Measles Outbreak Is Worst in a Decade

WASHINGTON (July 10) - The biggest U.S. outbreak of measles since 1997 has sickened 127 people in 15 states, most of whom were not vaccinated against the highly contagious viral illness, federal health officials said on Wednesday.

The outbreak was driven by travelers who became infected overseas -- 10 countries are implicated -- then returned to the United States ill and infected others, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Thanks to a vaccination program dating to 1963, measles is no longer endemic in the United States, with ongoing transmission of the virus declared eliminated in 2000.

Public health officials have been stressing the importance of immunizing children amid increasingly vocal vaccine opponents who object to them for religious or other reasons or because they fear the shots may cause autism or other harm.

http://news.aol.com/health/story/ar/_a/measles-outbreak-is-worst-in-a-decade/20080710092809990001?icid=100214839x1205541221x1200252145


This is why opting out of vaccinations is harmful to MANY. This is why mandatory vaccinations are so important.

# 10:35 03 March 2005
# Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
# Andy Coghlan

Parents need have no more fears about the triple vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella. A study of more than 30,000 children in Japan should put the final nail in the coffin of the claim that the MMR vaccine is responsible for the apparent rise in autism in recent years.

The study shows that in the city of Yokohama the number of children with autism continued to rise after the MMR vaccine was replaced with single vaccines. "The findings are resoundingly negative," says Hideo Honda of the Yokohama Rehabilitation Center.

In the UK, parents panicked and vaccination rates plummeted after gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield claimed in a 1998 study that MMR might trigger autism, although the study was based on just 12 children and later retracted by most of its co authors.

Soon the vaccine was being blamed for the apparent rise in autism, with Wakefield citing data from California, US (see graph). In some parts of the UK, the proportion of children receiving both doses of the MMR vaccine has dropped to 60%. This has led to a rise in measles outbreaks and fears of an epidemic.

Not one epidemiological study has revealed a link between the vaccine and autism. But until now they have all concentrated on what happened after MMR vaccination for children was introduced. Honda's is the first to look at the autism rate after the MMR vaccine has been withdrawn. Japan withdrew it in April 1993 following reports that the anti-mumps component was causing meningitis (it plans to introduce another version).

More:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7076



Measles epidemic strikes Japan
Justin Norrie, Tokyo
May 26, 2007

A RAMPANT measles epidemic has infected hundreds of Japanese students and frightened Tokyo universities and schools into sending more than 160,000 students home.

In just a few days the highly contagious illness has spread from Tokyo to outlying areas, affecting potentially thousands in their late teens and 20s.

The epidemic, believed to be Japan's worst in at least five years, has brought dozens of campuses to a standstill for more than a week. An unknown number of people have been hospitalised.

<snip>

Measles is passed on by coughing and sneezing. It causes pneumonia in one out of 20 cases, and brain inflammation and death in one out of every 1000.

<snip>

Japan is the only developed country to still experience large epidemics. The US, which introduced a double vaccination program in 1989, and Australia, which phased in a booster shot for measles from 1994, have largely eradicated the disease.
More:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/measles-epidemic-strikes-japan/2007/05/25/1179601669854.html

If you won't vaccinate your children...


Enhance Your Immune System The Natural Way-- FOR FREE-- if You Hate Modern Allopathic Medicine!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=222&topic_id=37819&mesg_id=37819

and it shouldn't be allowed here.

what a sad story this is.

and yes, mandatory vaccinations are a part of keeping all of us safe and well.

Surely they're around here somewhere.

Unfortunately, the paranoid parents they convince to skip the vaccine will have their little darlings out in the world with runny noses (and unnoticed Koplik's spots) and infect those of us whose immunity has worn off since we were children.

Wakefield is just lucky his horseshit hasn't killed anyone here yet. We are Americans and we will sue when it happens.