Here's another case of measles associated with failure to vaccinate:
Health officials in Milwaukee County are urging parents to make sure their kids are up to date with vaccinations. This comes on the heels of a confirmed case of measles in a 23 month old Franklin resident.
Measles is a highly contagious airborne virus that's easily spread. Symptoms are similar to a common cold: coughing, a runny nose, a high fever and eventually, a red blotchy rash that starts on the head and spreads to the arms and legs. While health officials aren't sure how the 23 month old contracted the virus, they do say it could've been prevented. Records show the child is up to date with all other vaccinations but never received the one for measles, mumps and rubella. Some fear the vaccine causes autism. Doctor Geof Swain is medical director for the Milwaukee Health Department. He says those concerns are unfounded.
It should be noted that this child was hospitalized because of the measles. He was that ill. I also note that the child's lack of MMR vaccination appears to have been due to an oversight, not because the parents are antivaccinationist or have been scared by antivaccinationists. Even so, he appears to have exposed two day care centers to the virus:
The 23-month-old child is from Franklin and attended day care centers in Greendale and Greenfield while infected.One of those centers was the Kids Club at the Bally's Health Club in Greendale. Parents whose kids were also at the daycare received calls from health officials this weekend.
If a single child could potentially expose so many others to the measles by accident, imagine what would happen if idiots like Jenny McCarthy, who says she "wouldn't vaccinate at all, never, ever," get their way and lots of parents start eschewing the MMR. Oh, wait. We don't have to "imagine" anything. We already know. It's already happened in the U.K., resulting in thousands of cases of mumps and measles and at least one death from measles. Now imagine how many more casualties could occur in a much larger nation, such as the U.S. Another issue that I wonder about is how this child managed to be registered to attend two different day care centers without documentation of having received the MMR vaccine. That's a problem the State of Wisconsin will need to look into.
One of the most obnoxious and idiotic things that antivaccinationists claim is that measles and the mumps are not particularly harmful diseases, and it drives me nuts when I see such claims on antivaccinationist websites. There are even those who advocate "measles parties," where they intentionally expose their children to children suffering from the measles in order to have their children contract the disease. Why would anyone do something so dangerous to their children? These parents are deluded by the belief that it's somehow better to become immune by getting a disease "naturally" than becoming immune through the "artificial" method of vaccination. I kid you not.
From my perspective, such parents are child abusers, plain and simple. Here's why:
"Among children with measles, about five percent will develop a pneumonia and about one in 1,000 will develop encephalitis. Encephalitis is an inflammation of the brain that can result in deafness or mental retardation. And about one or two cases of measles per thousand will be fatal," Swain says.
The last time Wisconsin saw a serious outbreak of measles was in 1989. Around 1,600 cases were reported and five people died. Health officials say they expect the toddler to make a full recovery.
Anyone who claims that the MMR is more dangerous than actually getting the measles simply does not know what he or she is talking about, and anyone who intentionally exposes his or her child to the measles is playing Russian Roulette with that child's life. Australian skeptic and diehard fighter of antivaccination lunacy Peter Bowditch also has a good response to such dangerous ignorance in the form of pictures of the results antivaccinationists can expect to achieve with their work.
Here's hoping that this is the only case. It may not be, though. Measles has an 8-10 day incubation period. Also, we do not know how many exposed children also had not been vaccinated, and even if all of them have, the MMR, although quite good, is not 100% effective. That's why herd immunity is so important.
Never forget what is at stake here when you see celebrity idiots like Jenny McCarthy saying that vaccines cause autism based on her extensive education at the University of Google's Antivaccination Institute. It's nothing less than the return of vaccine-preventable diseases based on fears unfounded in science or evidence. That is the world that antivaccinationists and their useful idiots like Jenny McCarthy would bring us to.
Not that they'd ever admit it after it happens.
