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US health authorities have reported that between January and March 1998, 387 cases of measles had been reported in 15 states, exceeding the figure of last year. In 2018, 372 cases were reported, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Public health authorities are concerned about outbreaks in communities where vaccination rates are low, fueled by an increasing number of people who consider the MMR vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella to be dangerous. The measles vaccine component has been widely used since the 1960s and medical experts say the MMR vaccine is safe and highly effective.
"We have pockets of increasing susceptibility," said epidemiologist Arthur Reingold of the School of Public Health at the University of California at Berkeley, the virus from areas where measles is more prevalent. "When we have someone who travels from New York to Israel or from Europe to Disneyland or what you imagine, we have the opportunity to deal with much bigger epidemics."
The number of deaths from measles has decreased worldwide, from 550,000 in 2000 to 110,000 in 2017. Public health officials explained that it was the vaccine. According to the World Health Organization, measles vaccination has averted 21 million deaths between 2000 and 2017.
According to the organization, more than 95% of these deaths occur in low-income countries per capita and poor health infrastructure.
In 2017, however, 20 million infants did not receive at least one of the two recommended doses of measles vaccine, which put their community at risk. India, Pakistan and Nigeria are among the countries with a high concentration of unvaccinated children.
In the United States, where vaccines are widely available, anti-vaccine sentiment has led children to become infected with measles. The disease was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000.
The anti-vaccine movement gained momentum when a 1998 study – which was subsequently retracted – established a link between autism, an intellectual disability, and the MMR vaccine that allows inoculation against measles, mumps and rubella.
Repeated studies have shown no link between vaccines and autism, says Peter Hotez, an infectious disease specialist at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas.
"The scientific community responded with studies involving hundreds of thousands of children," he said. "And we have clearly shown that children who receive the MMR vaccine are no more likely to contract autism than children who do not have it." He added that children with autism were not more likely to have received the vaccine than those who did not have the disease.
This issue is personal to Hotez, whose adult daughter is autistic. He exposed his evidence in the book "Vaccines did not cause Rachel's autism".
Critics are not convinced. "No one can say scientifically whether ORR is doing more harm than measles, mumps and rubella," says Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an activist lawyer. "The reason is that like other vaccines," he said, "it is not necessary to undergo a safety test."
It is true that the vaccines have not been subjected to double-blind tests, medical experts said, who tracked children vaccinated against others who had not done so, without their parents knowing which children had been vaccinated. have been vaccinated. Experts say that in the United States, measles usually kills one in 1,000 people who contract it and that mortality is much higher in developing countries. A controlled trial would therefore put many children at risk.
Major medical groups and public health agencies are in agreement, says epidemiologist Arthur Reingold.
"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or ACIP (Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices), the WHO or the American Academy of Pediatrics all agree on the benefits of vaccination against measles and other diseases drastically exceeding any conceivable risk, "he said.
The CDC says that several studies have verified the safety of measles vaccine and that the risk of severe allergic reaction is one in a million.
An increasing number of unvaccinated children have, however, allowed measles to gain a foothold in the United States and Europe. Vulnerable communities include very close or isolated groups, for example the Amish in Ohio, Orthodox Jews in New York and immigrants from Eastern Europe to Washington State. .
California, Mississippi and West Virginia responded by refusing immunization exemptions, except for medical reasons. Forty-seven states allow broader exemptions.
"Of these 47 people," said Hotez, "there are 18 who also allow non-medical exemptions for reasons of personal or philosophical conviction, and that's where the battlefield lies."
He says misinformation about the safety of vaccines is widespread on the Web and through books sold on Amazon, while medical experts have a harder time getting their message heard.
"We are looking at more than 500 existing anti-vaccine websites," he said, adding that each of them is "amplified on Facebook and other forms of social media".
Hotez says that opponents of the vaccine adapt their message by region.
"So, with Texas, they perceive the lower abdomen as a far right, the Tea Party, and they use the language of the Tea Party," he said. "In the Pacific Northwest, in the state of Washington or Oregon, they could use a language of the far left."
Kennedy says the CDC works closely with the industry and hides the risks.
"Parents should know more about the benefits of this child than corrupt regulators and large pharmaceutical companies," he said.
Medical experts around the world say the MMR vaccine is essential for public health because measles is a highly contagious and potentially fatal disease, and an infected person can infect three others.
"Then, each of these three people could infect three other people," said Arthur Reingold. "And then another generation after that – each of these people could infect other people and we could end up having sustained transmission."
Health experts say that this could bring back the conditions of many decades ago, when measles killed millions of children every year in the world.
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