Octopus Overlords

Six cases of the measles have been confirmed in Texas in recent days, health officials say.

The Texas Department of State Health Services confirmed a case in Bell County on Tuesday, a day after five cases were announced — three in Harris County, one in Galveston County and one in Montgomery County. Five of those involve children.

The three Harris County patients are two boys younger than 2 and a woman who is between 25 and 35 years old. The cases are the first in Harris County this year. The last was in Houston in 2018, according to the county's health department.

In Galveston County, the confirmed case is a boy between 1 and 2 years old who was tested Jan. 28. Health officials say the case is part of the cluster in the region.
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The Bell County case involves a child who is not school-aged and is too young to be vaccinated, according to the county health department.
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Two of the children had recently been immunized and "likely were exposed to measles before receiving the vaccine or before the body could mount a full immune response," [Texas Department of State Health Services spokesman Chris] Van Deusen said.
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There were nine confirmed cases of measles in Texas last year.

Nearly one in four kindergarten students during the 2017-18 school year did not get all their immunizations, according to data from the Washington Department of Health. At three schools in the county, more than 40 percent of kindergartners did not receive all recommended shots before starting school.

Washington state has declared a public emergency in the wake of an outbreak in Clark County that has infected at least 53 people, mostly children. Another four cases have been confirmed in neighboring Multnomah County, Oregon. Another case has been identified in King County, which includes Seattle.

OLYMPIA — Amid a measles outbreak that has sickened more than 50 people in the Pacific Northwest, Washington lawmakers heard testimony Friday on a bill that would remove parents’ ability to claim a personal or philosophical exemption to opt their school-age children out of the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine.

Hundreds of people opposed to the measure lined up more than an hour before the start of the hearing before the House Health Care and Wellness Committee, many wearing stickers with the bill number, HB 1638, within a crossed out circle.

Kraken wrote:On the flip side, vaccinations soared by 500% in the county where measles is out of control.

This time last year, country health clinics put in orders for 530 doses of one of two types of measles vaccine. This year, they've order five times the amount, tallying around 3,150 doses.

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Mon Feb 11, 2019 1:19 pm If the initial rate is 1%, you can "soar 500%" by getting to a 6% rate. Percentage math is weird.

gilraen wrote: ↑Mon Feb 11, 2019 1:28 pm It's just referring to how many doses were ordered vs. last year.

This time last year, country health clinics put in orders for 530 doses of one of two types of measles vaccine. This year, they've order five times the amount, tallying around 3,150 doses.

Scientists have known for decades that having measles suppresses kids' immune systems for several weeks or months, leaving them ill-equipped to fight off pneumonia, bronchitis, diarrheal diseases and other infections.

Now a team of researchers has suggested that the measles virus may also confer a longer-lasting sort of "immune-amnesia" that makes it harder for people to stave off other illnesses for two years or more.

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They turned to data from England and Wales -- developed nations where disease levels are generally low, allowing a less-muddled view of measles' effects. Studying measles incidence and deaths from infectious disease both before and after the introduction of the measles vaccine in the U.K. in the 1960s, Mina and the team saw a sort of shadow effect, where deaths from a variety of non-measles infectious diseases closely tracked measles incidence. The more measles in a population, the more deaths from other illnesses in the 28-month period that followed.

Moliere wrote: ↑Wed Feb 20, 2019 12:02 am Measles fights cancer. Nuff said.

The head of the US Food and Drug Administration says that if states don't require more schoolchildren to get vaccinated, the federal government might have to step in.

Nearly all states allow children to attend school even if their parents opt out of vaccines. These vaccine exemptions are especially popular in Washington state, where a measles outbreak started last month that has now sickened at least 67 people in four states. And New York has been working to contain its largest outbreak in decades, which began in October and has sickened more than 200 people.

"Some states are engaging in such wide exemptions that they're creating the opportunity for outbreaks on a scale that is going to have national implications," FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said Tuesday in an interview with CNN.

If "certain states continue down the path that they're on, I think they're going to force the hand of the federal health agencies," he added.

hepcat wrote: ↑Wed Feb 20, 2019 1:03 pm Ditto. If you don't want to be part of the herd when it comes to safety, then you shouldn't be allowed in the barn.

Smoove_B wrote:We're not unreasonable - I mean, no one's gonna eat your eyes.

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Wed Feb 20, 2019 3:24 pm

Smoove_B wrote:We're not unreasonable - I mean, no one's gonna eat your eyes.

They never had the head for all that bigger picture stuff.

One proponent, Republican state representative and outspoken Texans for Vaccine Choice ally Bill Zedler, told the Observer the U.S. is “not the Soviet Union,” bragged about how he was never debilitated by contracting diseases that hadn’t had vaccines yet, and said no one is dying from measles since we have “antibiotics and that kind of stuff”:

Word to Zedler: Measles is a virus. Antibiotics treat bacterial infections. There is no prescription medication to treat measles, which Healthline notes can weaken the immune system and invite everything from ear infections to potentially lethal pneumonia. It can also spread to the brain, causing encephalitis. But one can prevent contracting said virus by getting the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, which the CDC says is 97 percent effective with the recommended two doses.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., did not question the panel, but called vaccine requirements “un-American".

“I’m not here to say ‘don’t vaccinate your kids.’ I believe the benefits of vaccines greatly outweigh the risks, but I still do not favor giving up on liberty for a false sense of security,” he said.

In 2017, a boy aged 6 years who had received no immunizations sustained a forehead laceration while playing outdoors on a farm; the wound was cleaned and sutured at home. Six days later, he had episodes of crying, jaw clenching, and involuntary upper extremity muscle spasms, followed by arching of the neck and back (opisthotonus) and generalized spasticity. Later that day, at the onset of breathing difficulty, the parents contacted emergency medical services, who air-transported him directly to a tertiary pediatric medical center. The boy subsequently received a diagnosis of tetanus and required approximately 8 weeks of inpatient care, followed by rehabilitation care, before he was able to resume normal activities.

The boy required 57 days of inpatient acute care, including 47 days in the intensive care unit. The inpatient charges totaled $811,929 (excluding air transportation, inpatient rehabilitation, and ambulatory follow-up costs). One month after inpatient rehabilitation, he returned to all normal activities, including running and bicycling. Despite extensive review of the risks and benefits of tetanus vaccination by physicians, the family declined the second dose of DTaP and any other recommended immunizations.

This is the first pediatric tetanus case in >30 years in Oregon (unpublished data, Oregon Health Authority, 2018). The diagnosis of tetanus is made based on clinical findings because the bacterium C. tetani is difficult to grow from wounds. A wound culture from the child’s laceration did not grow C. tetani. However, a negative wound culture does not rule out disease. The health care costs to treat this child’s preventable disease were approximately 72 times the mean (2012) cost of $11,143 for a U.S. pediatric hospitalization (1). A recent report describing adult tetanus cases included hospital charges ranging from $22,229 to $1,024,672 (2).