U.S. Confirms First Measles Death Since 2003

.huffingtonpost.com AP ^ | July 2, 2015 | Martha Bellisle

[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.

[Mears]

My Mom talked about The Spanish Flu often,

She lived in very rural Nova Scotia and there were deaths in her area.

My father died when I only 5 but his Mom,my dear Grandma,experienced it in the Boston area. She knew several persons that died but she and my grandfather,along with their kids, were very lucky.

.

[JohnBovenmyer]

Here and the near future can benefit from learning and remembering lessons from the past. Some old diseases can come back and for some vaccination remains our only defense. If there were only 1% not vaccinating for reasons other than health there wouldn't be a problem. We pro vaccine folks have had start speechifying because the anti-vaccine forces have actively pushed the overall vaccination rates too low. And they're fairly organized about it. And alas my back yard is reputed to be one of their strongholds. Chiropractic was invented here 120 years ago, their most prestigious temple to it is here and they are legion in numbers and political power here. I'm told by colleagues in vaccine providing specialties that many chiropractors encourage their customers not to get vaccinated. As a Dermatologist I don't dispense vaccines nor hear excuses against receiving them, so my testimony on that can only be hearsay. But we've certainly had many Pertussis outbreaks in schools around here.

My grandfather had polio 50 years before the vaccine and survived to become a physician with a paralyzed leg. And I heard tales from my father's medical school days of the polio wards of the 50s. So I grew up well aware of the consequences of then mostly preventable disease. Vaccines are statistical concepts, they don't claim to work for every individual. You didn't get measles because 'your' vaccine failed. You also got it because someone else exposed you to it who either also had vaccine failure or hadn't been vaccinated, and the same for whomever exposed him and so on ad nauseum back beyond the introduction of the vaccine. You got measles in spite of your vaccination. Prior to your vaccination you would have almost certainly have gotten measles, the only question would be when? You might have been over it well before your poor sister got cancer. Another bad thing you certainly had no control over. Bad things happen to good people. Why being a popular topic for philosophers and theologians forever. I don't claim to understand that, but hopefully your poor sister does, now.

You remind me of something that occurred in med school. I was on the Pediatric ward dealing mostly with cancer patients. I loved that rotation because I seemed to be a good luck charm; all my patients were tolerating treatment well and getting better. Memorable sweet, but tough kids. One day a teenage girl confessed to having had a rash for a couple days. She'd been too modest to let it be known she had it before. It look like chickenpox. She'd been playing with all the other cancer kids. It was the first time I'd ever seen my superiors panic. Fortunately it turned out she had herpes simplex, chickenpox's cousin, more widely spread than normal because of her own immunosuppression, but only spreadable through direct contact not through coughing. The location she'd been too modest to show, she hadn't been contacting the other kids so they were ok. And the first antiviral against that had just come out so she did fine as well.

She taught me the importance of keeping situationally dangerous infections away from vulnerable patients and that such wasn't a battle the doctors could fight alone. She should have reported her rash earlier. People who are sick should avoid exposure of not just immunosuppressed patients, but their immediate families. And where practical measures to reduce the rate of diseases in the general community may help prevent such diseases from reaching those most vulnerable. There are a lot more vulnerable folks now than in the past. That's a credit to medical improvements. People with diseases suppressing their immune systems are being kept alive much longer. And many autoimmune diseases are being greatly improved by medical immunosuppression. Also people are living longer and seeing age reduce their immune systems. We want to keep them all around as long and as well as we can. Simple public health measures, like vaccination, like an immigration system that excludes contagious people, are some of the ways we accomplish that. And when we so such not working properly we gripe and try to fix things. Yet try to be proportionate and not produce the "little boy cried wolf" syndrome. There are costs there too. Fearmongering of vaccine side effects, real or imagined, and resulting litigation have certainly increased the costs and thus reduced the cost-benefit ratio of vaccination. Political responses (including by HRC as first lady) have reduced the number of vaccine suppliers and further increased vaccine costs. Years of such nonsense have us vaccine defenders on edge.

[JohnBovenmyer]

Good for your folks. I’ve read articles that claimed many didn’t like to talk about it. I’m a generation younger, but don’t recall my grandparents discussing it. One great-grandfather was a physician, so must have been aware of it even if his community was spared.

[Roos_Girl]

I would LOVE to see good and complete science. Frankly it seems like both sides who present research data receive some funding that makes the results suspect. The other problem, which i don’t know how you get around, is less than honest manufacturers. As I said up thread, I am waiting to see how the investigations into Merk come out.

[Alter Kaker]

You seem like an angry and troubled person.

[Roos_Girl]

By the way, who gets to say which vax are mandatory? Why does a newborn need a Hep B vax?

[Morpheus2009]

Hillary was a pain in the back to vaccinations? That sounds like a juicy story to me!

