Blue Collar Scientist

Hot on the heels of an outbreak of measles in Tucson, there are reports of an outbreak of measles in Salzburg, Austria. About 180 people are infected, and most of them are children who attend the same private school.

Hubert Hrabcik, director general of public health in Austria’s Health Ministry, said the vaccination rate for measles, mumps and rubella, which are administered together, may have been “almost nil” at the school.

This would not be surprising, since if you aren’t immunized, you’ll very likely get the highly communicable disease. And as I mentioned before, if you get it, you are exposed to a significant risk of developing corneal ulcers and scarring, and blindness. There’s also a risk of encephalitis leading to brain damage. I don’t know whether this situation is a result of anti-vaccination activists (update: it is), but it nevertheless illustrates that their vision for the world has consequences: rampant disabling disease.

In an effort to curb the number of infections, Salzburg schools now will require students to prove they have been inoculated or that they previously had the disease. If students refuse to be vaccinated, they could be barred from classes, Hrabcik said.

Health Minister Andrea Kdolsky said in a statement there was “no need to panic,” but she and Salzburg Gov. Gabi Burgstaller urged people under the age of 40 who have not had measles to be vaccinated.

Keeping children away from the schools, and forcing others to bear the expense of immunization is necessary to deal with the outbreak, obviously, but it isn’t a particularly good thing. Yet that is the direction we’ll likely go if the anti-immunity crowd have their way.

Of particular interest to me because of the years I spent living in nearby Sierra Vista, Arizona, reports say that Tucson is experiencing an outbreak of measles.

Arizona health officials are concerned a measles outbreak in the Tucson area could spread across the state. There have been nine reported cases of measles in the Tucson area, the Pima County Health Department said Monday in a news release.

Public health officials are concerned because measles is extremely contagious. If you are exposed, and haven’t been vaccinated, the chances are 90% that you’ll get it. It is spread through the air.

Once you catch it, you are contagious for four to twelve days before you start showing symptoms. so you can be spreading it around for better than a week before you ever realize you’ve been infected.

Once you are symptomatic, if you get good health care, your chances of dying of the disease are only 0.1%. If you live in the developing world, your chances of dying are 10%.

So you shouldn’t worry too much about getting killed by measles. You should be concerned about going blind - for measles causes corneal ulcers and scarring. You can also get encephalitis, leading to brain damage. These are serious risks for a small child, the sort of thing that can lead to a lifetime of problems and suffering.

You might ask yourself why, since measles has a vaccine, that an outbreak has occurred in Tucson? It is because of anti-vaccination radicals:

Dr. Karen Lewis, a medical director with the Arizona Department of Health Services, said health officials are concerned that some parents aren’t vaccinating their children because of concerns about links to autism. “People have started to forget how bad of a disease it is and have started listening to people saying vaccines aren’t good,” Lewis told The Arizona Republic.

Fifteen of these peoples’ kids are now at risk for blindness and other lifelong complications of the disease. But worse than that, they have the potential to infect babies who haven’t reached vaccination age.

The health department recommends an accelerated schedule for vaccinating children, with one dose between the ages of 6 and 12 months of age and two more doses starting on the child’s first birthday.

So…. One way of looking at this is that thirty selfish parents who believe in a whacky conspiracy theory that claims vaccines cause autism which just enriches a medical industry that wants it to happen (so they can make more money) have now imposed upon thousands of babies the need to take vaccines earlier and more often. Which carries a small risk, as well as a small expense.

This should be illegal, folks.