Study: US is slipping toward measles being endemic once again

[workinclasszero]

Study: US is slipping toward measles being endemic once again
Just a tiny increase in vaccine refusals will triple measles cases, cost US millions.
BETH MOLE - 7/25/2017, 3:35 PM

With firm vaccination campaigns, the US eliminated measles in 2000. The highly infectious virus was no longer constantly present in the country—no longer endemic. Since then, measles has only popped up when travelers carried it in, spurring mostly small outbreaks—ranging from a few dozen to a few hundred cases each year—that then fizzle out.

But all that may be about to change. With the rise of non-medical vaccine exemptions and delays, the country is backsliding toward endemic measles, Stanford and Baylor College of Medicine researchers warn this week. With extensive disease modeling, the researchers make clear just how close we are to seeing explosive, perhaps unshakeable, outbreaks.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/07/study-us-is-slipping-toward-measles-being-endemic-once-again/?comments=1

[Matthew28]

1. All because some people don't believe in freaking science

and hate government to the point that they're willing to kill their own family.

How sad.

[Phoenix61]

2. Not just their own family

Infants who haven't been vaccinated yet.

[Igel]

3. Exemptions have been around for decades.

The level of exemptions obtained were low, except in a few areas. I knew people in the '70s and '80s who refused to have their kids vaccinated.

It got a lot more widespread in the '90s. Not for fundie-Xian reasons, but a lot of New Age or educated anti-science paranoid crap, some of which trickled down to anti-science crap poseurs without the education. It's like homeschooling--in the mid-late '90s more non-religious educated folk were homeschooling than were fundies. At least that's what the data showed: the left-of-center narrative was still that most homeschoolers were religious nut-jobs. Who needs data when we have our beliefs? D'uh.

They're kind of like the friend who tried to stop me from nuking my lunch in the grad student lounge. "The food'll absorb the microwaves and when it's digested it'll cook your stomach from the inside." Oh. Right, that. You're advanced to candidacy, you shouldn't wear a big glowing "idiot" sign on your forehead. Or open your mouth and say stupid things. I have witty comebacks now. I think I just stared at her with my mouth open for a minute before pretending I hadn't seen her yet that day and heating up my food. I ate elsewhere.