Measles isn’t the only disease infiltrating the immune systems of Californians. Whooping cough is back, rising through 2014 and highlighting the diminishing effectiveness of the childhood vaccine. In response, public health officials are encouraging booster shots in adults and older children.
On his weekly Friday night panel discussion during his show Real Time, Bill Maher wasted no time jumping into the vaccination debate. Maher suggested that vaccines are preventable if people would simply eat better, attacked genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and defended climate change to make his own argument that inconsistencies within the medical profession are all the more reason not to trust vaccines.
The nationwide measles outbreak has swept 14 states, most predominantly in California, but the Lone Star state has been lucky so far, spared from the virulent virus. Yet amid this eruption, more Texas parents are saying “no” to inoculating their children from many childhood diseases including the Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine.
Doctors are warning parents against reviving “measles parties” intended to expose their children to the disease at a gathering with at least one infected person.
California Governor Jerry Brown signaled an openness to the announcement of a bill co-sponsored by two state senators that would eliminate vaccine exemptions based on “personal” and religious belief on Wednesday.
California State Senators Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica) and Richard Pan (D-Sacramento) announced on Wednesday that they will be introducing a bill to end the ability of parents in the Golden State to exempt their children from school vaccinations based on personal beliefs and religion.
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.
Since the Disneyland measles outbreak began in December, public health officials have called upon parents to vaccinate to vaccinate their under-immunized children and for adults to obtain a booster shot to protect against the disease. Since then, the coastal, liberal enclave of Santa Cruz has seen a significant uptick in vaccination appointments, according to local news station KSBW and the Palo Alto Medical Foundation.
Disney stockholders can breathe a little bit easier. On Tuesday, CEO Bob Iger said that attendance at Disneyland theme parks in California has not been affected in the wake of a measles outbreak that is thought to have originated at the parks.
SAN DIEGO — Measles continues to sweep California, seeping into six other states and Mexico after an outbreak began mid-December at Disneyland, re-igniting controversy over parents under-vaccinating their children.
An infant has contracted Measles at the Santa Monica High child care center prompting health officials on Tuesday to quarantine fourteen babies younger than a year old.
A Los Angeles Times report released early Wednesday morning reports that many child care facilities in Los Angeles have alarmingly low vaccination rates–some reportedly as low as 51%. The report indicates that private schools have lower vaccination rates than public schools, as wealthier parents opt out of inoculation for communicable diseases like measles.
After Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul tweeted that he was taking a booster vaccination for measles, a senior editor at the Daily Beast replied “F— you” to the Republican.
The sudden outbreak of measles across the United States raises questions about how the disease arrived in the country after it was eradicated here in 2000. A quick review of the U.S. State Department visa requirements for immigrant visas reveals that applicants must be vaccinated for measles prior to their approval. Measles vaccination is not required for tourist visas, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nor are they required for any other disease.
The measles outbreak, originally tracked to Disneyland theme parks in California, has grown to over 100 cases, authorities said on Monday.
Monday, Fox News Channel host Shepard Smith slammed “science denier” parents who do not vaccinate their children. Smith said, “Hello, science. A lot of you want to talk about science deniers, that’s what you are. You measles no people! You
A new case of measles caused the shutdown of a Santa Monica High School day care center Monday after one of its infant attendees was diagnosed the disease. The current outbreak began in California’s Disneyland theme park with 74 of the 107 recent cases linked to the Magic Kingdom point of origin.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s outreach to the anti-vaccination crowd is one of the strangest things anyone has done during the 2016 shadow primary season. In the midst of a significant outbreak of preventable, communicable diseases among children, Christie decided to throw anti-vaxxers a bone, making President Obama look enormously sensible by comparison.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is asking anyone in the Phoenix area with measles symptoms to not attend Sunday’s Super Bowl between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks. There are reportedly seven confirmed measles cases
A potential explosion of measles could have been triggered by a college student infected with the disease who traveled by train from New York City to northern New York State last Sunday. The student, who attends Bard College, traveled on the 1:20 p.m. train from Penn station to Rhinecliff, N.Y. with a stop in Albany.
The 2014-15 flu season has been a particularly dangerous one across the country, especially for vulnerable elderly patients. Researchers have also found that cities that have either hosted or sent teams to the Super Bowl have experienced an 18 percent higher death rate of elderly flu patients than other cities.
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.
With 84 cases already identified in the first month of the year, the number of measles cases across the country has almost outstripped what has become the usual number of cases in a year, according to reports.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest discussed vaccines today, after reporters quizzed him about the president’s views on parents who choose not to vaccinate their children.
Many have speculated, but now a top federal health official is confirming that the outbreak of measles traced to several Disney theme parks was likely caused by a foreign visitor or an American who had recently returned from a trip outside the country.
The measles outbreak continues to spread in California and beyond, with a case confirmed Wednesday in Fresno County. Fresno health officials say the man visited the area recently and may have had contact with county residents in public locations, including an area medical center and its maternity ward, potentially exposing babies to the extremely contagious disease.
As an outbreak of measles linked to several California Disney theme parks mounts, other states are also seeing measles appear. This week, for instance, a suburb of Chicago has announced its first case of the year.
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.
A Costco location in Gilroy, California is one of the latest sites exposed to the measles outbreak that began at Disneyland in mid-December. A measles-infected shopper visited the store while contagious, according to a Santa Clara County health official and NBC News Bay Area.
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Friday another Southern California case of measles surfaced at Santa Monica High School. The school in west Los Angeles County notified parents of all students that a freshman baseball coach had contracted the disease.
Californians are waking up to the fact that refusing to vaccinate their children endangers them. In 2014, for the first time in 12 years, less Californians claimed their beliefs disallowed immunizing their children, according to a Los Angeles Times data analysis. Health officials have stated that once the rate of non-immunization among the populace reaches 8%, an outbreak becomes more likely.
The measles outbreak in California has hit 63 cases since it surfaced in Disneyland this past December, and several new cases have now surfaced in three Bay Area counties, resulting in a potential new spread of the highly-contagious disease there.
Public health officials are raising their measles intervention alert, urging adults to consider a measles vaccine booster as California now reports 59 cases of the disease.
Two dozen unvaccinated Huntington Beach High School students have been sent home over three weeks under threat of a measles outbreak. One had actually contracted the disease.
A study of California’s Bay area and Sonoma County suggests that the most under-vaccinated children in California are the very poor–and the very smart.
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.
Thursday the Health and Human Services Agency of San Diego County announced ten confirmed cases of measles. Nine of the infected individuals had never received vaccinations.
Health authorities have identified seven more cases of measles traced to an outbreak at the Disney theme parks in California, bringing the number of known cases up to 26.
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.