While the elderly designate others as proxies, children rely on their parents. Human beings, at the start and end of their lives, are often unable to make informed decisions. These exemptions raise serious ethical concerns. Yet the CDC reported nearly 77,000 cases of whooping cough in 20. After the introduction of the whooping cough vaccine in the 1940s, cases dwindled to about 1,000 cases annually. These refusals have directly resulted in an increase in the incidence of almost forgotten diseases like whooping cough and measles. States such as Colorado and Oregon, which only require parental signatures for exemptions, have exemption rates close to 6%, among the highest in the country, according to CDC data. For example, the exemption rate in Orchard Prairie in Washington state is 24%, five times higher than the state’s median exemption rate and 13 times higher than the national average.įorty-eight states offer nonmedical waivers for parents to exempt their children from vaccination, and the states where exemptions are the easiest to get are also home to the highest rates of unvaccinated children. There are two reasons: the ease of international travel, and an increasing number of people refusing vaccinations, usually on behalf of their children.īecause parents seeking exemptions tend to be geographically clustered, these communities can become outbreak hotbeds. Measles is making a terrifying comeback in the U.S., with some 600 cases reported this year, more than in any year in the past two decades. How did the young girl get the disease? Her parents had refused to vaccinate her. The news of a confirmed case set our hospital abuzz, and uniformed CDC officers soon swooped in. in 2000 was declared “measles-free” by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many developing countries continue to suffer from measles, an extremely contagious respiratory disease, but the U.S. But when the senior doctor on our team, Frank Berkowitz, an expert in pediatric infections-arrived at her room, he knew the diagnosis immediately: She had measles. She had developed a cough so harsh that “whooping cough” had been added to the long list of possible infirmities. She had come to the emergency room with a fever and runny nose and had a rash spreading across her body. I was working on the hospital infectious-disease service when our team was asked to see a young girl with a mysterious illness that no one had been able to diagnose.
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