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Measles returning

I was about to start the same thread but you beat me to it.

Here's the article I was reading:

U.S. Measles Cases, Outbreaks Quadruple in 2011

It's just starting to make a comeback in the US, but European countries are a few years ahead of us:

Vaccine refusal is more common in Europe than in the U.S. The result: more than 37,000 measles cases in Europe last year. Five countries account for 90% of the cases: France, Italy, Romania, Spain, and Germany.

Nine out of 10 U.S. measles cases could be linked either to a U.S. resident who was infected in a foreign country or to foreign visitors to the U.S. Many of these travelers imported measles from Europe.

Thanks to high vaccination rates in the 1990s, the U.S. eliminated year-round measles transmission in 2000. But the current spike in cases threatens that achievement.

Schuchat pointed to France, which was down to about 40 measles cases per year. Suddenly that went to 604 cases in 2008, over 5,000 cases in 2010, and over 15,000 cases in 2011.

"You can go from a small number to a very large number of measles cases very quickly," Schuchat warned.
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You can see how it can snowball from a small number to a very large number in just a few years.
 
At the height of the whole anti-vax nonsense, in 2000, I went to a new university. They looked at my immunization record, told me that my measles shot was out of date (I had just turned 31, so it had been 30 years), and told me to go to the health clinic to get an MMR. So I did so with full confidence that the anti-vax claims were nonsense.
 
Ian said:
At the height of the whole anti-vax nonsense, in 2000, I went to a new university. They looked at my immunization record, told me that my measles shot was out of date (I had just turned 31, so it had been 30 years), and told me to go to the health clinic to get an MMR. So I did so with full confidence that the anti-vax claims were nonsense.
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Just an FYI from a compulsive information person. It's not exactly that the MMRs go "out of date".

First, an MMR so far appears to provide lifetime immunity. But the failure rate is less if people get two doses. So everyone needs two doses unless they had measles.

Second, for those vaccinated before 1968 (in the US, dates may differ in different countries), a killed vaccine was used. That vaccine immunity does wear off over time. 30 years before 2000 was about that time frame so perhaps you had had the killed vaccine. You might also have only had one MMR when 2 are recommended.

And if anyone is interested, for the majority of people on the planet born before 1957, they most likely had measles. It's that contagious. The first vaccine in the US was introduced in 1963. So some people born between 1956 and '63 also had measles but it would take a blood test or a documented physician diagnosis to be certain.
 
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Skeptic Ginger said:
Just an FYI from a compulsive information person. It's not exactly that the MMRs go "out of date".

First, an MMR so far appears to provide lifetime immunity. But the failure rate is less if people get two doses. So everyone needs two doses unless they had measles.

Second, for those vaccinated before 1968 (in the US, dates may differ in different countries), a killed vaccine was used. That vaccine immunity does wear off over time. 30 years before 2000 was about that time frame so perhaps you had had the killed vaccine. You might also have only had one MMR when 2 are recommended.

And if anyone is interested, for the majority of people on the planet born before 1957, they most likely had measles. It's that contagious. The first vaccine in the US was introduced in 1963. So some people born between 1956 and '63 also had measles but it would take a blood test or a documented physician diagnosis to be certain.
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Thanks. It's cool to have good scientific info.
 
I'm so weary of these stories. It's really sad that we have to go through these cycles of essentially eliminating these diseases only to have a major comeback. The irony is that we can eliminate some vaccines that only have humans as their reservoir only if we are successfully enough in a vaccine program. Thanks again Skeptic Ginger for the good info
 
Thank you for the information Skeptic Ginger. I'll have to make sure that my husband and I check our MMR vaccines and get a second dose if necessary.

The results of the antivax movement are becoming rather disturbing.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
And if anyone is interested, for the majority of people on the planet born before 1957, they most likely had measles. It's that contagious.
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Surprisingly, one of the infected from the CDC report was 84 years old!

It looks likes all these cases were imported form other countries, so the nuts here in the USA are not the source of the problem. Lots of cases were imported from France, so it's there nutjobs that seem to be a major source. A lot of cases from India too.
 
