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In rural West Texas, a measles outbreak grows with no end in sight
NBC News ^ | Updated Feb. 17, 2025, 9:01 AM EST | rika Edwards, Sara G. Miller and Jason Kane

Posted on 02/17/2025 9:56:31 AM PST by JSM_Liberty

When Aganetha Unger pulled up her large, white van to the emergency measles testing site, several of her eight children were coughing.

“We had some sickness in the house, not very bad, but some fever, some cough,” said Unger, who is Mennonite. One child, she said, had a fever of 103 degrees.

Her youngest getting tested was a 2-month-old, wrapped tightly in a pink blanket on her mom’s lap. When the EMS team swabbed her nose, she didn’t cry.

It was Thursday, eight days after the Texas Department of State Health Services first reported a measles outbreak on the rural, western edge of the state.

On Friday, the number of confirmed cases rose to 49, up from 24 earlier in the week, the state health department said. The majority of those cases are in Gaines County, which borders New Mexico.

Most cases are in school-age kids, and 13 have been hospitalized. All are unvaccinated against measles, which is one of the most contagious viruses in the world.

The latest measles case count likely represents a fraction of the true number of infections. Health officials — who are scrambling to get a handle on the vaccine-preventable outbreak — suspect 200 to 300 people in West Texas are infected but untested, and therefore not part of the state’s official tally so far.

The fast-moving outbreak comes as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. takes the helm of the Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic, has long sown distrust about childhood vaccines, and in particular, the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, falsely linking it to autism.

During his confirmation hearings, Kennedy said he was not anti-vaccine. “I am pro-safety,” he said. “All of my kids are vaccinated, and I believe vaccines have a critical role in health care.”...

(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...


TOPICS: Health/Medicine
KEYWORDS: measels; measles; vaccines
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1 posted on 02/17/2025 9:56:31 AM PST by JSM_Liberty
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To: JSM_Liberty

I had measles, mumps and chicken pox when I was a kid.

We all did. Nobody died.


2 posted on 02/17/2025 9:59:52 AM PST by E. Pluribus Unum (The worst thing about censorship is █████ ██ ████ ████ ████ █ ███████ ████. FJB.)
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To: JSM_Liberty

There are a lot of Mennonites in Seminole. I guess there are a’gin measles shots and the Mexicans are bringing it in.


3 posted on 02/17/2025 10:00:22 AM PST by crusty old prospector
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To: JSM_Liberty
Measles was eradicated in the U.S. in 2000. Anyone legally coming here from a country that still had measles had to have the vaccine. Key words: legally coming here.
4 posted on 02/17/2025 10:00:51 AM PST by Tell It Right (1 Thessalonians 5:21 -- Put everything to the test, hold fast to that which is true.)
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Yeah, NBC. So? Are they illegals? All kids used to get this as a right-of-passage. Moms used to expose their kids in the summer when school was out if the opportunity presented itself. Grow up and lose the skirt clutching approach.

Of course, better yet, lose your FCC broadcast license.


5 posted on 02/17/2025 10:01:52 AM PST by curious7
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To: crusty old prospector

Illegal aliens bringing their diseases with them... coming to a household near you, no matter where in the USA you live.


6 posted on 02/17/2025 10:04:51 AM PST by Tudorfly (All things are possible within the will of God.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
I had the moops!


7 posted on 02/17/2025 10:05:25 AM PST by Old Yeller (On judgement day, you’ll wish you were biblically correctly, not politically correct.)
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To: Tell It Right

They are all mennonites. They don’t believe in vaccines. So far it’s only them affected thankfully.


8 posted on 02/17/2025 10:07:01 AM PST by napscoordinator (DeSantis is a beast! Florida is the freest state in the country! )
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To: Tudorfly

Definitely not. Or they would have them. It’s the wacky Mennonite people.


9 posted on 02/17/2025 10:07:54 AM PST by napscoordinator (DeSantis is a beast! Florida is the freest state in the country! )
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To: JSM_Liberty

Kennedy has ZERO to do with Mennonites refusing to vaccinate their children. Another man false equivalency.


10 posted on 02/17/2025 10:11:02 AM PST by Flaming Conservative ((Pray without ceasing))
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To: JSM_Liberty

The MSM bad mouthing and smearing RFK Jr AGAIN.

