A2: Microbes in the News 3

Posted by On Filed under Microbes in the News 4 Comments

https://gizmodo.com/is-it-illegal-to-refuse-to-vaccinate-your-kid-in-new-yo-1834168922

Title: Is it Illegal to Refuse to Vaccinate Your Kid in New York? This Court Says Yes.

Source: Gizmodo; Date: 4.19.2019

Summary: The article explains that there is a measles outbreak in New York, so the Mayor declared a state of emergency. In response to this, the health commissioner mandated that in the areas with the highest breakout of measels, children must be vaccinated. Some conserned mothers filled a complaint with the court against this mandate, but it was upheld because their claims that the vaccinations were harmful were not upheld.

Connections: A few weeks ago we learned about vaccinations. We learned babout how they work, what they target, and why some people are wary against their use.

Critical Analysis: I thought this article was well written, and explained the situation well. It wasn’t an article that had a lot of language barriers, so I felt that anyone who read this article could understand it efficiently. It also touched on the point that vaccinations are not harmful to people, which I feel is very important.

Question: Are there any other areas that have mandated that people and their children must be vaccinated?

A2: Microbes in the news. Measles Outbreak.

Posted by On Filed under Assignments, Microbes in the News 3 Comments

Washington measles outbreak climbs while other states grapple with the disease -CNN

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/04/health/washington-measles-outbreak/index.html

As of the new year, Clark County has confirmed 49 cases of measles. Of those diagnosed with the virus, 41 were not vaccinated with the MMR vaccination. Washington has recently declared a state emergency due to the rise of Measles cases throughout the state.

Washington isn’t the only state that has been affected by measles. California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Texas have also reported outbreaks as of 2019. A total of about 80 cases this year, with children being the main attributor.

Measles used to be devastating before the vaccination was released in the 1960s, with diagnoses  being in the hundreds of thousands in the US alone. The MMR (Measles,  Mumps, Rubella) vaccination has been about 93% effective in preventing the disease and with a booster that percentage goes up to 97%. It is noted that the sudden rise in the measles outbreak is due to children going unvaccinated.

This relates to what we have discussed in class because we have talked about epidemics, such as the plague. As mentioned above, in the US alone the diagnosed measles counts in a given year were as high as 800,000 in the 60s before the vaccination.

I find this very interesting because I am curious if this will encourage more parents to vaccinate their children more since there has been a debate that vaccines are not necessary, although they have proven to be effective. I didn’t know that the measles  vaccination was so reliable at preventing this virus. It makes me really happy my parents have vaccinated me during my childhood.

I believe that this story is scientifically factual because I did my research on other websites and found the data to be consistent. I also think they did a good job of making their message concise and understandable for the general public to be able to understand.  By using common language, this important message of an outbreak in the US is able to be delivered to US citizens.

Question: How much further will the measles  outbreak progress due to the decline of parents vaccinating their children?