I've never been able to quite fathom the logic behind the "measles party". If you don't consider measles particularly harmful, why would you even bother? If you do, then how does it make sense to deliberately expose your kid to it? Isn't that like torching your house because you're concerned about the threat of fire?
Interestingly, there's a health warning about measles right now in Toronto, "five cases of the illness were reported in the GTA in the past few weeks, equivalent to the annual average."
http://www.thestar.com/article/411147
Just heard about an incident this morning on the radio here on Long Island where a one-year-old who contracted measles a week ago in Israel was taken to a supermarket by his parents within the last couple of days. The reporter assured listeners that this isn't a public health scare because most NY'ers are vaccinated against measles. Unfortunate to think about what could happen if a large number of parents didn't vaccinate their children ...
Pathetic. I can't imagine ever deliberately exposing my children to a risk like that. It's insane.
As a google employee, it's sad to see this kind of nonsense described as "University of Google". :-( I hate to see this
company, which I really love, be associated with incredible idiots like Jenny McCarthy. Of course I understand why you use that term; it's one of the perils of success.
Mark,
I'm sorry. I know that you work for Google, but it's an apt description.
Just Google the word "vaccination" or "vaccine" and you will see why I use that term. On the first page, mixed in with all the mainstream sites are several explicitly antivaccination sites:
Barbara Loe Fisher's National Vaccine Information Center (Fisher is a longtime antivaccinationist)
Whale.to's vaccine pages
Vaccine Liberation
Vaccination News
Google "vaccine injury," and, besides the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, you'll pull up a bunch of lawyer sites looking for clients to sue for vaccine injury, as well as some antivaccination sites. Google, unfortunately, tends to rank antivax sites highly, presumably because a lot of other antivax sites link to them.
It's easier to pretend these diseases are innocuous when you've already been vaccinated for them. For every vaccination, that is at least one disease that can maim or kill a child.
Vaccination is another thing we shouldn't give religious people free passes for. Anti-vaccine religious communities have been responsible for multiple outbreaks of measles . . . and sadly, the outbreaks aren't limited to the religious adults or even the religious communities; they spread to the general public. I recall back in the 80s when Principia College (a college for Christian Scientists) had a terrible measles outbreak and at least one student died. We need to get rid of the religious exemptions! www.childrenshealthcare.org
Peter Bowditch of www.ratbags.com has posted some graphic photographs of children with "harmless" vaccine preventable diseases. People who think their kids are at no risk should be encouraged to visit: http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/vaxliars/pictures.htm
I almost died from the measles (pre-vaccine days, I'm dating myself). I'll be glad to tell the anti-vaccination folks what it's like to spend one's 7th birthday walking through the shadow of death. I am not exaggerating here either.
I forgot about that page. In fact, I added it to the main post.!
How come nobody was afraid of the measles before the vaccine existed? How come kids were happy to get it to get two weeks out of school? How come doctors didn't issue these dire warnings and put the kids in quarantine?
I think you're just fearmongering.
Here in austria there is another outbreak with some 200 cases so far. It originated from a "Waldorf-School", where due to the "anthroposophic" mindset, most of the children were not vaccinated against measles. Great.
see (in german):
http://tinyurl.com/5jl4ey
I notice that the child is less than 2 years old, meaning that the daycares in question took very young children, possibly including infants too young to be vaccinated--and at higher risk for bad outcomes than older children. Nice going, anti-vaccinationists, way to kill babies.
Actually, I can't blame antivaccinationists in this case; the parents, by all accounts, appear to have overlooked getting the MMR for their child. The problem, of course, is how that could have happened and how any day care center could let an unvaccinated child be admitted. I was writing this more on the basis of imagining how, if one child accidentally not vaccinated could expose so many children in day care, letting antivaxers scare parents and thus increase the number of unvaccinated children could produce devastating measles outbreaks.
