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Texas Lawmaker not Worried about Measles because of ‘Antibiotics'

posted by mrpg on Thursday February 28 2019, @04:11AM   Printer-friendly
from the Brawndo-Has-What-Plants-Crave dept.

DannyB writes:

Texas lawmaker says he's not worried about measles outbreak because of ‘antibiotics'

Texas state representative Bill Zedler says a resurgence of measles across the U.S. isn't worrying him.

Zedler, R-Arlington, is promoting legislation that would allow Texans to opt out of childhood vaccinations.

“They want to say people are dying of measles. Yeah, in Third World countries they’re dying of measles,” Zedler said, the Texas Observer reports. “Today, with antibiotics and that kind of stuff, they’re not dying in America.”

There is no treatment for measles, a highly contagious virus that can be fatal. Antibiotics treat bacterial infections and can't kill viruses.

It could be funny if it weren't so tragic.

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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 01 2019, @03:25AM (4 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 01 2019, @03:25AM (#808542) Journal

    No, that cannot be the reason. Measles eradication in the US was promised by 1967

    That is indeed the reason despite you not getting that pony in 1967. Measles comes from the endemic infections routine to the poorer, non-vaccinated parts of the world. That's why it's three orders of magnitude lower now in the US than in the years prior to the mass introduction of the vaccine. If we had global vaccination at the same level of efficacy, eradication would be a likely outcome. There apparently is no animal reservoir of measles.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @03:31AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @03:31AM (#808546)

    Measles comes from the endemic infections routine to the poorer, non-vaccinated parts of the world.

    Are you saying pre-1967 CDC missed this? Did they know about it but not tell anyone when starting a "End Measles" campaign?

    (I know you don't mean to imply one of those but that is what you are doing)

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 01 2019, @09:50AM (2 children)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 01 2019, @09:50AM (#808616) Journal

      Are you saying pre-1967 CDC missed this?

      Point out where in the report you cited, they mention this at all. Yes, they missed it in that report.

      Did they know about it but not tell anyone when starting a "End Measles" campaign?

      Wouldn't be surprised that it was an inconvenient fact dropped from the narrative.

      The problem here is that your argument is an insane ad hominem. It doesn't matter if the "End Measles" campaign bent the truth or worse. What matters is the relative difference in harm now, today, between our choices, not that someone promised too many ponies in 1967.

      And here's what we have today. Measles is more dangerous, harmful, and costly than its vaccine, despite assertions to the contrary. Let's consider those for once.

      First, you have the harm of the disease itself. Basically, an infected person, usually a child, has to be quarantined for a week or more, suffering all the while. That often means a parent gets to miss that much work as well. You have the various complications [cdc.gov] possible, which contrary to opinion are worse and more frequent than the complications [quebec.ca] from the vaccine. Note that a common complication from measles is ear infection (1 in 10). A common complication from the vaccine of similar frequency is: "Pain and redness at the injection site", "non contagious skin rash and moderate or high fever between the 5th and 12th day after vaccination", "irritability, drowsiness (sleepiness), conjunctivitis (red eyes)", and "joint pain in children".

      That leads to the next big problem of measles - high use of antibiotics to fight secondary bacterial infections. One doesn't need antibiotics to fight off the common side effects of the vaccine! Antibiotics cost money and as has already been mentioned, the greater the use of antibiotics the more likely that antibiotic resistant bacterial diseases will evolve. The decade of prophylactic antibiotics is not sustainable in the long term.

      So ultimately, that's where we're at. A dose of MMR vaccine (which covers more than just measles) for $75 (according [cdc.gov] to the CDC) plus a slight chance of complications that would actually require treatment. Or missing a week plus of the patient's life plus possibly that of caregivers, plus complications, plus medical treatment to avoid secondary infections, plus increased risk to society of antibiotic-resistant strains from antibiotic overuse.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @02:48PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @02:48PM (#808691)

        You have the various complications [cdc.gov] possible, which contrary to opinion are worse and more frequent than the complications [quebec.ca] from the vaccine. Note that a common complication from measles is ear infection (1 in 10). A common complication from the vaccine of similar frequency is: "Pain and redness at the injection site", "non contagious skin rash and moderate or high fever between the 5th and 12th day after vaccination", "irritability, drowsiness (sleepiness), conjunctivitis (red eyes)", and "joint pain in children".

