5 ms·

Amazing that a disease that was eradicated decades ago can be brought back so easily by human stupidity

by NeoBasilisk 7y ago

gnulinux 7y ago
Measles was never "eradicated".
- NeoBasilisk 7y ago
  That is true. What I meant to say is that any real threat of getting the disease in the US was eradicated.
  - SCAQTony 7y ago
    "...Measles was declared eliminated (absence of continuous disease transmission for greater than 12 months) from the United States in 2000. ..." Measles History from the CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/measles/about/history.html https://www.cdc.gov/measles/about/history.html
    - apr 7y ago
      This is some shady definition. There were outbreaks in 1999, so really what does "eliminated" mean? To me it has never been "eliminated". https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4925a1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4925a1.htm
      - nostrademons 7y ago
        The CDC page he linked to defines "eliminated", as does his comment: "absence of continuous disease transmission for greater than 12 months". You can have outbreaks of a disease that have been eliminated from a population: the disease can be reintroduced from some other population. But what you don't have is person-to-person transmission within the population.
  - nostrademons 7y ago
    If you're vaccinated any real threat of getting the disease in the U.S. is still eradicated. There've been 555 measles cases in the U.S. so far this year. It's unclear how many in the current outbreak were vaccinated (though in the one sub-outbreak that does have data, NY/Rockland, 3% of cases had 2 doses of MMR), but historically, only about 2-3% of cases in an outbreak are vaccinated: https://vaxopedia.org/2019/02/14/vaccinated-vs-unvaccinated-measles-outbreak-edition/ https://vaxopedia.org/2019/02/14/vaccinated-vs-unvaccinated-... That'd imply that maybe 10 vaccinated people have come down with measles in this 2019 outbreak, out of > 300M total vaccinated people. By contrast, about 51 people die every year in the U.S. from being struck by lightning.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
darkpuma 7y ago
Measles was never eradicated, you're probably thinking of smallpox. We no longer vaccinate for small pox specifically because it was eradicated.
- eesmith 7y ago
  I agree with your first sentence. I will make a minor correction to your second one. Routine vaccinations stopped. Samples of the virus continue to be found (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox_virus_retention_debate#Post-1984_instances_of_smallpox_virus_discovery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox_virus_retention_debat... ) and it appears that it would not be difficult to recreate. There is therefore a potential for a future outbreak, perhaps even done deliberately. Some people still get smallpox vaccinations. In addition to lab workers working on smallpox or similar organisms ( https://www.cdc.gov/smallpox/vaccine-basics/who-gets-vaccination.html https://www.cdc.gov/smallpox/vaccine-basics/who-gets-vaccina... ), https://health.mil/Military-Health-Topics/Health-Readiness/Immunization-Healthcare/Vaccine-Preventable-Diseases/Smallpox/Smallpox-FAQs https://health.mil/Military-Health-Topics/Health-Readiness/I... points out under "Who in DoD is going to get the smallpox vaccine?" that: > "Smallpox vaccination is currently required for uniformed personnel deploying or assigned to the Korean Peninsula for 15 or more consecutive days. It is also mandatory for certain designated emergency-essential personnel and contractors, uniformed personnel assigned to special units, and comparable U.S. government civilian employees. However, requirements may change based on threat.
joecool1029 7y ago
Happens more often than you think. We'd probably have eradicated polio already but the Taliban keeps killing off humanitarians in Pakistan. My dad's cousin spent his life trying to eradicate guinea worm with the CDC but now we have a bunch of civil wars breaking out in the endemic regions.
- tareqak 7y ago
  With respect to Taliban killing off humanitarians, it doesn’t help that the CIA organized a fake vaccine drive to get Osama Bin Laden’s family DNA [0]. The fake vaccine in question was for hepatitis B, but if your threat model requires you to be suspicious of humanitarian workers, then you’ll act appropriately. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/11/cia-fake-vaccinations-osama-bin-ladens-dna https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/11/cia-fake-vacci... Update: I’m not sure why the sibling poster and I received downvotes: we both provided the same fact that a branch of the US government conducted their operations in such a way that harmed the perception of vaccines amongst groups of people in another countries. In both the anti-vaxx movement in some places in the West and this particular incident in Pakistan and Afghanistan, you have a similar kind of attribution error involving the concept of vaccination that led to action against actual vaccinations as a whole.
  - tomjen3 7y ago
    You are getting downvoted because you fit the pattern that any attack on Islamic terrorists must be answer by what-aboutism about the US government. In this case, you are correct, but normally the crimes don't compare.
- acdha 7y ago
  > We'd probably have eradicated polio already but the Taliban keeps killing off humanitarians in Pakistan. It’s important to remember that this was the direct result of the CIA’s use of a vaccination program as a cover: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/28764582/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/28764582/ Whether or not you agree with that call, it seems likely to be an enduring side-effect.
foobar1962 7y ago
> Amazing that a disease that was eradicated decades ago... Measles hasn't been eradicated the way that Smallpox was declared eradicated globally in 1980. Measles is active in many parts of the world that don't vaccinate for it.