My experience being that my spouse has been a public school teacher for many years now is that there is a combined danger these days in;
1. Overstressed public schools systems (school health in the form of fewer and fewer school nurses).
2. More children of diverse backgrounds in school systems with minimal health care administration to begin with.
3. Lax vaccination programs (some kids start school if parents make an issue out of not having all the vaccinations before they show up for first day).
4. And now to add to the problem, the psychological issue presented by the insinuation of a health danger from the vaccinations. "I heard that there is a danger?"
A school nurse friend of ours got irrate when I an administrator merely hand waved through a child of a parent that made a stink about having vacinations prior to attending the school. Administrator basically said that you don't have to!!!!!
i.e. why the heck have a vaccination policy if some administrator shurks his or her responsibility in making sure policies are adhered to.
I am no where near being any kind of an expert, but at the rate we are going (diverse populations attending public schools with little or no vaccination policies) I can foresee some of these measles, rubela etc. issues rising above the level of isolated cases.
No better place to get a virus or any kind of disease off to a good sart than at the community petri dish called grade school.
The parents may have chosen to avoid specifically the MMR vaccine due to the (unfounded, ignorance-based) concerns about that vaccine in particular for autism. Or it may have been oversight - but if the kid was getting all the other vaccinations, the doc should have been on that one too. I think I'm going to have to remember to ask about vaccination policies at daycares/preschools for my daughter. She's got everything she can get, but herd immunity is essential for full effectiveness.
It's unfortunate (in some ways) that people have become so ignorant of the horrors of these illnesses which made them prime targets for vaccinations.
My two sons were vaccinated for everything. The varicella vaccine was not available when they were kids, so they were never protected from chickenpox. They were very healthy as children, never having anything more than a common cold--my younger son broke his arm when he was disco dancing on the coffee table and fell off. I had had most of the childhood diseases as a child. I never had mumps; I don't know why. In 1988 I came down with a severe case of shingles. My internist had developed his own treatment plan for the disease and the symptoms disappeared within days. My sons were 13 and 15. They both got very severe cases of chickenpox. They missed two weeks of school and they have scars from the eruptions. I cannot believe that any parent would place his/her kids at risk for a preventable disease based on belief systems without a shred of scientific proof any more than I can believe that any parent would make that same child play Ooogie Mouth to purposely expose him/her to any disease.
I have my own theory on the autism-vaccination connection. There really hasn't been an increase in the rate of autism; there has been an increase in the diagnosis of autism because people are becoming more aware of autism. It's sort of like thinking that there has been a large increase in the number of gay people since the late 50s. We were always there but we were invisible to most people. My older son is autistic. He is very high-functioning. When he was two we noticed some odd behaviors so we took him to our pediatrician who immediately said he was not autistic. We enrolled him in a special-ed preschool program. After the initial screening, the psychologists, sociologists, neurologists, special-ed teachers, and everyone else involved all said that he was definitely not autistic. This was all before 1980. Once I learned about asperger's disorder I thought that that what was going on with him and we talked about it. He was finally diagnosed three years ago when he entered the army for the second time.
"It should be noted that this child was hospitalized because of the measles. He was that ill".
That's conjecture unless you can back it up with other information. "He was that ill"... With the scaremongering and paranoia that we have these days with the measles of course they hospitalized the child. I'm sure the doctors were running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to figure out what to do... It's funny I don't remember the Brady doctors freaking out when all 6 of the Brady kids came down with the measles at the same time. What exactly are they teaching doctors in med school these days?
I hope that you keep us up to date about this little boy. It looks as if he will likely be fine and not permanently damaged as can happen with the vaccine:
"Health officials say they expect the toddler to make a full recovery".
The only good thing that I can see, of the anti-vaccs NOT getting the MMR vaccine, is that when they DO become infected with mumps, the older, (non-vaccinated)adolescent male children will likely become sterile, reducing the non-vaccinated population in the next generation.
(OK, I'll take my tongue out of my cheek now, it was starting to hurt)
But seriously, how much of a hazard will it become for older children to be un-vaccinated?
