And why did people stop doing this? Oh yeah, because a fucking vaccine became available.
I missed the boat to get the chicken pox vaccine by just a few years, but I would have much rather had that than the two weeks of misery I had to suffer through as a kid with it and having to worry about getting shingles later in life. (At least there’s a vaccine for that now which I plan to get as soon as I turn 50.)
Well I certainly feel like I am on some days.
I have a sleep disorder and I once told my shrink how I feel so awful every morning when I wake up that I sometimes wish I was dead. I was being obviously hyperbolic to nail home the point about how unrestful my sleep feels. In a later session, he asked if I have any feelings or desires around wishing I were dead — “other than when I wake up in the morning, of course”.
I’m glad my shrink has a good sense of humor.
Not just TX. Add LAX to JFK and Dulles as recent sites to get your measles exposure. The majority of those exposed will be immune, of course. But a single unvaxxed family, infant, immunocompromised person, or one of the 2-3% who are not immune despite being vacvinated, and we have a problem.
I know what you mean, and the 26% seems to change from day to day…
He should go get himself some immunity from Ebola.
It really is covid all over again. Fuuuuuck!
Unvaccinated child under 5. Community exposure at the local pediatric ER and in-patient ward.
Well, since that puts a fetus at risk, I’m sure TPTB will be all over that… 
In my case, I felt sick (like having a cold) for several days before I woke up with the rash (then i knew what was really the matter). After that it was more like a bad/intense cold.
(Announcer) But that’s not all!
One lingering effect (at least, it started while I had measles) was that it messed up my hearing a little in one ear. Most of the time it was fine, unless/until I heard a certain pitch at a certain volume. Then (for lack of a better description) it sounded like a bad connection. Same if I spent a long time on the phone using that one ear.
Decades later, I noticed it didn’t bother me anymore, only because my ears (& more noticeably, the other ear) didn’t stop ringing after I had Covid.
Anyway - that might be one of the better outcomes of having measles. It’s not just a bad cold & a rash, get the shot of you think you need it.
Addressing what I was talking about earlier:
The fatality rate for measles is roughly one — perhaps up to three — in every 1,000 cases. Even just the first death put experts on alert that the spread of the virus could be much wider than documented. In 2019, for example, the U.S. reported more than 1,200 confirmed measles cases, largely driven by an outbreak in and around New York City, but no deaths.
In theory, even if the second death is confirmed as having been caused by measles, two deaths in just a couple hundred cases is possible. But statistically, experts would only anticipate two measles deaths to occur in the U.S. with many, many more cases
Eventually, we will suss this out, unless the politicos decide it’s in their best interest to quash the whole thing. But for now, it is safe to assume that we are not catching all the cases, but how many that really is, is pure speculation. What we know is that this outbreak is now in excess of 250 known cases and rising, and is getting to the point where it may just have to burn itself out. So long as it has access to unimmunized kindling, it will keep spreading and killing. This is what measles was like prior to MMR. As to RFK jr’s “It would be best if we all got measles like back when I was a kid,” Sir Brainworm, when you were a kid, 500-600 kids per year died of measles. This is acceptable to you? So long as it’s not your kid, right? Dead kids are never acceptable. Ever. I am absolutely not objective about this. But I am convinced of it.
It’s good to see CNN actually calling bullshit on the most egregious of RFK jr’s lies. Not that the ones who need to see this will read, or believe, it, but at least it’s there.
“When you and I were kids, everybody got measles, and measles gave you … lifetime protection against measles infection. The vaccine doesn’t do that. The vaccine is effective for some people for life, but for many people, it wanes,” Kennedy told Hannity.
500-600 kids per year died of measles back then, asshole. Measles was eliminated in the USA in 2000 due to the effectiveness of this vaccine. Then Wakefield and Kennedy and their fellow travelers got into the grift and scared people off of it, and here we are.
Kennedy also incorrectly described adverse events from the MMR vaccine, saying it “causes deaths every year. … It causes all the illnesses that measles itself causes: encephalitis and blindness, et cetera.”
No. Just fucking no. In over 30 years of practice and many, many thousands of MMR vaccines given, I’ve seen an occasional fever or mild rash. Very occasional. He is just full of shit.
“Some years, we have hundreds of these outbreaks. … And, you know, part of that is that there are people who don’t vaccinate, but also the vaccine itself wanes. The vaccine wanes 4.5% per year,” he said.
What the fuck is he talking about? If it were that common, this would not be a huge news story!
FTA:
Since measles was declared eliminated in the US, there have been an average of about 179 cases reported each year, many of them related to international travel. There have been an average of about eight outbreaks per year – ranging from 1 to 25 annually – and most years, at least 60% of all reported cases have been tied to outbreaks. But even the worst outbreaks typically stay under 50 cases.
He made his fortune by grifting off of vaccine mis- and disinformation and fear. It has not stopped, and if this is allowed to continue, we are in deep trouble. We are only a matter of weeks into his maladministration/destruction of our already crumbling public health sector. It is scary as all hell.
You know, Sirhan Sirhan is still alive and in prison. What say we bring him back out for an encore? (Especially since apparently dumb ass here apparently doesn’t believe Sirhan killed RFK Sr.)
Given the state of the US, domestic travel has become just as risky as international travel, the experts argue. Nationally, the vaccination rate among kindergartners (who should have their two standard MMR doses), fell from a high of 95 percent in 2019—the target to prevent community spread—to 92.7 percent in the 2023–2024 school year. And that figure, while already below target, hides pockets of dismal vaccination rates. A current measles outbreak in West Texas erupted in a county with a vaccination rate of about 82 percent, and some of the county’s school systems have rates as low as 46 percent.
But then comes the fact check:
So far, states such as New York have already made such a recommendation. Other states may follow. But the outlook for the CDC embracing this update looks doubtful. The current health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is an ardent and long-time anti-vaccine advocate. Amid the raging measles outbreak in West Texas, which has already spread to New Mexico and Oklahoma, Kennedy downplayed the outbreak, embraced unproven treatments, and spread dangerous disinformation about the MMR vaccine.
I hate this timeline so, so much…
JFC.
So much this.