Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Beyond The Anti-Vaccination Movement: Poverty Plays A Role In Kids Not Getting Their Shots
The toddler looking up at Dr. Melanie Seifman in her Washington, D.C., exam room seems a little dazed. It could be because she just woke up from a nap at daycare. It could be that she remembers the shots she got last time, and she knows what's coming. The little girl is catching up on some vaccines she's behind on: missing doses of the DTaP and polio vaccines. She's over two years old 鈥 both of those shots are supposed to happen at a baby's six-month check up. (Simmons-Duffin, 5/20)
In a suburban shopping center an hour north of New York City, hundreds of mostly ultra-Orthodox Jews gathered in a sex-partitioned ballroom to hear leaders of the national anti-vaccine movement. Sustained applause greeted Del Bigtree, a former television-producer-turned-activist who often wears a yellow star , similar to those required of Jews in Nazi Germany, to show solidarity with parents ordered to keep unvaccinated children at home. Bigtree described the purported dangers of childhood vaccines in phrases that also conjured the Nazis. (Sun and Guarino, 5/20)
There have now been 880 measles cases reported in this year鈥檚 outbreak, already the largest since 1994, federal health officials said on Monday. An additional 41 cases were reported last week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of those, 30 were in New York State, which is having the country鈥檚 most intense outbreak, largely in Orthodox Jewish communities. Most of those new cases were in New York City, and nine were in suburban Rockland County. (McNeil, 5/20)
That is 41 more cases than a week ago, and included one additional state, Oklahoma, where a person contracted the measles after traveling domestically and internationally. By contrast, the number of confirmed cases had increased by 75 the previous week. This year is the worst for measles in the U.S. in 25 years, and the additional cases of the highly contagious disease brings the count closer to the 963 cases reported in 1994. (Abbott, 5/20)
The total number of cases is inching closer to the record 963 cases reported across the U.S. in 1994. The current outbreak is still the largest since the disease was declared eliminated in 2000. (Weixel, 5/20)
Despite news this week that a child in Keene is confirmed to have measles, the state鈥檚 epidemiologist says the vaccine for the potentially deadly illness is very effective. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 one of the reasons why we haven鈥檛 seen large outbreaks,鈥 said State Epidemiologist Dr. Benjamin Chan. New Hampshire鈥檚 vaccination rate for measles, typically taken in the form of the MMR vaccine that also protects from mumps and rubella, is in the mid to high 90% range for children and adolescents, Chan said. This has kept the disease from spreading, despite some rare confirmed cases, he said. (Fisher, 5/20)