Amazing that a disease that was eradicated decades ago can be brought back so easily by human stupidity

gnulinux 7y ago

Measles was never "eradicated".

NeoBasilisk 7y ago
That is true. What I meant to say is that any real threat of getting the disease in the US was eradicated.
- SCAQTony 7y ago
  "...Measles was declared eliminated (absence of continuous disease transmission for greater than 12 months) from the United States in 2000. ..." Measles History from the CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/measles/about/history.html https://www.cdc.gov/measles/about/history.html
  - apr 7y ago
    This is some shady definition. There were outbreaks in 1999, so really what does "eliminated" mean? To me it has never been "eliminated". https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4925a1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4925a1.htm
    - nostrademons 7y ago
      The CDC page he linked to defines "eliminated", as does his comment: "absence of continuous disease transmission for greater than 12 months". You can have outbreaks of a disease that have been eliminated from a population: the disease can be reintroduced from some other population. But what you don't have is person-to-person transmission within the population.
- nostrademons 7y ago
  If you're vaccinated any real threat of getting the disease in the U.S. is still eradicated. There've been 555 measles cases in the U.S. so far this year. It's unclear how many in the current outbreak were vaccinated (though in the one sub-outbreak that does have data, NY/Rockland, 3% of cases had 2 doses of MMR), but historically, only about 2-3% of cases in an outbreak are vaccinated: https://vaxopedia.org/2019/02/14/vaccinated-vs-unvaccinated-measles-outbreak-edition/ https://vaxopedia.org/2019/02/14/vaccinated-vs-unvaccinated-... That'd imply that maybe 10 vaccinated people have come down with measles in this 2019 outbreak, out of > 300M total vaccinated people. By contrast, about 51 people die every year in the U.S. from being struck by lightning.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

darkpuma 7y ago

Measles was never eradicated, you're probably thinking of smallpox. We no longer vaccinate for small pox specifically because it was eradicated.

eesmith 7y ago
I agree with your first sentence. I will make a minor correction to your second one. Routine vaccinations stopped. Samples of the virus continue to be found (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox_virus_retention_debate#Post-1984_instances_of_smallpox_virus_discovery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox_virus_retention_debat... ) and it appears that it would not be difficult to recreate. There is therefore a potential for a future outbreak, perhaps even done deliberately. Some people still get smallpox vaccinations. In addition to lab workers working on smallpox or similar organisms ( https://www.cdc.gov/smallpox/vaccine-basics/who-gets-vaccination.html https://www.cdc.gov/smallpox/vaccine-basics/who-gets-vaccina... ), https://health.mil/Military-Health-Topics/Health-Readiness/Immunization-Healthcare/Vaccine-Preventable-Diseases/Smallpox/Smallpox-FAQs https://health.mil/Military-Health-Topics/Health-Readiness/I... points out under "Who in DoD is going to get the smallpox vaccine?" that: > "Smallpox vaccination is currently required for uniformed personnel deploying or assigned to the Korean Peninsula for 15 or more consecutive days. It is also mandatory for certain designated emergency-essential personnel and contractors, uniformed personnel assigned to special units, and comparable U.S. government civilian employees. However, requirements may change based on threat.

joecool1029 7y ago

Happens more often than you think. We'd probably have eradicated polio already but the Taliban keeps killing off humanitarians in Pakistan. My dad's cousin spent his life trying to eradicate guinea worm with the CDC but now we have a bunch of civil wars breaking out in the endemic regions.

tareqak 7y ago
With respect to Taliban killing off humanitarians, it doesn’t help that the CIA organized a fake vaccine drive to get Osama Bin Laden’s family DNA [0]. The fake vaccine in question was for hepatitis B, but if your threat model requires you to be suspicious of humanitarian workers, then you’ll act appropriately. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/11/cia-fake-vaccinations-osama-bin-ladens-dna https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/11/cia-fake-vacci... Update: I’m not sure why the sibling poster and I received downvotes: we both provided the same fact that a branch of the US government conducted their operations in such a way that harmed the perception of vaccines amongst groups of people in another countries. In both the anti-vaxx movement in some places in the West and this particular incident in Pakistan and Afghanistan, you have a similar kind of attribution error involving the concept of vaccination that led to action against actual vaccinations as a whole.
- tomjen3 7y ago
  You are getting downvoted because you fit the pattern that any attack on Islamic terrorists must be answer by what-aboutism about the US government. In this case, you are correct, but normally the crimes don't compare.
acdha 7y ago
> We'd probably have eradicated polio already but the Taliban keeps killing off humanitarians in Pakistan. It’s important to remember that this was the direct result of the CIA’s use of a vaccination program as a cover: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/28764582/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/28764582/ Whether or not you agree with that call, it seems likely to be an enduring side-effect.

foobar1962 7y ago

> Amazing that a disease that was eradicated decades ago... Measles hasn't been eradicated the way that Smallpox was declared eradicated globally in 1980. Measles is active in many parts of the world that don't vaccinate for it.