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U.S. records 75 new measles cases, 9.8% increase, as outbreak grows
- olliej 7y agoIf only there was some kind of medicine that could prevent this. Some one shot injection or something?
- Confusion 7y agoYeah, even if it had like a 1 in 10000 rate of nasty side effects, it would still be a lot less risky than the measles.
- AnimalMuppet 7y agoNot yet. What's the US population? 300 million, say, roughly? 1 in 10000 rate of nasty side effects is 30,000 people. The measles outbreak isn't that big... yet. If 75 cases is 9.8%, then the outbreak is about 750 people... so far. [Edit: The thing is (as most people here probably know), you can (mostly) safely be unvaccinated if everyone else is vaccinated, because you probably won't ever be exposed. But when other people also aren't vaccinated, it's more risky.]
- hobs 7y agoBefore the introduction of measles vaccine in 1963 and widespread vaccination, major epidemics occurred approximately every 2–3 years and measles caused an estimated 2.6 million deaths each year. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/measles https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/measles So, you were saying?
- AnimalMuppet 7y agoNot what you think I was, apparently. I was pointing out that Confusion's conclusion didn't follow from his/her number, yet, but it could soon, even with Confusion's far-too-high number for major side effects. I guess I said it badly, because everyone seems to think I'm an anti-vaccination apologist or something.
- llukas 7y agoIn EU on medical leaflets risk for various side effects of drug is in form 1 in 10^N cases where N varies. US leaflets contain useless word descriptions. Hint: After reading EU style leaflet you know 1 in 10000 rate is very high for nasty side effect. Rare is something like 1 in 1000000
- AnimalMuppet 7y agoHey, I didn't make that number up - Confusion did. I just used his/her number to show that his/her conclusions didn't yet follow.
- olliej 7y agoThis "safely be unvaccinated" nonsense is part of the problem with anti-vaxxers. It represents a fundamental misunderstanding of how vaccines work: For highly contagious diseases you need to ensure that the vast majority of the population is vaccinated, in the order of 90+%. Otherwise your "choice" puts immuno-compromised people at people at risk, it puts pre-immunisation infants at risk, and finally it drastically increases the likelihood of the virus mutating such that the vaccine no longer works for everyone. If you actually read the article you'd see that this is an increase of 75 people beyond the existing 800+ people [1], in the pre-vaccination world 500 thousand cases were reported a year, 48000 requiring hospitalization, 1000 with encephalitis, and 450 deaths[2]. This was with a population of around ~200 million, vs 329 million now[3], so this increases to 750k infections, 72k hospitalization, and 675 deaths (better hospital care may reduce this). So you're saying 30k adverse events (which is a gross exaggeration, as the events apply only to children <7 years old, and the side effects while bad are still better than death, but based on [4] this is around 3.5k not small but < 6x the number of fatalities) Note this is assuming a 1 in 10k rate of adverse side effects, a subject of which of debate - antivaxxers claim higher, others saying only about 67% of adverse reactions following vaccination are attributable to the measles component [5]. For measles the rate of encephalitis is 1 in 1000, Minor additional note, per [5], the most common of the really bad adverse responses is seizures, but the seizures have no long term side effects (as opposed to long term neurological damage from actually getting measles). The minor adverse reactions all last 2-3 days, Thrombocytopenia (whatever that is) is usually benign and transient. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/measles/cases-outbreaks.html https://www.cdc.gov/measles/cases-outbreaks.html [2] https://www.cdc.gov/measles/downloads/measlesdataandstatsslideset.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/measles/downloads/measlesdataandstatssli... [3] https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/us-population/ https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/us-population... [4] https://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/tables/101-child-population-by-age-group#detailed/1/any/false/871,870,573,869,36,868,867,133,38,35/62,63,64,6,4693/419,420 https://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/tables/101-child-popul... [5] https://www.who.int/vaccine_safety/initiative/tools/MMR_vaccine_rates_information_sheet.pdf https://www.who.int/vaccine_safety/initiative/tools/MMR_vacc...
