Posted on 07/02/2015 7:49:16 PM PDT by Alter Kaker
SEATTLE (AP) — A Washington woman died from measles in the spring — the first measles death in the U.S. since 2003 and the first in the state since 1990, health officials said Thursday.
The woman lacked some of the measles' common symptoms, such as a rash, so the infection was not discovered until an autopsy, Washington State Department of Health spokesman Donn Moyer said.
This is the 11th case of measles in Washington — and the sixth in Clallam County — this year, Moyer said.
(Excerpt) Read more at huffingtonpost.com ...
Another Obama achievement.
Drunk drivers will kill more people this week than measles will. WAY MORE.
That would include me, who got measles kess than a year after getting the vaccine that didn’t work. Measles isn’t going to kill off the human race people. Snap out of it. FWIW, this woman could have just as easiky died of the flu, or pneumonia, because she was immunosuppressed. People need to get a grip. on REALITY
I think you and I probably agree on this. When the Disney ‘outbreak’ was fresh I looked up the numbers myself. The death and permanent injury rate from measles in the 10 years prior to there even being a vaccine were VERY low. I don’t recall the numbers exactly, but it was in the fractions of one percent.
By the way, I’ve read that people who die from the flu die from the secondary pnuemonia it causes and not from the flu itself. Symantics i guess, but still interesting to me.
Just saying. They blew that story all out of proportion. She contacted measles in the hospital from an un-vaccinated person.
I just repeated a story from MyNorthWest.com - you have an issue, you take it up with them. And have a nice day.
I don’t have a particular dog in this fight, but your comment: “But they can also cause some severe problems, per the literature that the manufacturers include with the doses” is the old correlation versus conservation confusion. If something has happened when the vaccine was being taken or shortly thereafter, it is included in that list. We don’t know if the vaccine had anything to do with the condition. You have to look at the numbers for the clearest picture.
The vaccine pamphlets (there’s a name for them my brain can’t remember right now) provided by the manufacturers list several neurologic diseases that can be caused by their vaccines, such as guillanè barr syndrome. I’m aware of the whole correlation/causation issue. If the manufacturers are admitting that it happens, albeit rare, it probably really does happen. I have no reason to think they would disclose this info and it not be possible.
I don’t care one way or the other if people vaccinate, I think that is their own decision to make. But, it would be fantastic if everyone had access to clear, concise and mostly correct information. Vax advocates want you to think that absoluteky no harm could ever come from vax and anti- vaxxers want you to think they’ll kill you just by looking at them.
1962
No measles vaccine.
4 million got measles that year. 300 died. Less than 1 in ten thousand people who got measles actually were killed by it. Even more interesting was how vastly the flu, heart attacks, car crashes, murders, and cancer, as well as many others outnumbered measles as a cause of death in that year.
Or maybe someone who figured they were fine because they were vaccinated recently. For me, the vaccine just didn’t work, as I still got measles within a year of the shot. Also, people can leave measles virus on surfaces or it settles on surfaces From the air or on skin and you just don’t know it. You cannot work in the hospital unless you prove you are vaccinated, even to the flu shot.
You say you are aware of the correlation causation argument, but you deny it in the previous sentence.
We aren’t understanding each other.
Probably true. No harm, no foul.
And I believe about another 300 had some type of permanent injury, like blindness, deafness, etc. To my mind, 2 in 10,000 is not a statistic to get all crazy and start talking about forced vaccines. Funny how quickly supposedly freedom loving people are to jump on the ‘we must all be vaccinated, it’s for the greater good’ bandwagon.
NOT if we get measles eradicated. There hasn't been a case here or there of smallpox in 40 years and unless governments have lied to us about their behavior 40 some years ago there won't be. Polio was to be the next human disease eradicated. Absent resistance from some muslim lunatics it would have been done by now. Amazingly, even with Obama running things, polio eradication is presently gaining. Measles was to be the next major target for human disease eradication. Which is certainly possible. Measle's parent disease, the animal plague Rinderpest, from which it evolved c. 1200 years ago, which affected multiple species of both domestic livestock and wild animals with death rates sometimes over 90% has been eradicated even in wild animal populations. Measles, which only affects humans, is surely an easier target. Once eradicated vaccination for that disease stops and all risks from both the disease and its vaccine, ends.
