quarantine the US completely (close all borders, no one gets in or out) you're going to have people getting exposed. Vaccines are the only practical way to prevent it from spreading.

No. Sometimes you can't reach stupid.

[Uberbah]

It's because the experts keep discrediting themselves. You might not think they are, but to an increasingly large number of people, science and government institutions are not trustworthy, for what they consider good reasons.

Can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. You can deluge anti-vaxxers with an exceptionally polite list of facts and research and it just makes them dig in even more. So what do you do with people that can't be reasoned with?

1) Mocking. The Daily Show had on the lunar conspiracy theorist who got decked by Buzz Aldrin, after he hounded the retired astronaut, accusing him of being a liar and a cheat. After playing the clip of the theorist getting punched, the "reporter" "pointed out" that it looked fake.

2) Give them so much shit in public, all the time every time, that they voluntarily stfu.