
Winter Vomiting Virus Explodes in California
California health officials announced this week that the state is seeing a excessive uptick in the number of “winter vomiting disease” or norovirus cases from prior years.

California health officials announced this week that the state is seeing a excessive uptick in the number of “winter vomiting disease” or norovirus cases from prior years.

Pop star Ariana Grande may have laughed after licking unpurchased doughnuts at a local doughnut shop last weekend, but to public health experts, the incident is no joke.

Thirty-one Californians have been struck with Salmonella, making it 53 total infections between nine states, most likely stemming from sushi consumption.

Hours of contentious debate in California’s Senate Judiciary Committee resulted in a 5-1 vote earlier this week to advance SB 277, a bill that would eliminate parents’ ability to exempt their children from required vaccinations on the basis of personal belief.

The measles outbreak has provoked California lawmakers to back legislation that would reduce personal belief exemptions for some or all required school vaccinations–but Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., wants them to reconsider.

In the midst of the Disneyland measles outbreak, California legislators have been decrying the number of under-vaccinated children in schools in a push for legislation that would strip parents of the right to choose whether to vaccinate their children. However, California Department of Public Health (CDPH) statistics show that “personal belief” exemptions account for only 2.54% of under-vaccinated California school children.

Widespread public debate over vaccinations has experienced an uptick following a measles outbreak that began at Disneyland last December, bringing further attention to institutions such as California day cares, some of which report lower rates of vaccination among enrolled children than the state’s kindergartens.

Health officials report four cases of measles linked to a restaurant at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, where a staff member listed as “under-immunized” appears to have infected two other Emeril’s New Orleans Fish House staff members and a patrol.

Three more cases of measles have popped up in California since Monday, according to California Department of Public Health numbers released Wednesday–an increase after a hopeful weekend of no new cases. There has been a slowdown in new cases connected to the Disneyland outbreak, while passage of a California bill seeking to reduce parents’ options to exempt their school-age children from required vaccines has become more likely.

Between multiple public health agencies from the U.S. and Canada, at least 147 cases of measles have been documented between December 28, 2014 and February 19, 2015 in an outbreak that is believed to have started at California’s Disneyland theme park in mid-December. The outbreak has expanded to six other states, plus Mexico and Canada.

Furious debate has circled around the issue of parents vaccinating children since an outbreak began at Disneyland in mid-December last year. Whether or not teachers and school staff should be required to be vaccinated (again, in most cases), however, is a different story. Even records for those that are vaccinated have been found to be far out of date in some cases.

Measles continues to spread internationally, with ten cases now appearing in Quebec, Canada connected to a California outbreak, according to a Feb. 11 report by the Public Health Department (PHD) of the Agency for Health and Social Services of Lanaudière.

In the midst of a measles outbreak, the public continues to debate over the issue of childhood vaccinations. Actress Mayim Bialik has voiced reluctant expression of her personal position on vaccinations over the years.

Four-month-old baby Mobius Loop is up to date on American Academy of Pediatrics recommended vaccinations, but at his tender age, it’s too early for his measles shot. It was during a January 18 family trip to Disneyland that Baby Mobius is believed to have contracted the highly contagious measles disease–and his mother posted her “mixed feelings” online.

Hollywood’s famous Chinese Theater hosted the timely red carpet premiere of the anti-vaccine film Trace Amounts on Wednesday evening.The film challenges the safety of vaccines that may contain the potentially harmful preservative thimerosal. The film’s release comes in the middle of a measles outbreak that has put the debate over childhood vaccinations in the national spotlight.

More measles cases are appearing by the day in an outbreak that began mid-December in the traveler-magnet Magic Kingdom in Anaheim, California. In numbers updated Friday, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) reports 91 cases confirmed within California and has reported 16 outside the state for a total 107 measles-infected persons.

Thursday’s suspected Ebola patient, who was monitored at UC Davis Medical Center Sacramento, tested negative for the virus in results released Friday morning, according to officials from the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) the Sacramento County Department of Health and Human Services, and the medical center.

California and California-related cases of the measles now total 87, excluding any outside the state that have no known link to the December Magic Kingdom outbreak. California Department of Public Health officials have updated the known extent of the spread that now spans seven states and Mexico.

An outbreak of measles thought to have originated in Anaheim’s Disneyland amusement park earlier this week has now expanded throughout Southern California, with 45 cases now confirmed in the state and an additional six cases confirmed in three other states and Mexico.

Nine people who visited Southern California’s Disneyland or California Adventure theme parks during a five-day period in December have contracted measles, California health officials announced Wednesday.