- AnimalMuppet 7y agoYou seem to be in violent agreement with me.
- Confusion 7y agoFor measles, herd immunity requires a 95% vaccination rate. So where there are outbreaks they have apparently dropped below that. Would the entire population drop below that, at least 5% of the entire population would get measles. Since a lot more than 0.2% would suffer nasty side effects from measles, I said 1 in 10k, because even if it were 1 in 10k, the country would be better off with more than 95% getting vaccinations. I thought I could riff on olliej’s obviously sardonic comment, but as you I seem to have miscalculated how the comment is read.
- chime 7y agoIt's much, much lower: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBkVCpbNnkU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBkVCpbNnkU
- slig 7y agoRelated: very informative video from Kurzgesagt: "The Side Effects of Vaccines - How High is the Risk?" [1] [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBkVCpbNnkU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBkVCpbNnkU
- MichaelApproved 7y agoHere's a video from Penn & Teller's Bullshit show. It's less than two minutes and illustrates the statistical risks pretty well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhk7-5eBCrs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhk7-5eBCrs
- Townley 7y agoThis is an unhelpful contribution to the narrative that vaccines are unsafe. Consumers who don't have time or medical training shouldn't feel uneasy about vaccination except in unlikely circumstances (in which case they're much better off getting advice from doctors and not YouTube), and seeing a video called "How High is the Risk?" adds to that uneasiness in ways that directly harm public health. EDIT: See comment below. As the video intends, I mistook it to be anti-vaccination propaganda, when it's the opposite. I have minor concerns about non-forthright information campaigns, but apologize for jumping the gun.
- slig 7y agoI'm not sure I get what you mean. Did you watch the video? Obviously the title was chosen deliberately to grab attention from people that believe in the antivax conspiracy.
- Townley 7y agoI hadn't: I jumped the gun thinking that you were sharing 10 minutes of anti-vaccination propaganda, and offering up ammunition for people who think "Well those guys over there say otherwise, so who knows?" My apologies for that. My point was that planting the poison pill of "Are vaccines dangerous?" is itself dangerous, and despite the video's good intentions might still apply here. As a popular video, it'll appear in sidebars more than it'll be watched. I worry that in that capacity, it'll maybe snare a bunch of no-vaccination believers in the honeypot, but will plant the safety question into the minds of many more. My concern is tempered by the understanding that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation knows what it's doing here, but the choice to make an informative campaign clandestine strikes me as an odd one with potential negative side effects.
- hannob 7y agoTo everyone reading this: If you know you haven't had a measles vaccine or you are not sure, please go see a doctor. It's an easy thing you can do to make us all safer. Yeah, antivaxxers are annoying. But there's also a large number of people who weren't vaccinated for all kinds of reasons that just never cared.
- yanokwa 7y agoCitation on the large number of unvaccinated?
- Anon84 7y agoAverage vaccination rates around the world are about 85% https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2018/08/Misperception-of-global-vaccination-coverage.png https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2018/08/Misperception-of-... In the US it's a few percent higher: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/imz-managers/coverage/childvaxview/data-reports/mmr/reports/2017.html https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/imz-managers/coverage/childvaxv...
- schoen 7y agoThese two statistics aren't directly comparable because the former is "against some [i.e., any] disease" and the latter is specifically the MMR vaccine. My guess is that in many developing countries the polio vaccine is the most administered because it's extremely cheap, extremely effective, addresses a very serious disease, and isn't at all painful for the child. Another important childhood vaccine that would be covered in the 85% global statistic is the different variants of DTP.
- Anon84 7y agoYes, the first one is a lower bound on the second.
