X-Post from GD: San Diego Measles Outbreak Shows The Effect of Vaccine Exemptions

[trotsky]

The unvaccinated 7-year-old boy, who had rash onset 12 days after returning to the United States, infected at least 11 additional children ranging in age from 10 months to 9 years. Four were infected in the pediatrician's office that the child had visited the day before he was taken to a hospital emergency department for high fever and generalized rash. Another two cases were the boy's siblings, while five attended his school.

One infant was hospitalized for 2 days for dehydration, and another traveled by plane to Hawaii while infectious, necessitating “quite a response” by public health authorities in that state, Dr. Seward noted.

All cases were unvaccinated, including eight whose parents had claimed personal belief exemptions. In fact, 10% of the 350 children in the index child's school—kindergarten through 9th grade—were unimmunized because of these sorts of such exemptions, said Dr. Seward, acting deputy director of the CDC's division of viral diseases, National Center for Immunizations and Respiratory Diseases. The other four children were unimmunized because three were less than 12 months of age and therefore too young to be vaccinated and the fourth had received her routine vaccination 6 days after the unrecognized exposure.

More...

We got lucky on this one. No one died or suffered serious side effects. However note that 4 children too young for the vaccine got exposed to the disease because someone's kid was just too special to vaccinate. The folks who preach against vaccines are going to make innocent others bear far more risk than the vaccines themselves present.

[Hekate]

1. Next time it will be rubella, the "mild" measles that blinds and deafens fetuses in the womb

I was just at the other thread. So far those of us who believe in vaccinations are outnumbering those who don't, but the exceptionalists are starting to show up.

Hekate

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. What are the different kinds of measles?

I've heard of "German measles" and "seven day measles", but don't know which is rubella.

[trotsky]

5. Rubella = "German measles"

Hadn't heard of "seven day" though.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

9. That's what I thought

I guess what was termed "seven day measles" was what is known as "measles".

[shraby]

6. I put genealogy for my county on the internet.

If you knew how many children I've put on who died from those very childhood diseases, you'd absolutely shudder. I've put some on where the parents lost as many as 5 kids in a 2 week period. One family came home from one of their children's funeral and while they were gone, another died. Don't give me the old "one now and then" schtick. Until vaccines were developed hundreds of thousands died every year across the county.

[Hekate]

11. Amazing, isn't it? I used to read memoirs and historical fiction when I was a kid...

...the kind of stuff told from a woman's point of view, and I don't mean the bodice-rippers. I think it was in "Mrs. Mike" that I read the chilling line "That's my first family, and that's my second family" said by a woman walking through a graveyard. They were the graves of her first batches of children, dead in an epidemic. Epidemics would sweep through, and you could lose all your kids at once. Then, God willing, you'd have some more, and eventually you might raise some of them to adulthood.

Mark Twain and Charles Dickens both write scenes of childhood illness and death that just tear your heart out -- then if you read their biographies, you realize these scenes were drawn from their own lives and were not just fictional embellishments.

Hekate

[Lydia Leftcoast]

12. My great-grandmother was one of FIVE survivors of a total of

SIXTEEN siblings. Four of her siblings died in one epidemic.

As for rubella, it is not a serious disease in itself, but it can cause birth defects if a pregnant woman contracts it. When I was a kid, before the days of rubella vaccine, it used to be considered a GOOD thing for a little girl to get rubella over with so that her future children wouldn't be at risk.

[trotsky]

19. 5 out of 16

Makes me shudder even thinking about it. I know that losing a child before adulthood was fairly common not that long ago, but I can't fathom how that took anything away from the grief. And to lose 11 of your little ones. What incredible pain.

I can only imagine if your great-great-grandparents could see today, how we have a simple vaccine that could have saved ALL their children, yet there are people around who don't want to use it and in fact are scaring others into not using it.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

25. The first time I ever personally encountered the death of a child from illness

was when I was in seventh grade, and one of my classmates stopped coming to school. As the teacher explained, it was because her two-year-old sister had died. The cause: mumps encephalitis. (It was before the invention of the mumps vaccine.)

I saw how much grief the death of that one child caused, and it was after that that I first heard from my grandmother about how her own grandmother had buried eleven children, so hearing that had quite an impact.

I would bet that the older sister, the one who was my classmate, had her own children immunized.

[Turbineguy]

2. The religion of stupidity.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. You can die from measles or have serious side effects

People somehow think that measles are no more than a rash. They can be deadly or quite serious. My bout with measles in 1957 resulted in complications of pneumonia and were a possible contributing factor in the deterioration of my eyesight.

Are there now vaccines for mumps and chicken pox, too? Pardon my ignorance on this matter-since I had all these illnesses (and the most severe form-still have scars on my face from chicken pox) and don't have children myself, I haven't paid attention to what is available as a vaccine.

[trotsky]

7. "MMR" vaccine

MMR stands for Measles, Mumps, and Rubella. So yes, the standard vaccination course takes care of those.

And there is one for chicken pox now too. My kids both got it, but my son did later catch chicken pox - however the case was so mild (3 sores, missed ONE day of school) I'd hardly call that a vaccine "failure"!

[Hekate]

10. Measles used to be a known cause of blindness. I knew a girl who was blinded by mumps encephalitis.

We've basically got two generations of clueless Americans who simply have not lived through any epidemics aside from AIDS, which is not spread by casual contact. All the other epidemic diseases ARE spread by casual contact, and they can be killers and cripplers.

Best of luck with your eyesight, Ayesha. It's precious.

