Posted on 12/21/2006 2:12:31 PM PST by Kimmers
Atlanta - The biggest U.S. measles outbreak in a decade - 34 people stricken in Indiana and Illinois last year - was traced back to a 17-year-old Indiana girl who had traveled to Romania without first getting vaccinated, government health officials said Thursday.
The outbreak accounted for more than half of the 66 measles cases in the United States in 2005. Widespread use of the measles vaccine has dramatically reduced the incidence of the disease over the past four decades; in 2004, there were just 37 cases, the smallest number in nearly 90 years of record-keeping.
The Clinton County, Ind., girl unknowingly brought the viral disease back to her home state of Indiana, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. Thirty-two other people in Indiana and one from Illinois became infected. Three people were hospitalized, but no one died.
Only two of the 34 people had been vaccinated against measles.
"The outbreak occurred because measles was imported into a population of children whose parents had chosen not to vaccinate their children because of safety concerns, despite evidence that measles-containing vaccine is safe and effective," the CDC said in its weekly journal.
The Indiana girl became infected after visiting a Romanian orphanage while on a church-mission trip, the CDC and state health officials said. The others became infected after they attended a church gathering with her the day after her return.
"Certainly orphanages are known to be higher risk" for measles, said Dr. Philip Gould of the CDC's division of viral diseases. "The main point is to ensure that people do get vaccinated, especially prior to leaving the country, ... going to a place that physicians suspect that measles is a risk."
The federal health agency said the girl should have been given two doses of a measles vaccine before leaving the country. The CDC said the outbreak could have been prevented if everyone involved had been properly vaccinated.
However, the agency noted that a "major epidemic" was averted because the community surrounding the outbreak area had high vaccination rates.
Nearly all of the 32 other U.S. cases in 2005 originated abroad, including 16 cases involving U.S. residents infected while traveling overseas and seven involving foreigners who were infected before visiting the United States.
In the decade before a measles vaccine became available in 1963, about 450,000 measles cases and about 450 measles deaths were recorded in the U.S. each year. The disease - often known by its characteristic rash that begins on the face and spreads - can cause ear infection, diarrhea, or pneumonia. It kills about one in 1,000 patients, according to the CDC.
The U.S. vaccination rate against measles is now more than 90 percent.
CDC measles info
From this link....
Children usually do not die directly of measles, but from its complications. Complications are more common in children under the age of five or adults over the age of 20.
Which is apparently less likely in a well-nourished and healthy population, but why risk it? :)
A week into my scheduled 2, I came down with Rubella - always did wonder how many Jarheads I infected.
Wow. I hadn't realized the disease was now so rare.
C'mon, man, they can't get that big,..what are they, 1/2", 3/4" tops?
Okay, why weren't the 34 others who caught measels vaccinated?
I had it as a kid and that is the sickest I have ever been, had to stay in a dark room.
I know two children with autism and have read enough about it to think there may be a correlation between that and the thimerosol preservative in vaccinations.
From Autism Today:
"...it was found that three studies showing a link between thirmerosal and autism did not meet any of the eight established epidemiologic study quality criteria, while four studies finding no link met between five and seven of the quality criteria.
In addition, when an Institute of Medicine committee reviewed published and unpublished studies in 2004, the group found no supporting evidence for a causal relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines or the MMR vaccine and autism.
Current vaccines given during the first six months of life have essentially no mercury, except trace amounts, Dr. Orenstein said. "There is virtually no mercury."
Vaccines today are much more highly purified than in the past, he said. "They are not being overloaded with antigenic proteins."
In addition, Dr. Orenstein concluded, "epidemiological evidence shows no relationship between those with multiple immunizations and asthma nor infections."
"There have been enough studies done trying to link autism to vaccines," Carden Johnston, MD, past president of the American Academy of Pediatrics of Birmingham, AL, told Medscape. "Ever since Ed Jenner started smallpox vaccinations, there have been public groups trying to link vaccines to morbidity." Research funds should be spent on more productive areas, he concluded.
I grew up in a large family before vaccines, and had every one of the so-called "childhood diseases." I almost died from whooping cough, and lost six months of second grade as a result. I think people have forgotten that measles, mumps, chicken pox and whooping cough are not necessarily benign. There can be serious complications, and when my kids came along, I was grateful for the vaccines.
they say he is on dialysis(?)
Have a safe and "healthy trip....seriously I do hope you have a great trip.....k
No doubt there are both advantages and disadvantages to vaccination in general, but it's not automatically true that contracting diseases in childhood confers a net benefit. Regular measles can cause brain damage, mumps can cause meningitis, deafness, and other serious problems, and German measles, though fairly mild even in an adult, causes birth defects and miscarriage (the unvaccinated girl discussed in this article had reached childbearing age without having these diseases). Some of these diseases are much more severe if contracted in adulthood. And then there's sneaky chickenpox, which tends to lie dormant for decades after a childhood infection, and then pop up in old age as painful shingles (sometimes with permanent nerve damage).
Then again, I have a cousin who was "normal" before catching measles as a toddler, but the disease left her mentally retarded. I also had a classmate who was in braces due to polio.
A direct result of the MMR vaccine.
Are you an immunologist?
I'll agree. I also think they need to do more research into the cause of autism and into the safety of vaccines.
I think there is a genetic link to autism because it does tend to run in families (between those that have been vaccinated and those that have not).
There is no harm done trying to make vaccines safer.
And I have a nephew who was severely brain damaged by his DPT shot.
Some children should NOT be vaccinated.
True. I had measles as a child but when tested as an adult had no immunity.
Is there any way to tell which ones?
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