- schoen 7y agoYou can also get the MMR vaccine at Walgreens for $99 in just a few minutes with no appointment and no prescription (some insurance may also cover all or part of it, and if you have an FSA, you can also use your FSA card). Most pharmacy chains have it in stock and offer it to walk-in patients. If you are sure you've never had any MMR vaccine at all, they may recommend two shots, separated in time.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Alex3917 7y ago"A vocal fringe of U.S. parents oppose the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, believing, contrary to scientific consensus, that it can cause autism." No amount of scientific evidence can ever prove that MMR can't cause autism, only that it isn't responsible for the autism epidemic. One wonders whether Reuters is purposely trying to give credibility to the anti-vaxx movement.
- fwip 7y agoReuters didn't say what you're claiming. The scientific consensus is also that Russel's Teapot does not exist.
- yellowapple 7y ago> autism epidemic Is it actually an epidemic? Everything I've read on the "rise" in autism cases suggests it has a lot more to do with more accurate diagnoses (i.e. autism would previously be entirely undiagnosed, or would be diagnosed as some other disorder).
- Alex3917 7y agoI mostly just phrased it that way because if you're going to argue that vaccines are responsible for an autism epidemic than that pre-supposes that there is an epidemic. I've read the same things, but I don't really follow the issue especially closely enough to have any strong opinions on the issue.
- themodelplumber 7y agoThank god it's still that low (< 1000 people it looks like). And I love that we have so much data available these days. Back when I was really suffering due to an autoimmune condition, I found that following various data-fed sources, for example one of the U.S. Navy's Twitter accounts which shared data on sick sailors, helped me make some pretty educated guesses as to what the sickness-of-the-month was. Edit: Found it--example at [0]. Being a part of the autoimmune community, I can also see why there's so much push-back against vaccines. These people (that is, those who object due to vaccine fears) aren't referential thinkers who are comfortable with broad social measurement (objective science). They are often own-ideas driven, analytical people (NIH, as we say in tech) who have yet to cross the subject-object gap in their own methodology, but they have also typically made some notable personal progress as self-reported. The sad part is that people like this don't realize that decision-making regarding their children is exactly why & where you'd want to apply more objective thinking ("they are not me" is where social measurement / objective science can shine some light). Anyway, were I to try to combat this kind of thinking, I wouldn't do it via emphasis on science. These are people who are conditioned to batten down the hatches when confronted by science. I'd do it via social trend science, by testing words, phrases, personalities and social clearinghouses (be it Youtube channels, or whatever) that show possible social traction. Fringe social groups are notoriously weak against such "social technologies," which can quickly cause fracture. No numbers, no data, etc. Get that stuff out of here; this is the completely wrong psychological match for such an approach. 0. https://twitter.com/NH_RC/status/1112816699227635712 https://twitter.com/NH_RC/status/1112816699227635712
- fwip 7y agoFor those wondering about the 9.8% stat: There were 75 cases of measles reported in the US last week, bringing the total in 2019 to 839 [1]. 75 / (839-75) = 9.8%. A more useful statistic is that the WHO reported earlier this year that measles are up 300% from this time in 2018. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/measles/cases-outbreaks.html https://www.cdc.gov/measles/cases-outbreaks.html
- 3JPLW 7y agoThis is terrifying as a parent of an unvaccinated child. She'll get her vaccine as soon as she can (starting at the 1 year checkup), but there are others out there that cannot get the vaccine for other medical reasons.
- gremlinsinc 7y agoin the same boat w/ a 4 month old... fucking retarded anti-vaxxers... (sorry for reddit-level cursing), but seriously these people need to be forcibly vaccinated or exiled to that island where all the lepers lived.
- dang 7y agoPlease don't do this here.
- cameldrv 7y agoI know the feeling... The CDC already recommends getting an MMR shot at 6 months for babies that will be traveling abroad. Unfortunately the measles situation in the U.S. is now that of a third world country, so IMO it makes sense to go ahead and get the shot at six months, especially if you're in an area where there have been cases reported. Unfortunately the effectiveness of a single dose of the vaccine at six months is only something like 50%, but it's better than nothing.
