PUBLIC HEALTH
MEASLES REEMERGING IN THE US
Physicians Urged to Recommend Immunization
to Parents and to Consider Measles Diagnosis
Lori Caloia, MD
I
t’s back and it’s back with a vengeance!
Measles was declared eliminated in the
United States in 2000 thanks to a highly
effective vaccination program that began
in 1963. Yet this year, the CDC reports
that there had already been 228 new measles
cases as of March 7.
Measles outbreaks of three or more cases
have been reported in five states including Washington, New York,
Texas, Illinois and California. Seven other states, including Colorado,
Connecticut, Georgia, Kentucky, New Hampshire, New Jersey and
Oregon, have also seen measles cases. As of March 7, Louisville
has not had any measles cases. Kentucky’s sole case involved an
unvaccinated child living in the south-central part of the state who
had traveled outside the United States.
It is frustrating that measles has reemerged largely because of
pockets of unvaccinated populations throughout the country and
because anti-vaxxer parents, urged on by social media disinforma-
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LOUISVILLE MEDICINE
tion about unsafe vaccines, are not immunizing their children. As
people travel outside the United States to countries where measles
is prevalent and then return home, or when unvaccinated inter-
national travelers visit our country, the disease has the chance to
spread among those who have not been immunized.
At least part of the problem can be traced to a fraudulent and
now totally debunked 1998 study by Andrew Wakefield, a British
physician who has since been stripped of his license to practice
medicine. After he linked the MMR vaccine to autism, the disin-
formation was spread in the US by celebrities like Jenny McCarthy
and through social media.
In January, YouTube announced that it would no longer rec-
ommend videos that violate its community guidelines, including
“content that could misinform users in harmful ways” and, in Feb-
ruary, Facebook said it was considering making anti-vaccination
content on its site less visible in the face of new measles outbreaks
and mounting congressional criticism of Facebook.
Measles is one of our most contagious diseases and MMR is one