CDC Warns About Measles Outbreaks

(AP)  Measles outbreaks in several states have led to more than 70 cases so far this year, the worst in six years, health officials said Thursday.

Most of the cases have been traced to outbreaks overseas and are mainly in children who were not vaccinated for religious or other reasons or were too young, according to the Centers for Disease control and Prevention. Since measles vaccinations began in the early 1960s, cases have dramatically declined in the U.S.

So far this year, the CDC has confirmed reports of 64 cases in nine states. There were no deaths, but 14 people were hospitalized, said CDC spokesman Curtis Allen.

That count doesn't include Washington state, where eight cases were reported this week. Those cases stemmed from an international church conference in suburban Seattle in March, according to the state health department.

Dr. Diana Yu, the Thurston County, Wash., public health officer, told the Olympian newspaper that eight members of a family developed symptoms of measles after attending a Generation Church Conference in Kirkland on March 25-29. None of the eight had been vaccinated against measles, Yu said.

Measles is caused by a virus that normally grows in cells that line the back of the throat and line the lungs. It spreads through contact with a sneezing, coughing, infected person.

Symptoms include rash, high fever, cough, runny nose, and red, watery eyes. But about 1 in 5 measles sufferers experience more severe illness that can include diarrhea, ear infections, pneumonia, encephalitis and even seizures and death.

Of the 64 cases reported to the CDC as of last week, 63 were unvaccinated or it wasn't known if they were vaccinated. At least 54 of the cases stemmed from outbreaks in Switzerland, Israel or other countries, Allen said.

Thirteen of the U.S. cases were children younger than 1; children usually don't get their first measles shot until they're at least 1 because their immune systems are considered too immature to produce the needed response.

Such children can easily pick up infections from those around them, said Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of Vanderbilt University's department of preventive medicine.

"We have a responsibility not only to ourselves but to everyone around us" to get recommended vaccinations, he said.

The largest concentration has been in New York City, with 22 cases. Arizona has had 15, California, 12, and Michigan and Wisconsin have each had four. Hawaii, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Virginia and upstate New York also reported cases.

It's the largest number of cases since 2001 when 116 cases were reported, according to CDC records. Officials expect this year's tally to keep climbing past that mark, said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

The worst year for measles was 1958, according to modern public health records. More than 763,000 cases were reported that year, including 552 deaths. Outbreaks in the early 1990s led to a revision of vaccination guidelines to include children younger than school age.

[michellem99-2009]

They come here. Ye say ban religion..Ye what would happen..a civil war. The bill of rights..ban mormomism..I am ex lds..by the medical sfuff thst is needed for health and so out breaks can be dealt with. So people stay away.

[beehive21-2009]

Please get off the medical folks,

Most of the cases have been traced to outbreaks overseas and are mainly in children who were not vaccinated for religious or other reasons or were too

People are there worst enemy,ban religion.

[gaye5]

Vaccine manufacturing rules are not being followed at Merck''s plant in West Point, Pa., just outside Philadelphia. The plant makes a number of children''s vaccines, as well as Gardasil. Last year, it recalled 1.2 million vaccine doses because of a sterility problem. Unless Merck fixes the problems, the plant could have its manufacturing license suspended and products seized, the FDA warns.
Now isnt it strange but here in Australia a company who produced natural health products was closed down and all products were with drawn for much the same thing as Merck, no warning there, and of course the company went under...

[michellem99-2009]

I can''t get the measles as I had them as a child. Gaye5 is right in the stuff used in buildings/food. We rented a mobile home/trailer and it was odd when we were home we coughted and when we were out doors we did not. They treated the inside with something that made we ciugh..Adults get whooping cough..

[mollydtt]

Lately, pertussis is making a comeback, mostly due to the vaccine protection wearing off. If you have to have another tetanus shot, it will probably be given along with a pertussis booster, too. Although the measles cases I''ve read about lately were in people that hadn''t been vaccinated, I wonder if now, with so many unvaccinated people around, it is becoming more obvious that boosters might be necessary after many years. Measles is very contagious.