When I was on the faculty of FSU, every couple of years some student would show up with measles, and then every student and faculty member would have to get a damned MMR inoculation. It should go without saying that no effective records were kept of who got inoculated. Also, every year came with insurances that those inoculated wouldn't have to get it the next time, which was always a lie, of course. So I and all of us got enough MMR serum to choke Rush Limbaugh.

Still, though, that was in the 1990s, a bit early to blame anti-vaccine nut cases entirely. This kind of thing happens all the time for fairly simple and non-nefatious reasons. Bedbugs, for instance, have made a comeback due to the ban of DDT, even though DDT could be used effectively to eliminate bedbugs without posing an environmental risk. Just be careful with the stuff when used indoors and don't dump it on your fields by the ton.
 
ThunderChunky said:
Surprisingly, one of the infected from the CDC report was 84 years old!

It looks likes all these cases were imported form other countries, so the nuts here in the USA are not the source of the problem. Lots of cases were imported from France, so it's there nutjobs that seem to be a major source. A lot of cases from India too.
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It may not be that simple. The virus is clearly circulating and may be present asymptomatically in vaccinated individuals who can transmit it.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9700638

Those who are fully vaccinated should benefit from a subclinical infection due to a boost to their immune system.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2815970
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1161394
 
ThunderChunky said:
Surprisingly, one of the infected from the CDC report was 84 years old!

It looks likes all these cases were imported form other countries, so the nuts here in the USA are not the source of the problem. Lots of cases were imported from France, so it's there nutjobs that seem to be a major source. A lot of cases from India too.
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We also had a death here in WA State in 1991 of a nurse that was born before 1957. However, those cases represent such rare circumstances it is not useful to vaccinate or test those older than ~54 for measles. You'd be testing millions in order to prevent a single case. In the case of the 84 yr old, it is possible that waning immune function overall contributed to the death. People with specific immune system deficiencies are not going to be protected unless others around them are immune.
 
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epepke said:
When I was on the faculty of FSU, every couple of years some student would show up with measles, and then every student and faculty member would have to get a damned MMR inoculation. It should go without saying that no effective records were kept of who got inoculated. Also, every year came with insurances that those inoculated wouldn't have to get it the next time, which was always a lie, of course. So I and all of us got enough MMR serum to choke Rush Limbaugh.
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Weren't you capable of keeping your own records? :rolleyes:

No offense but as someone who vaccinates thousands of people every year I'm not so empathetic with this attitude that vaccine record keeping is not an individual responsibility.

epepke said:
Still, though, that was in the 1990s, a bit early to blame anti-vaccine nut cases entirely. This kind of thing happens all the time for fairly simple and non-nefatious reasons. Bedbugs, for instance, have made a comeback due to the ban of DDT, even though DDT could be used effectively to eliminate bedbugs without posing an environmental risk. Just be careful with the stuff when used indoors and don't dump it on your fields by the ton.
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We don't need to kill off the wild bird populations in order to manage bedbugs. Telling people to "be careful" unfortunately isn't an effective means of managing hazards like DDT.
 
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Capsid said:
It may not be that simple. The virus is clearly circulating and may be present asymptomatically in vaccinated individuals who can transmit it.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9700638

Those who are fully vaccinated should benefit from a subclinical infection due to a boost to their immune system.
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Although viral transmission between protected individuals has never been directly demonstrated, the data describe a population in which protected but infectious persons could potentially be of epidemiological importance.
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If one doesn't see transmitted cases or clinical disease, then effective protection has been achieved. If lack of natural boosting was a significant issue with measles, we would have already seen lots of cases in people born before 1957.


Capsid said:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2815970
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1161394
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None of those abstracts describes clinical infection or transmission. They simply describe antibody spikes after exposure.

There are several issues here. One, it's not unusual for antibodies to spike when an immune person is exposed to an organism. That's how the immune system prevents you from getting sick.

Two, with some organisms waning immunity is a problem and with others it is not. There's a lot of work going on now to determine if natural boosting (being exposed to cases) plays a role in preventing shingles after chicken pox infection. And it isn't clear why, (waning immunity, vaccine failure or new strains), people who've had 2 doses of MMR are getting mumps in some outbreaks.

