2018-12-01_Discover

Skipping vaccination is

not new in America. he

country got its irst taste

in the 19th century.

Like today, many who

chose not to vaccinate

their children hailed

from large cities, were

educated and earned

a decent living.

68 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM

Fostering Fear

America’s anti-vaccine movement has shunned medical advances

for much longer than you might think.

BY SARA NOVAK

MARY EVANS/CLASSICSTOCK/CAMERIQUE

→

In December 2014, a handful

of Disneyland tourists left the

California theme park with more than

just memories of Mickey Mouse and

Space Mountain. They also left with

the measles.

Within weeks, 125 cases were

conirmed in the United States. Of

the adults and kids infected, 110 lived

in California — and nearly half had

not been inoculated with the vaccine

for mumps, measles and rubella

(MMR), according to the Centers

for Disease Control and Prevention.

Ultimately, the outbreak resulted in

147 measles cases.

The disease spread because people

had not been fully vaccinated,

according to a 2015 analysis published

in JAMA Pediatrics. The culprit was

America’s growing anti-vaccination

movement.

Measles is a highly infectious

disease with symptoms including high

fever and severe rash. In rare cases,

complications can lead to encephalitis,

a brain inammation that causes

seizures. Ninety percent of people

exposed to someone with the virus

will become infected unless they’ve

been immunized or had measles

before. Through the middle of the 20th

century, up to 4 million Americans

got measles each year, and hundreds

died. But after two centuries of

vaccine improvement and subsequent

inoculation enforcement, the CDC

announced in 2000 that measles had

been eliminated in the U.S.

And yet measles keeps popping up

in large U.S. cities, such as Seattle,

Portland, Phoenix, Austin and Kansas

City. The outbreaks are typically

due to white middle- and upper-class

parents choosing not to immunize their

children. And the problem appears to

be getting worse.

“In Texas, 57,000 kids didn’t get

vaccinated this year,” says Peter Hotez,

co-author of a paper on the vaccine

movement published this year in

PLOS. That’s double what it was ive

years ago, he says. States like Texas

Vaccinations have eradicated major human diseases, but some people still distrust them.

History

Lessons