As the number of measles cases continues to increase across the country, vaccinations are being hotly debated in traditional and social media.
Bexar County hasn’t had a reported case of measles in five years, and health officials want to keep it that way, urging residents to get vaccinated against the respiratory disease.
“I’m more concerned and worried about measles than if we got Ebola,” said Anil Mangla, assistant director of health at San Antonio Metropolitan Health District. “Measles is significantly much more contagious than any of the other diseases we face on a daily basis.”
The coverage rate for the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine in San Antonio is 93 percent, according to Metro Health, which means about 6,000 children in Bexar County have not received their shots. It’s not clear why these children aren’t vaccinated. It’s possible some parents don’t have the proper knowledge or access to care, Mangla said.
But some parents choose not to vaccinate their children against preventable contagious diseases, often because they fear damaging effects of the shots.
San Antonio mom Kelli Hicks is one of them. She has no plans to vaccinate her infant daughter against measles — or anything else. She believes the risk of harm from the shots outweighs the risk of measles, she said.
“I don’t want to play Russian roulette with my baby,” said Hicks, 23, who researched vaccines during the nine months she was pregnant with Kali Jo, now 4 months old. “I don’t feel the need to pump my child full of toxins.”
In January, 102 people from 14 states were reported to have measles, more than 90 percent of them part of an outbreak traced to Disneyland in California. The majority of the people who contracted the disease were not vaccinated against it, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Most people in the U.S. have been vaccinated against measles. Still, the disease pops up in the U.S. when unvaccinated travelers, either American citizens or foreign visitors, contract it in another country and spread it to people who are not protected from it, said Dr. George Crawford, professor of medicine and infectious diseases at the University of Texas Health Science Center.
Public health officials say that lack of vaccination could contribute to the reemergence of preventable diseases once declared eliminated in the United States, including measles.
Last year, the U.S. had 644 reports of people with measles, the highest since the disease was declared eliminated in 2000. The CDC blames higher numbers of cases in recent years on increased cases in some countries, such as the Philippines, to which Americans often travel and to the spread of the disease among pockets of unvaccinated people.
“The data clearly indicate that lower immunization rates contribute to increased rates of secondary transmission,” said Dr. Bryan Alsip, chief medical officer at University Health System.
Still, the choice of parents not to vaccinate their children “is probably less common than people would think,” Alsip said. “I think there are clusters and groups probably scattered in various parts of the country.”
The issue recently became political with potential Republican presidential nominees Rand Paul and Chris Christie stating that they believe vaccination is a choice parents should be free to make for their children. In Texas, parents can apply for exemption from school immunization requirements “for reasons of conscience,” including a religious belief, and for medical reasons.
Crawford said he thinks the U.S. will see periodic outbreaks of measles, “but they probably won’t be huge.” Texas has had one case of measles reported this year, which was not related to the Disneyland outbreak, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.
Infected people with measles are contagious about four days before the appearance of symptoms such as rash, fever and coughing.
Complications from measles can be very serious, Crawford said. The disease can lead to pneumonia and swelling of the brain, which can cause convulsions and result in deafness or mental retardation.
Among pregnant women, measles can cause premature or low-weight births. Worldwide, 146,000 people die from the disease each year
The measles vaccination program started in the U.S. in 1963. Before that, about 3 to 4 million people got measles every year. In 2000, the U.S. declared the disease eliminated, in part because of the effectiveness of the measles vaccine — about 97 percent after two doses — and the high rates of vaccination among children.
A fear of the MMR vaccine has been traced to a paper published in 1998 by British researcher Andrew Wakefield, who suggested a link between autism and the MMR vaccine. The paper has since been discredited and Wakefield’s medical license yanked. Several panels of independent scientists have concluded there is no association between MMR and autism, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
“The whole issue of the correlation between MMR and autism is absolutely ridiculous,” Mangla said.
Some parents worry about compounds such as thimerosal used in vaccines as preservatives. MMR never contained thimerosal or any preservative, according to the CDC.
Alsip says vaccines are highly regulated and required to go through multiple safety trials. According to the Vaccine Information Statement for the MMR vaccine, “receiving the MMR vaccine is much safer than getting measles, mumps or rubella.”
Vaccines also help protect other people, Alsip said. People who are not vaccinated can catch measles and infect children who can’t receive the shot because they’re too young or have a compromised immune system.
The issue is an emotional one, Alsip acknowledged.
“Every parent wants the best for their children,” he said. “As a physician, you never want to be judgmental. You just want to be objective and present them with the evidence as you know it, which is that immunizations are one of the most successful stories of modern medicine.”
jbelasco@express-news.net
Source: Top Stories - Google News - http://ift.tt/1AqiMoB
0 comments:
Post a Comment