Hekate

[kestrel91316]

8. If the only people to be harmed by low vaccination rates were the people

who chose not to be vaccinated, I wouldn't have any problem at all with not vaccinating. You make your choices, you take your chances.

BUT people who don't get vaccinated lower the overall (herd) immunity and thereby needlessly put others at risk who maybe CAN'T be vaccinated for legitimate medical reasons or who, for whatever reason, don't mount an adequate response.

The cavalier and downright callous attitude of people RIGHT HERE ON DU who don't participate in public health endeavors such as vaccination programs truly appalls me. I would expect this level of uncaring about one's fellow humans from Republicans, not Democrats.

Sometimes, people, it ISN'T all about YOU.

[varkam]

13. Yes, but those children didn't have autism, now did they?

Which is worse, a mild cause of measles or autism? Hmmm?

I rest my case.

:rofl:

[Hekate]

14. Your ignorance is astounding, and hardly worth your using the rofl-smiley to make your point

There may not be a connection between thimerosol (mercury) in vaccines and the development of autism at all. California banned the use of that preservative in vaccines for young children and pregnant women, and the autism rate has continued to climb.

I, for one, have begun to think that the rate of autism in America, like the rate of asthma, has more to do with the overall level of environmental pollution than any one thing. Like canaries in the Welsh coal mines, our children are simply the most vulnerable among us to these insults to their bodies and brains.

Hekate

[varkam]

15. Owie! My poor wittle feewings!

So you essentially agreeing with the point I make, yet still call me out on my "ignorance"? Itching for a fight, maybe?

[trotsky]

17. Absolutely agree.

I, for one, have begun to think that the rate of autism in America, like the rate of asthma, has more to do with the overall level of environmental pollution than any one thing.

There has also been some fascinating research that suggests a link between autism and early TV viewing, and in particular, the extra TV viewing that happens where it rains more often.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1548682,00.html

Lo and behold, Waldman and colleagues found that reported autism cases within certain counties in California and Pennsylvania rose at rates that closely tracked cable subscriptions, rising fastest in counties with fastest-growing cable. The same was true of autism and rainfall patterns in California, Pennsylvania and Washington State. Their oddly definitive conclusions: "Approximately 17% of the growth in autism in California and Pennsylvania during the 1970s and 1980s was due to the growth of cable television," and "just under 40% of autism diagnoses in the three states studied is the result of television watching due to precipitation."

Statistically speaking, the link between autism & TV is infinitely stronger than any proposed one between autism & vaccines.

Oh and PS: varkam just forgot the sarcasm tag. :)

[Hekate]

22. Yikes. Thanks for that article -- I'm keeping it to follow up on later

I can well believe the connection between increased ADHD and TV watching -- except for Mr. Rogers, it's all so jittery and short-attention-span. I wonder if too much TV somehow rewires the developing brain.

Hekate

[varkam]

24. I hear there's also a link between autism and SUV ownership...

oh, and an inverse relationship between autism rates and parachute pants ownership. We need to follow up on those, too, I think.





oh, yeah: :sarcasm:

[Changenow]

26. My grandmother and my husband's grandmother

each lost four (my side) and five (his side) siblings. On my side the babies died of diarrhea and my husband relatives died of pneumonia. Our son was hospitalized three times before his first birthday, two of the illness could have killed him, ironically they were diarrhea and pneumonia (Rota virus and RSV). The diarrhea was treated easily with IV re-hydration for a couple days, the RSV was much scarier and required life support.

That boy is an adolescent with asthma. During his hospitalization for RSV the doctors guaranteed he would be asthmatic, they were right.

The point of this story is that his asthma now is related to the interventions that allowed him to survive an illness which would have killed him generations earlier. I've often wondered how much of the increase in asthma rates is attributable to improvements in survival of infancy generally.

My son received all his vaccinations, when he was a baby there were no vaccines for those illnesses. There may not be any today, I read that they come on and off the market.

[China_cat]

16. Look to Nigeria

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=222x34183

165 kids already dead from MEASLES, 3000 cases. How many more will be left blind, deaf or both? How many cases of retardation from the fevers?

Oh yes, just a mild 'kids' disease.

[xchrom]

18. recommend -- this is going to happen more often. nt

[dropkickpa]

20. The selfishness and disregard are what get me angry

My daughter has a little boy in her class who had a transplant (intestinal, I think) right before he would have started kindergarten last year (they are in 1st grade now). Before he could come to school this year, they had to check with the school to make sure ALL enrolled kids adhered to the vax requirements. He would have been denied the opportunity to go to school if even one kid in the school had been exempted. That would have been terribly sad for Dropkid, as he and she get along famously. Every year if/until he is weaned off of immunosuppressants, they will need to check, as he was never able to be vaccinated because of his poor health from birth on. He seems to be doing wonderfully, my daughter tells me he almost never misses school except when everyone has colds and stuff and are all missing days here and there.

[trotsky]

21. The strange thing is, that liberals would engage in that type of behavior.

Libertarians, sure. When your guiding philosophy is, "I got mine, fuck you", it makes sense.

But liberals are supposed to be all about the common good, and that we should all share some cost or risk to benefit that common good. It's why we support things like reasonable taxes, regulation of business, and protection of the environment. But when the topic of vaccination comes up, it's like all of that thinking just goes right out the window. Suddenly it's just "responsible parenting" or "choice", as if somehow your decision not to vaccinate is made in a vacuum and cannot affect anyone else. But as indicated in this very example (and no doubt, thousands more to come), it most certainly does.

[dropkickpa]

23. And that is why I dislike liberatarians so much

They act as if they have NOT benefitted from liberal-type policies.