Nick Ansell/PA Wire/ZUMA
Update (1/23/2015): At least 59 Measles cases have been confirmed in California this year, 42 of them linked to the Disneyland outbreak, according to the state health department. Public health officials around the state, but particularly in Southern California, where the outbreak is the worst, are practically begging parents to have their children immunized. The disease is highly transmissible by air—droplets from an infected person’s cough can remain suspended for up to two hours, the CDC notes, and the virus can live for just as long on surfaces. The current outbreak is “100 percent connected” to the anti-immunization movement, Dr. James Cherry, a specialist in pediatric infectious diseases at the University of California-Los Angeles told the New York Times: “It wouldn’t have happened otherwise—it wouldn’t have gone anywhere,” Cherry said. “There are some pretty dumb people out there.”
Update (1/13/2015): The number of reported Measles cases linked to Disneyland has grown to 22, reports the Los Angeles Times. At least 12 of the infected people were unvaccinated, while four had had a Measles shot at some point. The vaccination status of the other six was unknown.
****
Yesterday, instead of cherishing freshly made memories of mouse ears or trying to get the song “A Pirate’s Life for Me” to stop looping in their heads, nine Disneyland visitors were left battling a potentially deadly disease. As The LA Times reports, the California Department of Public Health has confirmed nine cases and is investigating three others in California and Utah, all people who visited the Anaheim theme park last month.
The highly infectious disease, which is transmitted through the air, can lead to pneumonia, encephalitis, and sometimes death in children. In 2000, the US Centers for Disease Control declared it eliminated in the United States, thanks in large part to an effective vaccine. But because of anti-vaccination hysteria, fueled by discredited claims about links between vaccines and autism, many parents have opted out of vaccinating their kids, leaving them—and others, including children too young to be vaccinated—vulnerable. And while some children do react badly to vaccines, it’s important to remember that the diseases we vaccinate against are killers; the shots save countless lives.
Of the seven California cases, six hadn’t been vaccinated—two because they were underage. (Doctors administer the vaccine twice after the child is 12 months old.)
This outbreak is part of an ongoing trend. Measles rates have risen dramatically over the past few years. As my colleague Julia Lurie pointed out last May, the CDC reported record numbers in 2014, due in large part to gaps in vaccinations. According to a CDC press release, “90 percent of all measles cases in the United States were in people who were not vaccinated or whose vaccination status was unknown. Among the US residents who were not vaccinated, 85 percent were religious, philosophical, or personal reasons.”
In the video below, my colleague Kiera Butler interviewed a Marin County pediatrician who caters to anti-vaxxer parents:
