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‘It Will Take Off Like a Wildfire’: The Unique Dangers of the Washington State Measles Outbreak

posted by mrpg on Friday February 08 2019, @05:50PM   Printer-friendly
from the will-this-end? dept.

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

'It will take off like a wildfire': The unique dangers of the Washington state measles outbreak

[...] "You know what keeps me up at night?" said Clark County Public Health Director Alan Melnick. "Measles is exquisitely contagious. If you have an under-vaccinated population, and you introduce a measles case into that population, it will take off like a wildfire."

[...] Anti-vaccination activists, for their part, contend that state officials are twisting facts to stoke public fear.

"It shouldn't be called an outbreak," Seattle-area mother Bernadette Pajer, a co-founder of the state's main anti-vaccine group, Informed Choice Washington, said of the measles cases, arguing that the illness has spread only within a small, self-contained group. "I would refer to it as an in-break, within a community."

[...] Clements eventually changed her mind, deciding to give her kids the shots after a doctor at a vaccine workshop answered her questions for more than two hours, at one point drawing diagrams on a whiteboard to explain cell interaction. He was thoughtful, factual and also "still very warm," she said.

[...] In Washington, state lawmakers supporting tougher vaccine requirements are mounting their second effort in the past three years to make it harder for parents to opt out of vaccinations.

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday February 10 2019, @04:49AM (6 children)

    by sjames (2882) on Sunday February 10 2019, @04:49AM (#799009) Journal

    I would like to see some real figures, particularly for brain injuries since my recollection is that it is far less common.

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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 10 2019, @06:56PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 10 2019, @06:56PM (#799169)

    Sources:

    Of the 535 544 children who were vaccinated, 199 were hospitalized for encephalitis, 161 for aseptic meningitis, and 352 for autistic disorders.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12415036 [nih.gov]

    Ignoring autism:

    (199 + 161)/535,544 = .00067

    Then, percent of cases of serious measles just before vaccination was introduced in western countries:

    The secondary infections, and deaths from measles have steadily declined-from 307 in 1949 to 98 in 1959.1 Nevertheless up to the end of September this year 749,251 cases of measles had been notified in England and Wales.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20789272 [nih.gov]

    98/749,251 = .00013

    I wouldnt take these more seriously than as order of magnitude estimates though...

    • (Score: 2) by sjames on Monday February 11 2019, @01:08AM (4 children)

      by sjames (2882) on Monday February 11 2019, @01:08AM (#799302) Journal

      I don't think those figures mean what you think they do. In the first study, those numbers are for all causes. Only 9 cases of encephalitis and 10 of aseptic meningitis (all causes) occurred within 3 months of the vaccination. No data is provided on how many of those resulted in permanent disability (if any). They concluded that there was no clustering of those, autism, or irritable bowel around measles vaccination. From what we know from other studies, there is some clustering of encephalitis at least, but apparently a sample size of half a million isn't large enough to see it.

      The figures from the second article were just the deaths.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @03:50AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @03:50AM (#799374)

        Nope in one sense. They choose to study what they want the results to mean. It doesn't take more than trusting what they say to see that.

        • (Score: 2) by sjames on Monday February 11 2019, @08:43AM

          by sjames (2882) on Monday February 11 2019, @08:43AM (#799443) Journal

          I'm not really sure what you're saying there...

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @12:58PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @12:58PM (#799485)

        Cases of pneumonia after measles is also "all causes", there is no magic way to attribute it specifically to the measles infection just like there is no way to attribute a case of brain injury to a vaccine.

        • (Score: 2) by sjames on Monday February 11 2019, @09:47PM

          by sjames (2882) on Monday February 11 2019, @09:47PM (#799761) Journal

          You can never be absolutely certain, but it is reasonable to do what the first study did and apply a 3 month window compared to 3 month windows where the patient did not have measles (or the vaccine).