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Measles Kills First U.S. Patient Since 2003

posted by takyon on Saturday July 04 2015, @11:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the jenny-mckillthy dept.

An Anonymous Coward wrote in with the news of the first measles death in the U.S. since 2003. Measles kills tens of thousands of people worldwide annually. From the Washington Post:

Health officials on Thursday confirmed the country's first measles death since 2003, and they believe the victim was most likely exposed to the virus in a health facility in Washington state during an outbreak there. The woman died in the spring; a later autopsy confirmed that she had an undetected measles infection, the Washington State Department of Health said in a statement. The official cause of death was announced as "pneumonia due to measles."

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 178 people from 24 states and the District were reported to have measles from Jan. 1 through June 26 of this year. Two-thirds of the cases, the CDC noted, were "part of a large multi-state outbreak linked to an amusement park in California."

Measles were effectively eliminated in the United States in 2000, according to the CDC. Health officials have said that the disease made a comeback recently, in part because of a growing number of adults deciding to delay or abstain from vaccinating their children. Last year brought the highest number of recorded measles cases since 2000, according to the CDC. Earlier this year, President Obama acknowledged the concerns some have about effects of vaccines but said: "The science is pretty indisputable." "You should get your kids vaccinated — it's good for them," Obama said. "We should be able to get back to the point where measles effectively is not existing in this country."

takyon: Celebrity critics recently denounced California's new mandatory vaccine law.

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  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 05 2015, @06:14AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 05 2015, @06:14AM (#205208)

    You think anti-vaxxers make up at least 10% of the US population, and further that we have no idea what percent of people are actually vaccinated for measles but 90% is an overestimate?

    Possible, and very, very important if true. Do you have any supporting evidence for this?

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  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday July 05 2015, @06:53AM

    by frojack (1554) on Sunday July 05 2015, @06:53AM (#205218) Journal

    Using the same source as the AC I was responding to. Exact same link.

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 05 2015, @08:33AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 05 2015, @08:33AM (#205228)

      That was me, the same AC. I'm not sure why I got modded funny. That makes the problem I brought up even worse. Do you know of any additional evidence that these polls the CDC is basing their decisions on are inaccurate. I have read that this data was inaccurate in the past, but thought they resolved that by now:

      Over 20 years of national immunization coverage rates (1959–1985) were estimated from information that was not verified. Coverage rates from the last several years of this time frame are known to be inaccurate, and it is probable that the rates from earlier years are also inaccurate. While these data are sometimes useful to provide historical perspective to national vaccination delivery efforts, their known inaccuracies must be acknowledged. Also to be acknowledged and avoided is the temptation to graph and assess coverage over time using data from different surveys.

      http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749379701002860 [sciencedirect.com]

      You seem to be saying we still have no idea what percent of people are vaccinated, but we should take the phone survey results as an upper bound.

      • (Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday July 05 2015, @04:55PM

        by frojack (1554) on Sunday July 05 2015, @04:55PM (#205315) Journal

        I'm saying phone survey data can't be trusted at all.

        You claimed only 1 percent were unvaccinated, and posted a link to back it up.

        I was merely pointing out that YOUR OWN LINK says 90 only percent were vaccinated. (which doesn't even achieve herd immunity).

        I copied and pasted from your own link.

        You should maybe read links you post. And maybe stop posting as AC if you expect to carry on conversations.

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 05 2015, @11:15PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 05 2015, @11:15PM (#205400)

          Perhaps we have a miscommunication. The CDC link said that ~90% of children received measles vaccinations, but over 99% received at least one vaccine. Since anti-vaxxers are against all vaccines, that indicated to me that anti-vaxxers are only a small minority of the 10% of children not vaccinated for measles.

          You also pointed out that it is a phone survey, which "can't be trusted at all" and gave reasons that the survey would overestimate the percent of people vaccinated against measles. I agree, phone survey data is dubious and should not be used to influence public health policy, at least in the absence of supporting evidence.

          If the only data available is the phone survey, it would appear we have no idea what percent of people are vaccinated. I'm not sure you realize how important that is.