Three, in some cases, infection occurs but no disease. Hepatitis B vaccine does not require boosters at this point even when antibodies become undetectable if they were detectable in the past. Vaccinated people occasionally turn up with core antibodies proving infection occurred but after 30+ years these vaccinated people are not being found with any active infection.

Four, there are a lot of infections where the antibodies simply are not protective. That's why HIV and hep C have no vaccine yet.

Five, vaccines and past infection don't always protect against new strains. There actually is a rare strain of hep b that the vaccine does not protect against. A unique strain of measles could turn up though I'm not aware one has been found.

And finally, as I mentioned, an individual's immune competency can always be the problem rather than not having antibodies against a pathogen.


If failure to naturally boost measles immunity is going to be a significant problem, we will begin to see more cases in people over 55 as vaccine levels fall below the threshold for herd immunity in more populations. I'm not aware we've seen it yet. But the more actual measles cases that occur, then those more rare infections begin to show up. The bottom line, we still don't need people over 55 to run out and get MMR boosters.
 
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None of those abstracts describes clinical infection or transmission. They simply describe antibody spikes after exposure.
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I was referring to subclinical infection where many individuals may not even know they got another exposure. Hence the antibody spikes that indicate such an exposure. The point is that the virus is still circulating and not eradicated therefore measles vaccination is still needed.

The problem with measuring duration of immunity is that it is mostly done by determining antibody levels which is inappropriate mostly since it is T cells that are important for immunological memory; T cells immunity is not normally measured and protective immunity for some diseases is due to T cells and not antibody.

HIV has no vaccine because the virus is hypervariable. In animal models, vaccines work by antibody if the vaccine and virus are homologous.

Hep C is weird. There are no correlates of immunity and protection from disease or infection AFAIK.
 
epepke said:
When I was on the faculty of FSU, every couple of years some student would show up with measles, and then every student and faculty member would have to get a damned MMR inoculation. It should go without saying that no effective records were kept of who got inoculated. Also, every year came with insurances that those inoculated wouldn't have to get it the next time, which was always a lie, of course. So I and all of us got enough MMR serum to choke Rush Limbaugh.

Still, though, that was in the 1990s, a bit early to blame anti-vaccine nut cases entirely. This kind of thing happens all the time for fairly simple and non-nefatious reasons. Bedbugs, for instance, have made a comeback due to the ban of DDT, even though DDT could be used effectively to eliminate bedbugs without posing an environmental risk. Just be careful with the stuff when used indoors and don't dump it on your fields by the ton.
Click to expand...

When I was doing research on the whole MMR-Wakefield scam, I am fairly certain that there was some some documentary about a child who presented with autism around the time of their jabs in one of the Scandinavian countries.
 
Tatyana said:
When I was doing research on the whole MMR-Wakefield scam, I am fairly certain that there was some some documentary about a child who presented with autism around the time of their jabs in one of the Scandinavian countries.
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Autism was previously diagnosed when the kids became social, about the age of 15-18 month vaccinations. The relationship was coincidental as we now know because autism can now be diagnosed earlier.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Autism was previously diagnosed when the kids became social, about the age of 15-18 month vaccinations. The relationship was coincidental as we now know because autism can now be diagnosed earlier.
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Yes, but this pre-dated Wakefield, and some think he got some of his ideas from this.
 
Capsid said:
I was referring to subclinical infection where many individuals may not even know they got another exposure. Hence the antibody spikes that indicate such an exposure. The point is that the virus is still circulating and not eradicated therefore measles vaccination is still needed.
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Not if transmission and/or clinical infection is not occurring.

Capsid said:
The problem with measuring duration of immunity is that it is mostly done by determining antibody levels which is inappropriate mostly since it is T cells that are important for immunological memory; T cells immunity is not normally measured and protective immunity for some diseases is due to T cells and not antibody.
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Duration of immunity is also measured by following epidemiology of disease in a vaccinated population.

Vaccinees without detectable circulating antibody more than 6 months after the last does of hep B vaccine are considered immune if they had detectable antibody previously (as you are describing). In addition, if you boost them, within a year their levels will likely be undetectable again. Some of the initial cohort of vaccine recipients have developed core antibody indicating sub clinical infection while none of them have developed disease. So detectable circulating antibody is not an absolute measure of immunity but we still know people are protected because epidemiological studies indicate they are.
 
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