Donnie Wahlberg's wife is not a trusted source of medical advice

Measles vaccine was introduced in this country in 1963. By 1970, our public health officials were able to declare the disease eradicated.

Now, in the Northwest US, people are scrambling to stop a measles outbreak from spreading further.  35 people in Oregon and Washington State have come down with the measles since the first of the year, and 11 more cases are suspected.

The people coming down with measles are mainly under 10 years of age, the children of people who, for reasons best known to themselves, have refrained from having their children vaccinated against a disease that can result in severe complications, such as pneumonia (lung infection) and encephalitis (swelling of the brain). It can result in death. Perhaps one out of every 20 children with measles gets pneumonia, which is the most common cause of measles-related death in young children.

But, people are turning down the chance to save their children from such dire consequences because Jenny McCarthy and other Hollywood luminaries told them to.

The problem with the vaccination rate of Clark County, Washington being 78% is that is well below the percentage required to shield people with compromised immune systems, or people unable to receive the vax because of legitimate medical reasons, or the simple fact that they are too young.

Dr. Alan Melnick, Clark County public health director, says that people are getting bad information from social media.

"What keeps me up at night is eventually having a child die from this completely preventable situation," he said. "It's still out there, even though it's been debunked, that the measles vaccine results in autism. That's nonsense."

("But Doctor, all you did was go to medical school! And my best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it's pretty serious.")




Dr Melnick, a man who knows what he is speaking of, tells us that before mass vaccination came to be, 400 to 500 people in the United States died of the measles every year, 50,000 people were hospitalized and 4,000 people developed the type of brain swelling that can cause deafness.

In this latest outbreak. there were almost 50 locations where people could have been exposed, from the Portland Airport to a Trail Blazers game.  Since measles had not been eradicated in other parts of the world, people coming from other areas can bring it here with them, where unvaccinated people become ill.

In this case, 31 of the confirmed patients had not been been given measles vaccination.

And this adds to last year's 17 outbreaks, and 350 confirmed cases of a disease that we once had conquered, only to have people who don't know what they're talking about talk others out of it.

Ah. America.