I recall, in my youth, (before MMR) if a kid came down with mumps, he WAS quarantined, and his parents would sweat for weeks hoping little Johnny wasn't a eunech.
I remember the absolute panic during a measles outbreak at my school when I was in the first grade. My sister spent two weeks in the hospital and it was touch and go. Another little girl was severely brain damaged. The total hospitalized was a dozen kids, and one had to be taken to Children's in Seattle. The school closed until the outbreak seemed to be over.
It scared people so bad, vaccinations were started in the schools the next year, and were given through the school district.
As it turned out, the MMR given that year and the following few years were ineffective, and I had to be revaccinated as an adult when I started work at a hospital.
Measles is nothing to screw around with. And having chicken pox as an adult was no freaking picnic. I was sicker than a dog for two weeks.
"How come nobody was afraid of the measles before the vaccine existed?"
That is truly one of the stupidest things I have ever heard. If anything, they were far MORE afraid of it before because they had no chance to defend against it. It's like saying "How come nobody was afraid of rabies before the vaccine existed?" No wait, you don't beleive in rabies vaccinations either. It's amusing how you and other creationist antivaxers flog Pasteur's debunking of spontaneus generation as "proof" of the impossibility of abiogenesis and at the same time deny his theory of vaccines, based the Germ Theory.
Are you people kidding? Scaremongering? In 2001, the most recent year for which complete data have been published, 1.36 million people died from childhood diseases (including measles--the biggest single cause--diptheria, pertussis, tetanus, and polio). That was 2.4 percent of all deaths worldwide (Source: Global Burden of Disease and Mortality). The rate was much lower--almost negligible--outside of low- and middle-income countries. Nothing to do with immunizations, I'm sure.
Scaremongering indeed. Take a reality check, antivaxers. Childhood diseases do, in fact, kill.
It's funny I don't remember the Brady doctors freaking out when all 6 of the Brady kids came down with the measles at the same time.
Anyone who takes their medical cues from Sherwood Schwartz is a moron.
once again, John Best proves that he is a raving looney.
people have always feared measles, mumps and rubella...the longterm consequences can be severe, not to mention the risk of death. And let's not forget the fetal complications in a pregnant woman who gets rubella...
How Mr. Best can say something as staggeringly dumb as that and still wonder why people point and laugh at him and his rantings is a mystery.
Dumb Chimp,
I had those diseases with no ill effects. So, I guess you can point at me and laugh for being stupid enough to needlessly vaccinate my son and give him autism.
Maybe, though, you should hang the people who foisted those vaccines on us without properly testing them.
I don't know about measles, but when my kids were young, some people were deliberately exposing their babies and toddlers to chickenpox (this was a few years pre-vaccine, so that wasn't even a question). The theory was that eventual exposure was pretty much inevitable, and the younger they got it, the milder it was (which may or may not be generally true, but anecdotally was true of my two kids. No, we didn't expose them deliberately; they picked it up at daycare).
Franklin, Wisconsin is home of the ARCH Center, an alternative treatment center for autism. Chelation, HBOT, the whole shooting match.
And the child was hospitalized for measles. He was that ill.
The stupidity, it burns, it burns, IT BLOODY BURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!
*gets on knees* Orac, how about posting something that DOESN'T have to do with flaming stupidity? I mean, I realise very well why you do it, but I think we're getting close to overdose here. Debunking woo is a very worthy and noble and necessary (and way over my head, I can't follow all of your writing on the subjects of various woo) task......
I'd love to read a full description of........any number of medical procedures, or even up and coming research into........technology for making traditionally heavily invasive surgeries.......less invasive. I'd like to know how people were able to come up with the technologies to make such procedures as open heart surgery........happen less often because of newer methods.
Alternatively, ignore all of the above and point me to explanations of why some of this stuff you write about is woo.....(because some of the things I have never heard of, and there are too many technical terms I've never come across before, so I can't follow entire posts)
Thanks for reading MY rambling. I've been away from presenthood (being in the foreground. Another term used by multiples to describe activity within the body-mind) for a while, and all these words are....just spewing out, helter-skelter.
