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

[Mashiki]

So why is the anti-vaxxer movement so heavily tied in many countries to the especially affluent, highly educated? They wouldn't get where they are lacking critical thinking skills and/or logical reasoning ability. Hell there's massive swaths of people teaching in universities(i.e. subject expert professors) here in Canada, and they're the core demographic of the anti-vaxxer movement.

Here's my guess. They've become so specialized in the areas that they teach, that they've become literal retards outside of it. It's why you'll see country kids vaccinated, and city kids not. Kids who grew up in small towns vaccinated, but the kids in major urban areas where government, science, and various specialty sectors live, not. We grew up with various diseases that would threaten animals like turkeys, chickens, pigs, cows, and so on. And know just how much vaccinating can make a difference. The urbanites on the other hand don't, have never seen it, it's especially bad with the "but food comes from the supermarket" lot.

Your point about losing face is right, but it has far more. Listen to an educated anti-vaxxer go on about how they "know" they're right, because of their education.

Re:Something missing in the head

[Darinbob]

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.

Re:Something missing in the head

[Darinbob]

Not just anti-vaxx, but there's a strong resurgence in conspiracy theories in general. It's social media spreading this stuff mostly, with a strong theme of "we're smarter than all the experts, so join us and you'll be one of the smartest people on the planet too!" Anti-vaxx, flat-earth, faked moon landing, and just this week there's a conspiracy forming around why the rapper Nipsey Hussel was killed.

Add to that a strong anti-education movement that seems to be forming, and an anti-science movement, and you can see this here on slashdot even.

Re:Something missing in the head

[ShanghaiBill]

Not true, stop repeating this. It's not a partisan issue.

Indeed. Anti-vaccination beliefs don't follow the usual political polarization.

Right-wing kooks see vaccinations as a government conspiracy. Left-wing kooks see vaccinations as a corporate conspiracy. Moderates vaccinate their kids.

Re: Something missing in the head

[c6gunner]

First of all new borns basically have no immune system. Vaccination before about 6 weeks is completely pointless

Nonsense. Newborns have a poorly developed immune system, but that's a far cry from "no immune system".

If you'd bothered looking at the list, the only vaccination given prior to 6 weeks is the Hep-B vaccine, and that's due to the high risk of developing chronic Hep-B. And despite your protestations, plenty of European countries also give the Hep-B vaccine at birth:

https://vaccine-schedule.ecdc....

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

[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.

Re:Something missing in the head

[magzteel]

In the USA vaccine makers have blanket immunity from lawsuit. You can not sue them due to harm, vaccine makers have no accountability. If you were a profit making corporation with no liability for harm, would you maybe give less of a crap sometimes and maybe use the old familiar trick of adding mercury to boost the vaccine production in some batches? Maybe, who cares if you did? No one can sue you for damages!

This system was created to insure vaccine makers would continue creating vaccines. It is fallout from the incident at Cutter labs where their polio vaccine was produced according to government guidelines but still gave some people polio. The company was sued for negligence even though they hadn't actually been negligent.

Re:Something missing in the head

[jeff4747]

In the USA vaccine makers have blanket immunity from lawsuit.

You misunderstand the law. It's not that they are immune to lawsuits. The government has assumed the liability.

So you can indeed sue due to vaccine injury. You'll just be suing the government instead of a corporation.

And you don't actually have to sue. The government set up a vaccine injury program where you can file a claim and get paid without a lawsuit. You are still free to sue if you'd like.

Also, the FDA stops a whole lot more vaccines than lawsuits ever could. It's not like there's nothing between the corporation coming up with something and the free market, as you imply. And if you want to claim regulatory capture, you'd have to show some vaccines that would not pass trials yet got released.

use the old familiar trick of adding mercury to boost the vaccine production in some batches?

:faceplam:

Thiomersal is a preservative. It has nothing do do with boosting production rates. It was introduced into vaccines in order to let doctors use one vial to treat multiple patients. Pull out a new, empty syringe, fill it with a dose of vaccine from a vial, give the patient the shot, toss the syringe. The alternative is syringes pre-loaded with vaccine, which cost you a lot more money.

Thiomersal is also ethyl-mercury, which you pee out. Not methyl-mercury that stays in your system. If you want to say something stupid like "it's got mercury so it's all the same!!!" consider ethanol vs methanol. One will get you drunk. One will kill you very quickly. They're almost identical. Ethyl-mercury vs methyl-mercury is similar.

So, congrats on making vaccines cost more. Also at a higher profit to "big pharma". Also, Thiomersal was removed from childhood vaccines in 2000, with no reduction in autism rates, so you did all this for nothing.

Before you go off half cocked, don't forget, migrants carry disease

Only if the vaccination rate in their country is lower than the vaccination rate in the US.