[gaye5]

Many experts also testified, reiterating the official line that the vaccine was a totally safe and relevant way to protect "all children and all communities". This, of course, ignores the fact that hep B is largely a sexually transmitted disease for homosexuals, and drug users thus children are not at risk (JAMA, 1999; 282: 15-16).

Dpt vaccine: new brain damage, 01 May 1994
Yet another side effect has been linked to the diptheria, pertussis, tetanus (DPT) vaccine for children. Researchers are concerned that children can develop chronic brain dysfunction or even die if they develop an acute neurological illness.

This new worry, voiced by the US Institute of Medicine, is based on a review of 10 year follow-up data from the UK National Childhood Encephalopathy Study (NCES) (The Lancet, 12 March 1994).
One study found evidence of a relationship between lack of rash in measles and increased incidence of degenerative and autoimmune diseases (The Lancet, 5 January 1985). Many practitioners witness that cancer patients have a particularly small number of infectious diseases of childhood to report in their medical history. Findings are that only a tenth of adverse reactions are reported.

[gaye5]

clawson44, It is a shame that to try and make ones self appear more intelligent than another that some people have to lower oneself to scarcasim.. .however for your information there is much from different medical journals on the issue of Immunization problems, and what I have put here in these posts are mainly some of these reports as you would see if you had read the reports propely.

04 October 2007
Vaccine manufacturers have paid out nearly $2bn in damages to parents in America whose children were harmed by one of the childhood jabs such as the MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) or DPT (diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus).

In all, around 2,000 families have received compensation payments that have averaged $850,000 each. There are a further 700 claims that are going through the pipeline.

They are for a wide spectrum of physical and mental conditions that are likely to have been caused by one of the vaccinations.

Around 7,000 parents have filed a claim of an adverse reaction with America%u2019s Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP). To win an award, the claimant must prove a causal link to a vaccine. As the medical establishment has refused to recognise any link to autism, the VICP has so far rejected 300 claims for this outright.

(Source: New England Journal of Medicine, 2007; 357: 1275-9).
groups in the US are making their objections to the routine universal hepatitis B vaccine for infants heard.

[gaye5]

Mythoughtsr, I have been a nurse, but as you obviously have not read how many thousands of children are NOW dying from immunizations'' or have Autism, ADD, Asthma, cancers etc instead, then please don''t make comments like that, now instead of whooping cough we put these little children into chemo treatments for different kinds of cancers and the (CBS/AP) said about 300,000 U.S. children have been diagnosed with autism. My husband came across his first autistic child in 25 years ago. Of course we also now have far more chemicals in our food so with the poisons in their food/water and the poisons in their immunizations they are in big trouble, many vaccines have only been tested for two weeks but what happens over the next few months or a over a life time from these poisons??? like Ethylene glycol (antifreeze) or Phenol also known as carbolic acid (this is used as a disinfectant, dye) or Formaldehyde a known cancer causing agent andmany more. Is this perhaps why according to the Journal of the American Medical Association, 2007; 297: 2755-9 says that one in five children in America are now chronically ill and the figure has trebled in the last 20 years. Did you know that the rhesus monkey kidney cells used to make the Salk polio vaccines could cause cancer. Meningitis and diabetes amongst children has become common place now where as we never used to see it, and what about hundreds of young women getting breast cancers..

[clawson44-2009]

Gaye5...Are you a doctor of medicine or just have a degree in stupidity????? Got that encyclopedia with you?? Research better before you spill your swill on the interne!

[bluestardad]

HEY MEDICAL ESTABLISHMENT!

CURE SOMETHING ANYTHING!

PROVE YOU ARE WORTH THE BILLIONS THAT IS SPENT ON YOU EACH YEAR!

AMERICA DEMAND MORE!

AMERICA DESERVES MORE!

AMERICA STAND UP OR SHUT UP!