[JohnBovenmyer]

Good questions, but as a Dermatologist not on my *need to know list. I know why I needed Hep B fax: it had just become available and I was just about to start drawing blood as a medical student. I got 2 of the 3 doses in before receiving my first hepatitis patient. Soon not yet vaccinated friends were borrowing me for such tasks. But I don't think they were vaccinating newborns then. CDC site at a quick glance says babies can be infected at birth if mom has it, so I presume there's some data showing at least partial protection by vaccinating those kids at birth. But why to vaccinate the kids who mom tests negative for Hep B is a question for a different kind of Freeper Dr. And who's in charge of the plan details? I likely knew once, but don't recall. What I do recall is that whenever I've occasioned to read more deeply on vaccination recommendations in the past they've always had good reasons for what is included and when and have been supported by appropriate research. So I had faith in the recommendations then and haven't seen anything to question my faith since.

*Back when my Great-grandfather was practicing it might have been possible to know most everything of medical importance. In fact family lore reports his son-in-law the lawyer used him as a medical expert witness once (I think there was only 1 other doctor in the town then) and while establishing his credentials to the court my GGF claimed to be "an expert on the skin, and all parts within." Such expertise is alas no longer possible. I have to settle for being an expert 'outside' doctor and let others specialize on their parts of the insides.

[Nifster]

An unvaccinated person was the carrier...that is the point

[JohnBovenmyer]

I don't recall all the details off the top of my head. I should have some articles saved from way back then, but don't presently have time to wade through them. Happily Google found a good starting overview in this 8/15/2003 WSJ lookback: Hillary's Vaccine Shortage. It's behind their paywall but Googling the title, then linking through that works as usual. I seem to recall the details made her look even worse than this WSJ piece stated.

[Morpheus2009]

Either way, thanks for the keywords. I am sure I can dig something up.

[JohnBovenmyer]

The latest issue of Jama Dermatology just came to me and had an interesting half page note on aGeorge Washington and Smallpox: A Revolutionary Hero and Public Health Activist. I'm unsure whether the link is behind their paywall as I'm a subscriber and I don't know whether or not I'm permitted to post the full, albeit short, piece here. I learned more than I'd expected from it. Those, here, who are interested in that history, and who can access it, should enjoy it. The article's references included a Daily Beast piece, George Washington, the First Vaxxer which covered some, although not all, of the same ground. It, at least, should be readable by all.

If someone knows that I can post the former, let me know and I'll do so once I've reformatted it for FR.

[Pining_4_TX]

The list of possible side effects is something that is on everything, including OTC medicines. Nothing is completely without risk, but vaccines are as safe or safer than just about any drug or treatment one can have.

If it just affected the people who didn’t want to be vaccinated, then it would be their problem. The fact that they endanger the public at large, and babies in particular, is inexcusable.

[Pining_4_TX]

Nothing is 100%. As Thomas Sowell says, there are no solutions, only tradeoffs. We do not live in a perfect world. People who can’t take the vaccine for medical reasons and those for whom it is not as effective, are still protected by living in the midst of a vaccinated group. It’s called herd immunity.

[Roos_Girl]

The fact that you are willing to force someone to vaccinate a baby with a vaccine that could cause life long neurological damage to that baby for the sake of possibly not spreading a disease to someone else is inexcusable.

[Pining_4_TX]

There is almost NO risk of that happening, and whatever risk there is, is infinitesimal compared to the risk from these diseases. Children’s author Roald Dahl was a staunch anti-vax guy until his daughter died of measles.

http://www.people.com/article/roald-dahl-vaccine-measles-letter-daughter-olivia-death

[Roos_Girl]

There is still a risk of it happening, and since there IS one, you cannot justify forcing someone else to take a health risk, no matter how small YOU think it is.

I honestly don’t give a lick what Roald Dahl or any other celebrity or famous person thinks about vaccines. If someone wants to vaccinate, let them. If they don’t, then don’t. If a municipality passes laws that preclude unvaccinated from entering public facilities, like schools, I have no problem with that, as long as there are alternatives, like homeschooling.

[Pining_4_TX]

For the most part, I am against the government forcing anyone to do anything. However, in the case of a major public health threat, I make an exception. I’m against the Gardisil vaccine, because the disease is not readily transmissible just by being in close proximity. When it comes to measles, polio, etc., that is different.

[Roos_Girl]

And who gets to make the rules of which vaccines are okay and which ones aren’t? See the problem here? I opted out of the Hep B vaccine for my son when he was born. Why does a newborn, with non-infected parents, need a vaccine for a sexually transmitted or IV needle transmitted disease? But the CDC says they need it.

[Pining_4_TX]

Yes, of course, I see the problem, and there is always the danger of our government going too far. However, in the case of highly communicable diseases such as polio, it is imperative that children are vaccinated for their safety and for that of others.