measles resurgent

Not wishing for repeats

During the pandemic, I received a personally unsurprising yet condemnatory query from my daughter. ‘You did get us vaccinated for the normal stuff, didn’t you?’ The text almost glowed in the dark with apprehension because anyone who knows me well remembers that inoculations and I are not friends.

It partially derives from our prepatory shots for South America in the 1960s when the County Health Service got confused on dosages for yellow fever and typhus; they somehow doubled what was necessary. Lo, almost sixty years later I remember just wanting to die because I was so sick. That, along with some weird severe dizziness when I get any and all shots, makes it a task I prefer ignore.

I confess to having skipped annual flu shots for most of my adult life, rationalising that the strain they were providing each year didn’t assure someone would not get ill. Indeed, by the time I acquiesced to getting the annual jab, the flu shot did not prevent a terrible case of flu immediately before COVID became rampant. (A colleague still maintains I must have had COVID but I had all those pesky symptoms that were, as my doctor said when I somehow dragged myself into see her, garden variety annual flu.) But, I keep taking the shots—any and all recommended inoculations, for the record—and my husband has patiently learned to anticipate my temporary but real adverse effects.

But, I never once ever thought of NOT inoculating my children for the entire array of preventative measures we began embracing as a society as medicine found breakthroughs to prevent devastating diseases. I put their health first and foremost because I never wanted them to confront the sickness I remember from elementary school such as measles, mumps, and chicken pox. I did not realise as a child that people died from those problems but I do recall the dread spreading through the family as I got chicken pox, measles, and mumps in succession, passing each on to my brother. I also saw other classmates absent for a long time. By the time I got out of elementary school, it was clear that prevention was working as I recall adults discussing how much better it was for younger kids than those my age. Whew.

Today’s story, then, that Europe is confronting a serious challenge as measles infections spike is demoralizing—yet completely expected. Last year the number of European cases was up 40 times from the prior year. It had been a low number so we are not talking millions but 40 times’ increase in 12 months?

Kazakhstan, the story also notes, has been a locus for the disease. We tend to see that former Soviet republic as poor and far far away but international travel is the thing to do after COVID (she says en route back from Thailand). I recall saying to my husband during the pandemic that the anti-vax nonsense would affect elementary school kids here before too long. I did not expect it to be true in Europe, including Britain, as well. Oh, boy.

It turns out vaccination rates need be at the 95% level in a population to prevent the outbreaks. Oh, did I mention that we too are reporting measles cases in some of our major metropolitan areas, such as Philadelphia, where this highly communicable disease thrives among folks in close quarters? It is also picking up in distant Washington state and other regions.

I know that anti-vaxxers cling to a debunked study that some childhood vaccinations caused autism as a justification for rejecting the shots. Autism is real, hellacious, and an unrelenting challenge for thousands of families but the debunking of the vaccinations-cause-autism link was years ago. The original study on a cause and effect did not stand up to peer review. I also know that the very week I cite science as a reason to receive inoculations, the prestigious Dana Farber Cancer Institute is withdrawing several studies because the science behind those previously accepted peer-reviewed works is no longer seen as credible.

But, science is a repetitive process for improvement. It is not gospel given on ten tablets without question or reexamination. That the Dana Farber studies do not stand up to further peer review is the strength of science rather than a weakness. Randomized, blind peer review forces any scientist to meet a long term, repeatable standard. When any study fails, it is part of the process to revise our thinking instead of rejecting the science as a fraudulent effort. Sure, fraud probably exists but will become clear over time as repeated efforts to prove the value of a treatment or any outcome fail. What is so troubling is that we default immediately in today’s environment to malicious intent. Incompetence is at least as credible an explanation.

I am not an immunologist but suspect, in the highly polarized post COVID world of America in 2024, rates are well below the desired 95% figure. I understand that in this country people rejecting shots believe they are doing it out of either abundance of caution (the charitable interpretation) or this pervasive nuttery of fearing the government or Bill Gates or who knows who seeks to infect them with some nefarious illness. Come on, people: you are putting your kiddos at serious risk as measles leads to terrible temporary suffering or worse. The audacity of rejecting standard medical advice from the same folks who you take your child to see when she breaks her arm or your son has a soccer injury is laughable. What happened to our sense of community? We always know better on everything?

I hear that for many people in America this is a freedom issue. Freedom does not equate to defeating illnesses, virological or bacteriological. If freedom is the ultimate objective, why do we care about the behaviour of so many others around the world? They want their freedoms, too, according to our logic. Cause and effect are hard to show.

Today’s article says measles is the ‘canary in the coal mine’, or the lead indicator of public health concerns. Yes, the numbers are still smaller than before the pandemic but sixty years after the introduction of highly effective vaccines why are we seeing it at all? What other illnesses are we potentially allowing to come roaring back?

So, yes, dear daughter, you received vaccinations for everything available. This is such a privilege in wealthier societies because inoculations, serum, and the like are hardly free. But, providing preventative health care is such an important aspect of our lives that we ought not take for granted, particularly as people age or as they travel throughout the world. If some policy options were chosen, that free preventative care would become tres expensive, too.

I confess I was wrong for decades to put my personal challenges with shots above the preventative value they offer. Thank goodness my parents, particularly my mother who suffered similar adverse reactions to mine, did the right thing to get me and my brother immunized. But, actions create consequences. We are starting down a public health path we do not remember from the really bad old days. I never want to go there again.oh, and I have had every COVID vax I can get.

Reactions? Suggestions? Rebuttals? Actions create consequences is not going to provide answers but intends to spur civil discourse and thought. Thank you for reading this column.

More liquid Aloha was falling among strong winds this morning. Soon I will be back in the land of snowflakes so I did not mind much

.Be well and be safe. FIN

Kristen V. Brown and Janet Lorin, ‘Harvard-Linked Cancer Center Seeks Retractions on Fake-Data Allegations’, Bloomberg.com, 22 January 2024, retrieved at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-22/harvard-s-dana-farber-seeks-retractions-after-data-manipulation-alleged

Apoorva Mendacilli, ‘Europe faces a Measles Outbreak’, NYTimes.com, 24 January 2024, retrieved at https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/24/health/measles-europe.html

Jonathan D. Quick and Heidi Larson, ‘The Vaccination-Autism MythStarted 20 Years Ago. here’s Why It Still Endures Today’, TIme.org, 28 February 2018, retrieved at https://time.com/5175704/andrew-wakefield-vaccine-autism/