We really do exist this way. It might sound woo-ish in a way, but it isn't.
Ivan of athenivanidx, in defence of Kathleen Seidel
Come on, cut me some slack here. I've done three articles not about flaming stupidity, one of which was about training physician-scientists, another of which was analyzing a paper on the placebo effect, and a third about the rather funny way that I get so many copies of patient reports--all just in the last couple of days.
Besides, debunking woo is one of the primary raisons d'être of this blog.
The Austrian outbreak is a brilliant illustration of what happens in "islands" of low vaccination coverage. The Waldorfschule Salzburg has a vaccination rate just under 50%, we hear (unofficially so far, but watch Eurosurveillance.org) that at the school itself 143 pupils/teachers came down with measles of which ONE (1) was vaccinated once against measles. The school was closed for 2 weeks after the Easter break and only immune students (vaccinated, titer, or doctor-confirmed measles in this outbreak) can attend. 40 more cases have been notified in Salzburg and the outbreak has now spread into other areas of Austria (including Vienna). Most notably, a student in Innsbruck went to 6 lectures last week, already contagious with measles, exposing 500 students - they are thinking of closing the University. Apart from the detrimental health effects, the economic costs, including the loss of education in the Steiner School and any other closed unis/school is enormous.
Switzerland (1800 reported cases of measles since Nov 2006) and Austria (200 reported cases of measles since Easter 2008) will be hosting the Euro 2008 European Football (as in Soccer) Championship. Switzerland has already issued a travel advisory regarding measles. Austria probably will follow. http://www.eurosurveillance.org/edition/v13n14/080403_3.asp
I am hanging out on Bob Sears' Vaccine Book discussion site a lot lately. Here is my prediction: over the next couple of years or three, a lot of toddlers are going to be vaccinated on his "delayed schedule" which does not recommend measles until age 3. This will lead to an accumulation of unprotected children under 3 (up to 9 million in 3 years if everyone followed that schedule). Some tourist is going bring back measles from Europe (like earlier this year from Switzerland to San Diego and Arizona) and then there are going to be enough toddlers susceptible to measles for a real outbreak, not the measly (pun intended) 12 cases in 3 weeks in a city of 1.5 million, but the 143 in 3 weeks at one school that Steiner Schools are able to produce quite regularly. And then we are going to see the usual complications and disability and death, and a lot of people will eat their words. Sometimes, for a split second, I am really looking forward to that. Then, very quickly, I remember the suffering of the children who ultimately pay for their parents' gullibility and I catch myself. Some "told ya" moments are nothing to look forward to.
"I had those diseases with no ill effects. So, I guess you can point at me and laugh for being stupid enough to needlessly vaccinate my son and give him autism."
Wait...so YOU survived the disease, therefore it's not deadly and the millions of kids who die from them each year cease to exist?
THAT DOES NOT COMPUTE
THAT DOES NOT COMPUTE
THAT DOES NOT COMPUTE
Laser Potato, didn't you know? John Worst is THE ONLY PERSON IN THE ENTIRE WORLD WHO ISN'T PART OF THE CONSPIRACY!!!!!!11111eleven
There is no such thing as measles. The whole thing was made up by Big Pharma, ZOG, the Illuminati, and the Underpants Gnomes to create a market for autism-causing poison masquerading as vaccines in order to sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids. The utter insanity and inefficiency of this plan only proves it's correct.
</batshitinsanity>
Seriously, John, VACCINES DID NOT CAUSE YOUR SON'S AUTISM! There is not the slightest shred of evidence to support this hallucination of yours. Castrating the poor kid isn't going to help, nor will the other quackery. There are actual scientists studying the REAL causes of autism, and looking for ways to prevent and treat it, but you won't accept that. I'm sure you'd gladly murder them and throw away the only chance of a cure for millions of children just to prop up your idiotic conspiracy theory. You aren't helping. Children are actually dying, of preventable diseases, and you want to destroy any chance of preventing them.
