A virus that we’ve had a vaccine for since 1963 is at risk of making a major comeback in the US.
The reason, as Dr. Peter Hotez, a pediatrician and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, wrote in a New York Times opinion piece, has to do with the rise of the anti-vaccination movement, particularly through US politics.
The movement perpetuates the discredited idea that a vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) could be linked to autism. The study that gave grounds to this idea has since been retracted, and on the whole, the link between autism and vaccines has been solidly disproved.
Even so, President Donald Trump has given the movement credibility in debates and tweets in the years before his presidency, and he picked vaccine skeptic Robert Kennedy to be in charge of a panel to review vaccine safety.
The uncertainty of what Trump might do has Hotez, a scientist and father of a daughter with autism, concerned.
“As a scientist leading global efforts to develop vaccines for neglected poverty-related diseases like schistosomiasis and Chagas’ disease, and as the dad of an adult daughter with autism and other disabilities, I’m worried that our nation’s health will soon be threatened because we have not stood up to the pseudoscience and fake conspiracy claims of this movement,” Hotez wrote.
That could mean outbreaks in states where children have not been vaccinated for measles. Texas, for example, has 45,000 children exempt from getting the vaccine, leaving some public schools approaching the threshold where a measles outbreak could be expected.
Measles is a vaccine-preventable disease that’s incredibly contagious and often deadly. Its symptoms usually include high fever, a cough, red, watery eyes, running nose, and after a few days, a rash. It can also lead to more serious complications including pneumonia and blindness. Before the vaccine was invented, roughly 3 to 4 million people were infected, leading to an estimated 400-500 deaths, according to the CDC.
READ MORE AT: http://www.businessinsider.com/why-we-should-be-ready-for-a-vaccine-preventable-outbreak-2017-2?r=UK&IR=T