        Not sure where those numbers are coming from. I'd think this is a better source that reports much higher rates of various symptoms after vaccination:

        The incidence of fever reported as solicited general symptom during the 43-day post-vaccination period was also similar between groups, with 31.1% of MMR-RIT and 32.3% of MMR II-vaccinated children reporting fever ≥ 38.0°C, and 4.0% and 2.7% reporting grade 3 fever (> 39.5°C) (Figure 2 and Supplemental table S1). Medical advice for fever was sought for 13.1% and 10.1% of children in the MMR-RIT and MMR II groups, respectively.
        [...]
        Rashes were reported for 24.4% of MMR-RIT and 27.4% of MMR II-vaccinated children. Approximately two thirds of the rashes were localized and occurred without fever. Measles/rubella-like rashes were reported for 5.8% and 4.7% of children; varicella-like rashes (as a possible consequence of the co-administered varicella vaccine) for 3.6% and 4.0% (Table 3). Medical advice for rashes was sought for 11.2% and 12.4% of children in the MMR-RIT and MMR II groups, respectively.
        [...]
        A total of 51.4% (95% CI: 48.5%, 54.3%) and 48.4% (44.3%, 52.6%) of children in the MMR-RIT and MMR II groups, respectively, reported unsolicited adverse events (AEs) during the 43-day post-vaccination period; upper respiratory tract infection (9.5% and 12.8%) and diarrhea (8.2% and 8.0%) occurred most frequently.

        https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6343620/ [nih.gov]

        So we see about 10% reporting respiratory infections after the vaccine, no mention of ear infections in that paper though.

        Before vaccinations in the UK the complication rate of measles was ~7%, with 6% being respiratory infections:

        Death from measles in Britain is now unusual. In 1961 the rate was as low as 2 per 10,000 notifications-a figure which was repeated in Miller's experience in 1963. Further- more, in one-half of the deaths there was an accompanying chronic disease or disability which in the majority was described as a serious handicap. It is reasonable, therefore, to conclude that in the past 30 years mortality from measles has been reduced to virtually the lowest figure possible.
        [...]
        Respiratory complications, therefore, bulk largest in the present series, producing, with otitis media, a rate of 63 per 1,000 cases.
        [...]
        Neurological complications were observed in 4 per 1,000 cases of measles, with encephalitis comprising about one- quarter. Though the rate was very low up to the age of 9 years it was between 4 and 5 per 1,000 over this age.
        [...]
        On the other hand, the development of respiratory complications, for example, does not depend only on age-nutrition and social environment are also important. Overcrowded housing conditions and large families increase the incidence ; town dwellers have a higher incidence than rural inhabitants ; winter epidemics produce a higher rate of respiratory-tract infections than when the epidemic occurs in summer.

        https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1815980/ [nih.gov]

        The data the above paper references:

        One of the major sources of doubt about the need for immunization stems from the belief among many parents and doctors that measles is a mild disease in which serious complications are rare and almost never fatal in normal children.
        [...]
        Neary 67 per 1,000, or about 1 in every 15 persons with measles in this survey, suffered from at least one complication. The most numerous were severe affections of the respiratory tract (38 per 1,000) and otitis media (25 per 1,000), followed by neurological disturbances (4 per 1,000) and a small number of others (2 per 1,000). Twelve of the children studied (0.2 per 1,000) are known to have died after measles, and 610 (11.5 per 1,000) were admitted to hospitals as a direct result of the disease.

        https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1815949/ [nih.gov]

        So the rate of ear infections after measles was about 2.5%, much less than the unsourced 10% value from the layperson site.

        There is an issue of what can be attributed to the vaccine/measles or not. For the vaccine study it was just total numbers of events for 43 days after vaccination. In the measles study they asked the doctors up about 6 weeks later who decided for themselves. Overall I don't see a big difference in the complications, the more common ones are rather minor and important ones very rare in either case. But it is hard to make a 1-1 comparison.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @03:45PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @03:45PM (#808734)

          Before vaccinations in the UK the complication rate of measles was ~7%, with 6% being respiratory infections

          Actually, that 6% value turned out to be 2.5% ear infections and 3.8% respiratory infections.