Anyone who listens to him has heard him say that he is NOT opposed to vaccines.

But that doesn’t fit the narrative, so they continue with the character assassination.


11 posted on 02/17/2025 10:40:08 AM PST by metmom (He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus)
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To: JSM_Liberty

My mom took all 4 of us kids to a measles party.

The following year, we got to go to a chicken pox party.

Inoculation.


12 posted on 02/17/2025 10:41:02 AM PST by Mariner (War Criminal #18)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Yup. When little Johnny down the street got measels all the neighborhood kids had to go play with him. Same with Chicken Pox and Mumps.


13 posted on 02/17/2025 10:41:40 AM PST by Semper Vigilantis (XX or XY, anything else is mental illness and should NOT be tolerated.)
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To: napscoordinator

They are well within their rights to raise their children without measles vaccines, whether you like it or not and that’s NO excuse for you to slander them like that.

They are far from *whacky*, but I doubt you know any personally. Otherwise, you’d know better.


14 posted on 02/17/2025 10:44:01 AM PST by metmom (He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus)
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To: JSM_Liberty

I wish the Mexican drug and human trafficking cartels had checked them out for measles before dumping the illegals into America.


15 posted on 02/17/2025 10:45:19 AM PST by FlingWingFlyer (The trouble with illegal aliens is that their own crappy countries don't even want them there.)
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To: JSM_Liberty

A consequence of Biden’s manufactured border crisis.


16 posted on 02/17/2025 10:46:32 AM PST by Wuli
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Somehow the entire human race survived common childhood diseases that we all did.

And as for complications of measles, that risk is far lower today than it was when we were kids because of vastly improved medical care and antibiotics and antivirals, and anti-inflammatories.


17 posted on 02/17/2025 10:46:48 AM PST by metmom (He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus)
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To: JSM_Liberty

CIDRAP News November 1, 2019

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/measles/measles-does-long-term-damage-immune-system-studies-show

“Measles does long-term damage to immune system, studies show”

“Two studies published yesterday in Science and Science Immunology illustrate how the measles virus causes long-term damage to the immune system, creating a form of immune amnesia that can leave children at an increased risk of illness from other diseases for years.

“Lead authors of the studies say the findings bring a new level of urgency in the fight against the resurgence of measles infections seen in the United States and other countries where elimination of the virus was once a given.

“...After severe measles, children lost a median of 40% (range, 11% to 62%), and after mild measles they lost 33% (range, 12% to 73%), of their total preexisting pathogen-specific antibody repertoires. Paired, healthy controls retained approximately 90% of their repertoires over similar or longer durations.

Mina compared the hit to the immune system to the damage done by HIV.

“If you took all of the immunological memory that HIV tears down when it’s untreated for 5 to 10 years, that’s what you see after one measles infection,” Mina said.

Unlike HIV patients, however, children with measles have the chance to rebuild their immune system, Mina said. But that process can take 2 to 3 years.

“It means looking over your child’s shoulder during that time,” he said. “It really challenges this idea that measles is benign, or that it’s okay to get because everyone used to contract it.”

“Measles impairs B cells
In the second study, which involved 23 of the Dutch children, a group of European researchers writing in Science Immunology looked more closely at how measles infections cause an incomplete reconstitution of B cells after infection, which aids in the suppression of the immune system.

The researchers examined B cell receptor sequencing of participants’ blood lymphocytes before and after measles infections, and showed that after infection, B cell pools were immunologically immature, and measles depleted previously expanded B memory clones, putting the body at risk for increased infections.


18 posted on 02/17/2025 10:51:25 AM PST by Pelham (President Eisenhower. Operation Wetback 1953-54)
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To: crusty old prospector

Last time I was in Seminole it was a windy day, usual there, about this time of year. I went to a farm supply store on the west side of town looking for a fertilizer truck to spread bentonite in reserve pits. When I went in there was nobody in sight so I looked around. The wind was howling. I found three guys in the back around a pot belly stove burning chow chips.


19 posted on 02/17/2025 10:55:00 AM PST by Sequoyah101 (Donald John Trump. First man to be Elected to the Presidency THREE times since FDR.)
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To: JSM_Liberty

I got banned from a subreddit for mentioning that 10 million unvaccinated visitors might be a reason


20 posted on 02/17/2025 10:55:10 AM PST by struggle
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