Page 83 - Spring 2019 Journal

in deaths before introducing the measles vaccine in 1968 (see Figure 1 and 2).2
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in the decade before 1963, nearly all children got measles by the time they were fifteen years of age. During this time, the CDC estimates three to four mil- lion people in the United States were infected each year, causing approximately four hundred to five hundred deaths, forty-eight thousand hospitalizations, and one thousand cases of encephalitis (swelling of the brain).3
Measles infection begins in the nasophar- ynx and is shed through respiratory secretions (nasal discharge and sneezing). Symptoms typi- cally appear ten to fourteen days after exposure to the virus. They may include fever, dry cough, runny nose, sore throat, conjunctivitis, tiny white spots with bluish-white centers on a red back- ground found inside the mouth or inner lining of the cheek and a skin rash made up of large, flat blotches that often flow into one another, which lasts for about one week.4 Complications may include very high fever, diarrhea, otitis media, seizures, pneumonia, encephalitis (0.1 percent reported) and, very rarely, subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE, a progressive, debilitat- ing and deadly brain disorder) and death.5
From January 1 to February 28, 2019, the CDC confirmed two hundred six individual cases of measles in eleven states. The states
that reported cases to the CDC are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Ken- tucky, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Texas and Washington.6 While this may sound like a lot of cases, it is important to know that between 2010 and 2019, the highest number of measles cases was six hundred sixty-seven in 2014 with no deaths in a population of over three hundred million people.6 The last confirmed measles death in the United States occurred in 2015. The victim was a fully vaccinated woman in her twenties. Prior to 2015, the last confirmed measles deaths occurred in 2003, a thirteen- year-old immunocompromised child and a seventy-five year-old international traveler.7
VACCINE FAILURE
One may wonder how a fully vaccinated
person can contract measles. The answer is vaccine failure. For example, a 2014 study published in PLOS ONE titled: “Difficulties in eliminating measles and controlling rubella and mumps: a cross-sectional study of a first measles and rubella vaccination and a second measles, mumps, rubella vaccination” brought to light the ineffectiveness of two measles vac- cines—measles–rubella (MR) and measles, mumps, rubella (MMR). The study found that the incidence of measles remains high even with 99 percent vaccination compliance in the Zhejiang province of China.8
One may wonder
how a fully vaccinated person can contract measles. The answer is vaccine failure.
Figure 2. Measle mortaity rate in the U.S.
SPRING 2019
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