Measles Coming Back - and We Should Be Worried (free issue)
If only there was a way to prevent the disease...
Welcome! Thanks for stopping by. If you found your way here through a share or just by accident, you can subscribe for free and get your own issues! If you are a free subscriber, please consider upgrading to paid. Just go into your subscriptions and you can do it from there.
Measles, one of the most contagious diseases that affects humans is making a comeback in North America. We’ve often heard stories of outbreaks in other parts of the world, but now it’s hitting closer to home. Last week, there was a report of a child with measles in Montreal. There were 23 confirmed measles cases in the U.S. between December 1, 2023 to January 23, 2024. In a large part of Europe, there were over 30,000 cases reported between January and October of last year. The World Health Organization said it was a 30-fold rise in cases in the region. This is scary.
Between 1 and 3 people out of 1,000 with measles die.
According to the CDC, “Measles is one of the most contagious of all infectious diseases; up to 9 out of 10 susceptible persons with close contact to a measles patient will develop measles. The virus is transmitted by direct contact with infectious droplets or by airborne spread when an infected person breathes, coughs, or sneezes. Measles virus can remain infectious in the air for up to two hours after an infected person leaves an area.” In addition, someone who is infected with measles can spread it up to four days before they get a rash to four days after. Which means they can spread it before they know they have it.
Before we had a measles vaccine, hundreds of people in the U.S. died from the disease each year and thousands more had complications. In 2000, 37 years after the vaccine was licensed, the U.S. declared that measles were eliminated from the country. Some cases still occurred from time to time, usually coming from people who contracted it from somewhere else and brought it back to the U.S.
Measles is more than just a rash:
About 1 in 5 people in the U.S. who get measles must be hospitalized.
About 1 out of every 1,000 develop brain swelling, which can cause brain damage.
Between 1 and 3 people out of 1,000 with measles die.
Decreasing vaccination rates
I still remember a conversation I had when my first child was born in 1987 and we went for their first vaccine. I commented that my husband and I were likely in the last generation that had first-hand knowledge of the damage some of the childhood diseases could do. I came down with mumps when I was 12. I passed it on to one of my brothers who experienced a severe and painful complication. I had a friend down the street whose sister was hearing impaired because her mother contracted German measles during her pregnancy. We all had stories like that. We all knew or knew of families who were somehow affected by measles, German measles, whooping cough, mumps, or diphtheria. We all knew how important it was to avoid these illnesses as much as we could. And that meant vaccinations.
During that conversation with my husband, I predicted that it wouldn’t be long before new parents challenged these traditional vaccines because they didn’t see the harm these diseases caused. They may have heard stories, but they never saw the results themselves. I remember saying to him, just watch. We’re going to see a drop in vaccinations because of this.
It didn’t take long but it came from an unexpected source.
In 1998, a well-respected medical journal published a paper by a physician who claimed that the MMR vaccine, which prevented mumps, measles, and rubella (German measles), caused autism. Parents were frightened. Of course they would be. This was a research paper that told them that they were harming their children. This paper turned out to be false and the facts debunked. The journal retracted the paper and the doctor was discredited. But the harm was done and he remains very active in the anti-vaccine movement.
The uproar about the paper and how it connected autism with vaccines fed into the fears of parents, who – as I’d predicted – were already iffy on the idea of vaccines because they had no reason to fear the diseases they’d never seen.
Vaccine suspicion isn’t new
We often talk about vaccine opposition as a new thing, but opposition has been around since the first vaccines. Back when a vaccine for smallpox was discovered, there were people who didn’t trust it.
Not all are against vaccines, they may be just hesitant.
Sir William Osler, considered to be one of the best physicians of all time and often referred to as the Father of Modern Medicine, challenged those who were against the smallpox vaccine. It’s said that he challenged them by daring them to be deliberately exposed to the disease (without vaccine) and he would pay for their funeral expenses.
Not all missed vaccines are deliberate though
The pandemic didn’t help vaccination rates. It became more difficult to find doctors and clinics that were open for preventive health, like vaccinations, and parents were often reluctant to bring their children to healthcare facilities because of their (understandable) fear of Covid-19.
Once offices began reopening or extending their hours again, getting caught up on vaccines wasn’t always easy. So some children are not as protected as they should be. These parents weren’t against the vaccines, they just couldn’t get them and now they are playing catch up.
We need to be kind to one another
The people who are against vaccinations aren’t bad people. Not all are against vaccines, they may be just hesitant. They are trying to do their best for their children, believing that their research, their sources are right. We can’t call them stupid or ignorant, or any of the nasty words that many may be tempted to use. We have to try to understand where they are coming from and listen to their concerns. We need to be armed with the correct information so we can present it in a non-judgmental way. Of course, not everyone will appreciate this and some will dig in their heels even deeper. But a considerate, well-intentioned approach will have an impact on some others.
This increase in measles cases is concerning. As more children are not vaccinated or not fully vaccinated, more will become ill. Sadly, some will die.
What do you think? Leave your comment below. Let’s get a conversation started.
If you are a free subscriber, please consider upgrading. You’ll get the Monday Musings issue and access to audio versions of each newsletter issue. Subscribe for only $5/month or $50/year. If you are a free subscriber and use computer-generated reading to listen due to visual impairment, please send me a message and I’ll arrange for you to get audio versions as well.