And since you're making a very obvious dogwhistle, the vaccination rate in Central and South American countries is higher than the US.

migrants expose themselves and their new host community to new strains of pathogens

This doesn't matter for the MMR vaccine. The different strains on the planet are still covered by the vaccine. You need a high-mutation-rate disease like influenza for strains to be relevant.

Say goodbye to the anti-vaxers.

[Anonymous Coward]

This latest outbreak is going to jump start more laws to stop this stupid crap. If you go to a public school I want no exceptions to MMR and DPT except medical ones. Don't like it? Pay for a private school that doesn't care. If that doesn't work, we need to stop the un-vaccinated from going into public places like grocery stores.

Lets clamp down on these jackasses until they can't live in the society without getting the vaccine, or all go live on their own private island.

Re:Say goodbye to the anti-vaxers.

[gravewax]

forced exposure to unnecessarily sick people is a basic human rights violation. End of Story.

Stupidity Is Winning

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

This shit just makes me shake my head....all the work and effort and time and money that went into developing vaccines, and these ninnies won't use them.

And it's all because discredited former British doctor (Andrew Wakefield) published a bullshit medical paper claiming that vaccines were unsafe. That's all it took- the morons and dumbshits ate it up and stopped vaccinating their children.

Now we have measles epidemics again, yay.

Re:South of the Border

[Falconhell]

Most cases are spread by returning unvaccinated travellers, sorry to ruin your dog whistle.

Re:Hallelujah, praise the vax!

[Dog-Cow]

Water is toxic. Please stop ingesting it.

Conspiratorial thinking, in largest part.

[Truth_Quark]

Some Aussies looked into the reasons last year.

In order of magnitude, antivaccination attitudes were highest among those who

(a) were high in conspiratorial thinking
(b) were high in reactance
(c) reported high levels of disgust toward blood and needles
(d) had strong individualistic/hierarchical worldviews.

In contrast, demographic variables (including education) accounted for nonsignificant or trivial levels of variance.

The Psychological Roots of Anti-Vaccination Attitudes: A 24-Nation Investigation, Hornsey, M. J., Harris, E. A., & Fielding, K. S. Health Psychology (2018)

I don't know what you can do with that, but that's what's wrong with them: Conspriacy theorists who are bolshie, but not from any particular education level or demographic group.

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.

Media put that in your head

[aepervius]

Factually what you reflect is the media stupid vault face on everything or jumping on any press release not understanding what is written. The reality is that science in general, no matter what a few tells you about reproducibility or significance criticism, is very very reliable. But the media don't like what they don't understand so you are very likely to read article spreading distrust on expert, or media taking a random idiot and pretending that person is an expert. The end game is people like you distrusting the expert, when in reality without expert you have NOTHING. Same shitty situation as with brexit really, where expert are distrusted "project fear".

Measles is eradicable

[Michael Woodhams]

The only infectious human disease we have ever eradicated is smallpox, which was eradicated way back in the 1970s. From an eradication point of view, measles and smallpox are very similar: they are viruses, they are highly infectious, they do not mutate super-fast, they infect only humans, it is obvious when someone has the disease, there is a very effective vaccine. From a technical point of view, eradicating measles is a very similar task to eradicating smallpox.

However, there is one significant difference: measles is a fairly worrying disease, whereas smallpox is absolutely terrifying. This means there hasn't been the social and political will to push an eradication program. If the will did exist, we could wrap it up in about 10 years (wild guess on my part), and then nobody would ever need a measles vaccination ever again. Don't like vaccinations? Push for eradication. Your kids will get the jab, but your grandkids, great-grandkids, etc. forever, will not.

The list of diseases considered eradicable (as of 2008) is quite short. For example, influenza is not - it readily jumps species (so eradication from humans would require vaccinating wild ducks, for example) and it mutates rapidly, so new vaccines are constantly needed.

The list:
Smallpox (eradicated)
Polio (on the verge of eradication, probably 5 to 10 years off)
Dracunculiasis/Guinea worm (on the verge of eradication)
Yaws (on the verge of eradication)
Malaria (eradication still decades away)
Hookworm
Lymphatic filariasis
Measles
Mumps
Rubella
Lymphatic filariasis
Cysticercosis

Re:Interestingly...

[CrimsonAvenger]

Replying to myself.

A quick check of Clark County, WA, indicates that of 73 cases reported at the time of the article, 63 were NOT vaccinated, three had had only one vaccination (as opposed to the two that are standard), and the remaining seven were "vaccination status unknown".

So, I repeat, where is the evidence that "EVERYONE who got the measles had been vaccinated"? Evidence seems to support at least 90% NOT vaccinated....

Re:Illegals

[jeff4747]

The vaccination rate in Central and South American countries exceed the vaccination rate of the US.

So no, it's not "illegal aliens". They get their shots. We don't.