There are relatively few diseases which are theoretically eradicable with current technology. The next to cross the line may well not be polio, but dracunulosis ('Guinea Worm disease'), the complex life cycle of which allows for interruption without needing any vaccine. The Carter Foundation is close to finishing that off. Then Jimmy C. will finally have a worthwhile legacy! Oddly, attaching such a legacy to otherwise worthless lefties is not unprecedented. The USSR properly deserves the legacy for eradicating smallpox as much as it deserves any legacy for doubting that eradication. True, the Americans did the work involved and provided the needed funds. But until Russians identified and promoted a new strategy aiming for eradication, the Americans had been willing to spend the same funds and effort indefinitely on mere disease containment. Just like the GOPe pledges to contain the left.
Small pox acts quite differently than measles, though. It’s not as contagious as measles is, it has a shorter time from exposure to symptoms and was more easily recognized as being small pox than measles is now because most doctors don’t see measles cases anymore. I think you’re right, theoretically it would be possible to eradicate measles, but functionally I have my doubts.
We, and as a Dermatologist I'm one of those counted on to recognize such, don't see much smallpox either these days. Smallpox should be easier to clinically differentiate from its remaining mimics than measles, but based on my observation of my otherwise bright, but nondermatologically trained, colleagues care before the patients eventually reach me I'm not confident it would be recognized promptly. In 30 years I've, maybe, seen one cases of measles and the lab work on that returned inconclusive. Of course I've seen zero smallpox cases personally, although I've been fortunate to discuss smallpox with someone who actually treated it in Iowa.
Measles should be harder to diagnose because it resembles severe cases of some fairly common drug reactions or non-specific 'viral' rashes. Smallpox used to be confused with chickenpox although the 'fine print' was different in their appearance. But most doctors now probably haven't seen chicken pox either (thanks to vaccines!) Of still existent rashes a fairly rare drug rash (AGEP) and the rare worst form of psoriasis come the closest to being confusable with smallpox. Most doctors won't have seen or even heard of either so will be prone to quickly passing them to their favorite experts as impressive unknowns. The cases of monkeypox, smallpox's remaining close cousin, were recognized that way. The tale of the local Dermatologist who figured out enough to contact CDC was fascinating. Whereas primary physicians might delay passing along something they thought was 'just' a drug rash or a viral rash.
For humans I'm not sure anything is more contagious than measles. However the basic strategy for fighting it is the same. First, maintain high enough vaccination levels so that any outbreaks that do occur aren't large enough to overwhelm local public health resources. Then, once an index case is recognized, aggressively contact trace them and vaccinate or isolate everyone conceivably exposed. IF your overall level of vaccination is sufficient and the outbreaks aren't too large it can be done. Do it enough, long enough and you'll eradicate it from regions and eventually the world. I was very impressed that medical superpower, Nigeria, was able to do it, when an infected, entitled, American ex-pat trying to return home with Ebola medically crashed in their lap. It's a lot harder when many, most or all are susceptible to the disease. The immunosuppressed population: infants, the elderly, those with immune systems depressed by diseases or by successful treatment thereof is growing and we want it to grow. Vaccinating them either doesn't 'take' or is very risky to try. As their numbers grow we can less afford additional, 'voluntary,' opt-outs amongst those medically qualified for vaccination. Unless those opt-outs as a group chose to entirely isolate themselves from the rest of humanity they risk spreading large outbreaks to the rest of humanity and suffering catastrophic outbreaks themselves once the isolation is broached.
Realistically, unless you're living on North Sentinel Island today, you're not sufficiently isolated from today's humanity to be safe for either side. You were drafted into this war at birth. You don't deserve any more choice than a person trying to escape jury duty because he's afraid some lunatic will blow up the court house. The only exceptions should be those determined by good science. The only acceptable objections are those intended to maintain that good science standard. Object if Obama, et al, comes out with vaccinations for 'global warming,' then isolate the lunatics!
Everyone deserves a choice when there is no way to predict who , of the very very few people, will have a major adverse reaction.
WAY LESS killed by drunk drivers over the course of history though. Thank the vaccines that have reduced the measles incidence here and the other scientific progress that has improved the prognosis of what cases still occur. And apply that science to reduce the incidence of drunk drivers and improve the chances of the remaining victims. I've been hit by a drunk driver and would have been killed absent advances in auto science over the prior century. Parallel advances in medical science kept me from ever having measles, a disease that would have been inevitable a century before.
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