Measles outbreaks in several states, and one death in Texas, are fueling media reports of a coming public health crisis — one that could push more states to remove religious exemptions from vaccine mandates. But doctors and scientists interviewed by The Defender said the hype distracts from what’s really harming kids today.
Measles outbreaks in Texas and New Mexico, with one new case reported in Kentucky and two in New Jersey, are fueling media stories that the U.S. is poised for an epidemic.
On Wednesday, Texas health authorities announced the death of a child who tested positive for measles, setting off a spate of media reports blaming the measles outbreaks on declining vaccination rates.
However, some doctors warn the situation isn’t as dire as the headlines suggest.
Dr. Lawrence Palevsky, a pediatrician, said it is a tragedy anytime a child dies. But he also said there isn’t “enough information to know whether the child had an underlying medical condition, whether the child had measles and what diagnostic criteria were being used to make the diagnosis of measles.”
Palevsky said it remains unknown “what treatment the child received in the hospital that may or may not have had anything to do with the deterioration of this child’s health. More information is needed.”
Outlets like Vox, The Washington Post, and The New York Times warned that the outbreaks herald a coming “public health crisis” that will be made worse by the fact that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has raised questions about the safety and efficacy of vaccines on the childhood vaccination schedule, is now secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Some accused Kennedy of downplaying the news after he said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is watching what is happening and that measles outbreaks happen every year.
Should we panic over measles outbreaks?
Leana Wen, writing in the Post, said people aren’t alarmed enough about measles because they don’t see the illness often enough. She warned it is a dangerous disease with high hospitalization rates and serious long-term health consequences that may include immune system destruction and death.
However, according to a 2018 publication by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) measles is a respiratory disease characterized by a fever, a head cold, pink eye and a rash of small red and sometimes itchy bumps that can cover the body.
Complications from measles such as an ear infection, diarrhea, croup, or bronchopneumonia, can occur — and bronchopneumonia can be quite serious — but they are rare in developed countries like the U.S, the AAP said.
It is “self-limiting,” meaning that it goes away on its own. By 1962 — prior to the introduction of the first measles vaccine a year later — the CDC described measles as a disease with low mortality.
By that time, the death rate had declined 98% since the beginning of the century due to improvements in public health. It carried a hospitalization rate of 11.5 per 1,000 cases and a mortality rate of 0.2 per 1,000 cases. Parents and medical practitioners considered measles an inevitable stage of a child’s development.
“We have a forgotten history of measles,” Children’s Health Defense (CHD) Senior Scientist Karl Jablonowski told The Defender. “The 1950s Vital Statistics report states, ‘measles are poorly reported because a large proportion of the cases are never seen by a physician.’ This, at a time when 600,000 annual reports of measles was normal.”
Despite Wednesday’s tragic reported death of a child in Texas, deaths from measles in the U.S. are extremely rare. Typically, people who die from measles have some other serious underlying condition.