- 3JPLW 7y agoYeah, I've looked into the six-month option. At least some of those failures are thought to be due to Mom's antibodies — through breastfeeding — fighting the vaccine. So that's also a little bit of solace; we're not totally unprotected as long as she's breastfeeding. We're also not in a hotbed, but it's really crazy how contagious measles is.
- throwaway8f71h 7y agoMy 3 year old isn't vaccinated because she can't (stage 4 cancer). It really pisses me off when people don't get vaccinated when they have every ability to. There's no valid data not to and it harms everyone that can't get vaccinated. I swear if my child got measles due to an anti-vaxxer, I'd lose my shit and hurt people.
- yters 7y agoWith the first new measles case it was an oo% increase! This current rate of increase is infinitely better. Good job everybody!
- yters 7y agoI see a fair number of people blame the anti-vaxxers for the current outbreak, but is that really the case? It could also be due to immigration or other sources of foreign contact, but I don't see anyone considering that angle.
- yellowapple 7y agoIt's probably a variety of factors, but people willingly putting themselves and others in danger because of entirely unfounded (and in fact repeatedly debunked) fears around the "dangers" of vaccines certainly ain't helping.
- yters 7y agoTrue, but they shouldn't be blamed for the outbreak if they are not responsible. Assuming this outbreak is a serious matter and we need to identify the true reason, it doesn't help to scapegoat one party that may not be responsible.
- iron0013 7y agoWow you're right, I can't believe no one ever thought to look at who the measles victims are or where they came from. We need to get you on the phone to the CDC right away so that you can tell them all about your novel and important ideas!
- yters 7y agoAn interesting study would be to take the population of unvaccinated and count how many are that way due to antivax ideology and how many due to some other cause. Furthermore, it'd be interesting to examine the measles cases and see what population they come from. I see an article castigate the antivaxxers and then say most measles occur among unvaccinated populations. Is the article saying the two populations are the same? No solid link is offered, yet the two groups are mentioned together leading a non-careful reader to conclude the antivaxxers are to blame.
- wil421 7y agoDon’t blame anti-vaxxers alone. My wife realized she didn’t develop an immunity to measles after a recent test. She’s had all her shots and verified with 2 sources.
- cs702 7y agoWhen I read most HN threads, whether about new technologies, new businesses, or new societal trends, the stories and comments make me think that William Gibson had it right when he uttered his famous quote: "The future is already here. It's just not very evenly distributed."[a] On the other hand, this post about the recent outbreak of a long-defeated disease due to an anti-vaccination movement whose pseudo-intellectual roots trace back the 1700's[b], makes me think of a different quote: "The past is never dead. It's not even past" - William Faulkner[c] --- [a] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Gibson https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Gibson [b] The anti-vaccination movement has its roots in the 18th century: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6122668/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6122668/ [c] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/12124-the-past-is-never-dead-it-s-not-even-past https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/12124-the-past-is-never-dea...
- yehosef 7y agoFor those interested researching the reported adverse reactions: I created a repo with the VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) dataset and some tool for visualizing with Elasticsearch and Grafana. You can see that that the MMR/MMRV is not as dangerous as many of the other vaccinations, but there are risks. https://github.com/yehosef/vaers https://github.com/yehosef/vaers
- spraak 7y agoThank you for sharing this and creating it, I am quite interested to explore and see how many assumptions or (un)commonly held positions are backed by the (available) data.
- yehosef 7y agoThanks - I just put up site vizvax.com so people can play with these visualizations. I'd be interested in feedback. One think I didn't set up yet with the reverse proxy is seeing the raw document from Elasticsearch. I'm planning to make a screencast to explain how to use the searches for people that are not familiar with the data, Elasticsearch or Grafana
- yehosef 7y agoCheck out vizvax.com to see the dashboards.