Maryn McKenna has an excellent post on 2008's measles outbreak in Arizona. 14 confirmed patients, 8,321 individuals tracked down, 15,120 work hours lost at 7 Arizona hospitals due to furloughs of staff who were not appropriately vaccinated, and almost $800,000 spent by 2 hospitals just to contain the disease--and it all could have been prevented.
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http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/04/cost-vaccine-refusal/
Before I get to the cost of a measles outbreak, I think Seth Mnookin sets the appropriate frame of reference:
I don't know anyone in the world who likes needles or likes watching needles pierce their child's skin. However, the fact…
Maryn McKenna has a great piece at CIDRAP News today about something that should worry all of us as we wait to see if the other shoe drops with swine flu. Our acute care health services system is so brittle it won't take much to break it:.
With the global outbreak of novel H1N1 influenza (swine flu…
Best American Science and Nature Writing 2014, edited by Pulitzer-winning writer and professor Deborah Blum, features two pieces that remind us how public-health interventions can become less effective if we as a society don't use them appropriately -- and, based on the spelling of the authors'…
It seems like every time I take Huxley (now 18 months old) to the doctor, the following things happen: 1) Somebody says "Well, he won't need to get stuck with any needles for a long while now .... his next scheduled immunization is [insert phrase indicating 'a long time into the future']"; and 2)…
I do hope there's some kind of sanction against non-vaccinated people, especially hospital staff.