Measles Trivia
The media are trying to scare us about an outbreak of measles in 14 states. Why? Measles is NOTHING! Nobody in the United States dies from measles, and almost never has any otherwise healthy person in the United States died from measles. When there were 3- to 4 million cases each year, there were never more than 500 deaths in the U.S., and there is reason to believe that those people had some other health condition that combined with measles to produce their deaths. When 4 million people develop an illness but only 400 or 500 die, it is almost certain that those deaths did NOT result from measles alone.
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Fools throw around "statistics" such as "About 1-in-5,000 people who aren’t protected from measles will die from it." Oh? And how many people who HAVE been vaccinated will die from measles? NONE! Not one single person. So why should anyone who HAS been vaccinated worry about OTHER people's measles?
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It's like thinking that the health problems of homeless people living on the streets in mid-winter should somehow worry people who live indoors, regarding their own health. Or thinking that the financial problems of the long-term unemployed should worry people who have a secure job, even an ironclad employment contract. Ridiculous and contemptible.
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If you want to vaccinate your child, fine. But you do NOT have the right to insist that everyone vaccinate their children, be it from well-considered scientific objections, religious beliefs, or any other cause. Your children are safe if THEY are vaccinated. It doesn't matter how many people around them get an illness they CAN'T. Mind your own business.
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Today, we are talking fewer than 100 cases in a Nation of over 316 million people. NOBODY healthy is going to die from measles in the United States, and absolutely certainly no one who has been vaccinated is going to die from measles. This "epidemic" is, thus, TRIVIA, a total waste of everybody's time. Why are the media so irresponsible in trying to worry us about NOTHING? Aren't there REAL problems to talk about?
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 7:10 PM