After all these years, measles is still here?
As the daily news unravels in the morning, I find it hard to believe that the nation is experiencing a measles epidemic. Like many Americans, I thought that measles had been completely eradicated.
I remember reading in the history books about how the European explorers brought the disease over to the new world. Native Americans had never been exposed to measles, so they died by the thousands. How horrible it must have been.
I see the photos of children today, covered with measles, and my skin crawls, as I realize how they must itch. I can hear my mother, saying, "Don't scratch! Don't scratch!" My brother David still has a scar on his forehead from one especially "itchy" measles pustule.
There was no immunization for measles, when my brothers and I were growing up, of course. Most people had it at one time or another. However, unlike many parents, my mom did not take me over to a friend's house and expose me to the virus.
I was five years old when I caught measles. Mom heard that my little friend next door had it, and she said, "Don't go in Johnny's yard, you hear??"
I was diligent. I did NOT go into my friend's yard. We felt very lucky to have a hole in the hedge between the two houses, so Johnny and I sat there and played happily in the dirt--he on his side and me on mine.
"Did you go into Johnny's yard??" my mom screeched, when I came down with the itchy disease.
"No, I didn't!" I insisted. I had no idea how I could have caught the measles. Johnny and I had stayed in our own yards.
Of course, then both my brothers caught it from me, and David, fair-haired child that he was, had it the worst. Needless to say, my name was mud. As usual.
In 1963, a vaccine was developed for measles, and by 2000, the disease was declared "eliminated."
Our cases were mild, but according to the Center for Disease Control, as many as 3 to 4 million people a year were infected with the disease before the vaccine was developed, and 400 to 500 of them died. 48,000 were hospitalized, and 4,000 suffered encephalitis (swelling of the brain) from measles.
Now, we hear that the measles have returned with a vengeance, and the controversy rages about the "safety" of the vaccine, with cases in which parents insist that the measles vaccine caused their children's autism.
Sometimes, I feel that--despite our age of "enlightenment" and all our technological advances, we are still back in the Medieval Ages. Now, instead of the old women, running from village to village, spreading superstition, we have the Internet.
Sad. Just sad.
Comments
- -- Posted by Dexterite1 on Tue, Feb 3, 2015, at 2:48 PM
- -- Posted by goat lady on Tue, Feb 3, 2015, at 6:14 PM
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