Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
As Country Wages War On Largest Measles Outbreak In Decades, There's Been Radio Silence From The White House
When children visiting Disneyland in 2015 contracted and then transmitted measles across the country, President Barack Obama lent his voice to the containment campaign. 鈥淵ou should get your kids vaccinated. It鈥檚 good for them,鈥 he told an interviewer. 鈥淭here is every reason to get vaccinated. There aren鈥檛 reasons not to get vaccinated.鈥 A few years earlier Obama was photographed getting immunized against H1N1, the flu virus that triggered the 2009 pandemic. Gerald Ford famously got vaccinated in the 1976 鈥渟wine flu鈥 pandemic scare. Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton created and expanded programs to immunize children against childhood diseases. White House photographers recorded Ronald Reagan getting multiple flu shots. (Branswell, 4/23)
Outbreaks in New York state continue to drive up the number of U.S. measles cases, which are approaching levels not seen in 25 years. Health officials say 71 more cases were reported last week, with 68 of them from New York. That brings this year's total to 626. That is already the most since 2014, when 667 were reported for the whole year. The most before that was 963 cases in 1994. (4/22)
New York City health officials have said they expect the number of cases to increase over the next several weeks after Passover, one of the holiest Jewish celebrations, when there are large get-togethers. Many of those who have contracted measles in the current outbreaks are children, including babies too young to be vaccinated. Some of the sick have been adults, including those who were vaccinated. (McKay, 4/22)
The U.S. outbreak is part of a worldwide rise in the once nearly eradicated disease. The World Health Organization reported last week that global cases had risen nearly four-fold in the first quarter of 2019 to 112,163 compared with the same period last year. A vocal fringe of parents in the United States oppose vaccines believing, contrary to scientific evidence, that ingredients in them can cause autism or other disorders. (4/22)
Meanwhile, the rise in measles cases prompted the Food and Drug Administration on Monday to stress the importance of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, saying large, well-designed studies confirmed its safety and effectiveness long ago and demonstrated it is not associated with the development of autism, false information that anti-vaccine groups have claimed for two decades. 鈥淲e cannot state strongly enough 鈥 the overwhelming scientific evidence shows that vaccines are among the most effective and safest interventions to both prevent individual illness and protect public health,鈥 Peter Marks, director of the FDA鈥檚 Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said in a statement. (Sun, 4/22)
Los Angeles County public health officials said Monday that they鈥檙e investigating a measles cluster after reports of residents acquiring the vaccine-preventable virus. Over the past few weeks, L.A. County has four confirmed measles cases linked to one another after international travel, and an additional single case of measles after international travel. These numbers exclude Long Beach and Pasadena, which have their own health departments. (Cosgrove and Karlamangla, 4/22)
The Liberty-Dayton Regional Medical Center and First Liberty National Bank have partnered together so sponsor a one-day clinic with free MMR vaccine shots on Saturday, April 27, from 8 a.m. to noon. ... As recently as late Friday, there were at least 465 recent cases in 19 states including Texas. ... The day the clinic was announced, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) sent an email to health providers across the country cautioning the potential for outbreaks during the holidays. The CDC has vaccination rates that they prefer for each community to have and the Houston area is at 87 percent of the required 90 percent. (Taylor, 4/23)
The U.S. will聽soon聽break the record for the number of confirmed measles cases this year after health officials found dozens of new measles cases聽in the last week. As of April 19, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has identified 626 cases of measles in 22 states across the country, an increase of 71 cases and two additional states in the past week. (Weixel, 4/22)
The proposal 鈥 Senate Bill 277 鈥 cut the personal belief exemption from a list of approved reasons not to immunize a child.The new law dealt a major blow to anti-vaccine advocates who relied on religion or philosophical convictions to avoid vaccinations. California parents who wanted to send their children to school now had to vaccinate their kids. Now [Richard] Pan is taking his defense of California鈥檚 vaccination system a step further with a measure that would put the decision to grant any exemptions in the hands of a state public health official. (Wiley, 4/23)
The state of Georgia requires children to be vaccinated for diseases such as diphtheria, polio, hepatitis and measles. (There are religious and medical exemptions.) But health officials worry that misinformation about the safety of vaccines has circulated online and interfered with progress against infectious diseases. (Herbert, 4/22)