By the by, John, you still haven't come up with an explanation for how all those ancient civilizations were exposed to mercury in concentrations hundreds of times greater than we're exposed to now, yet they never noticed a link between mercury exposure and autism.
Hell, I'm still waiting to hear about his research into ancient societies and their diagnostic protocols. There's going to be an army of archaeo-anthropologists beating down his door for that method!
Of course I can't talk, as I'm a shill for small pharma (shhhh . . . I'm putting benzoyl peroxide in stuff right now; "benzoyl" looks like "benzene" you know, and peroxide stings . . . I'm poisoning thousands!). I'm even in the quality group, so they had to let me in on the conspiracy, lest I actually show concerns over the safety, purity, quality, or efficacy of any of these drugs ...
Here's more on the Austrian measles outbreak.
Question;
What are the long term implications of contracting measles, rubela (sp?) and surviving? Clearly there is an outbreak danger but what about the permanent implications to the person that contrated said disease?
Some seem very concerned of a Toxin in thier vaccines causing a permanent affliction of autism yet what about permanent side effects of contracting a preventable but dangerous disease?
I have autism, and I have no idea why so many parents are afraid that their children might end up like me. When I was 13 I took a biochemistry course at Neumann College, and I am currently eligible for a massive grant as one of the top 500 students in America. I suppose stupid parents want stupid children.
John Best said " had those diseases with no ill effects. So, I guess you can point at me and laugh for being stupid enough to needlessly vaccinate my son and give him autism."
Actually, from your rantings, failure to produce real evidence, your fascination with certain people and other inanities: it seems you actually suffered permanent brain damage.
he continues: "Maybe, though, you should hang the people who foisted those vaccines on us without properly testing them."
The MMR vaccine has been used in the USA since 1971. It has been tested, and there hare several studies that shows it is safe. These are also the studies that show that it is only 90% effective with one shot, and 95% effective with two. Also, the MMR has never contained thimerosal.
Women exposed to rubella in their 1st month of pregnancy have a 60% risk of that child having mental retardation, heart, eye or ear defects. The risk drops later in pregnancy. This was first shown in the 1940's. Having rubella epidemics will likely cause more cases of MR and autism.
As Ruth said, congenital rubella syndrome was a major cause of disability, especially in the early 1960s when there was an epidemic.
This paper shows how the incidence of mental retardation has been effected and why over the past 50 years:
http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/160/3/302
Which says "We selected 7 conditions to study in detail: congenital syphilis (CS), Rh hemolytic disease of the newborn (Rh disease), measles, Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) meningitis, congenital hypothyroidism (CH), phenylketonuria (PKU), and congenital rubella syndrome (CRS). We chose these 7 conditions for several reasons: (1) all of them were recognized in the 1950s as specific causes of MR with a high probability of finding or implementing a cure12-15; (2) they account for all of the relatively high-incidence conditions noted in Table 1; (3) they are the commonly discussed "success" stories in the prevention of MR12, 16-23; and (4) interventions for these conditions depend largely on care provided through the individual doctor-patient relationship, ie, they exemplify the traditional biomedical approach to preventing disease or complications in each individual patient."
What is truth, anyway? Perspective?
Philosophy ......or ......maybe apathy?
"What is truth, anyway? Perspective?"
Is it true that when you fall you will fall to the ground rather than up to the sky, or is it a matter of perspective? If it's demonstrable and universal it can't be perception, can it?
"Philosophy ......or ......maybe apathy?"
Um, what?
Knownow has really reached an advanced stage of insanity. He's gone beyond the hallucination that all the world is a vast conspiracy against him, into a wholesale denial of the very concept of reality.
Is solipsism the final stage of extreme woo, or does it go even further?
Well, there's always pantheistic solipsism.