A pediatrician with over 30 years of experience expresses growing concern over vaccine hesitancy, influenced by discredited claims linking vaccines to autism. Despite extensive research disproving this connection, parents in Gresham, Oregon, are canceling routine vaccinations, exposing their children to dangerous diseases like measles. The pediatrician underscores how contagious measles is and highlights severe outcomes, such as brain damage and death, that can occur from the disease. He emphasizes the urgent need for awareness and education on vaccine safety to protect children from preventable illnesses.
As a pediatrician, this is immensely frustrating - and potentially tragic. It seems like the only thing that will convince some of my patients' parents of the importance of routine vaccines is the inevitable death and destruction that measles brings to an unvaccinated population of children.
Measles is the most contagious virus in humans. During a recent outbreak where I practice in Gresham, Ore., we were reminded that it can float in the air and survive on surfaces for two hours after a child with measles is in a room.
If an unvaccinated child is exposed to the measles virus, the risk for infection is very high (it's 90% for household and institutional contacts). It spreads like wildfire in an unvaccinated population.
Worse, in one out of 1,000 cases of measles the virus crosses the blood-brain barrier and infects the child's brain. In those cases, the child either dies, or is left irreversibly brain-damaged by measles encephalitis.
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