This commentary is by Dr. David Schneider, a long-time Rutland pediatrician who recently retired from clinical practice. He continues to advocate for meaningful health and care.
It is a testament to the good judgement and values of Vermont families that measles vaccination is prioritized. Childhood immunization rates are typically over 95% statewide. Our own Rutland County is in a very good place.
With the exception of some independent schools, our overall preschool and school-age MMR vaccination rate remains over the 92-94% threshold that has been shown to limit the risk of a community outbreak.
As a community cheerleader, I am sharing these comments to reinforce the need to immunize.
It is sometimes difficult to filter truth from the flood of circulating and dangerous misinformation. Injury from measles is genuine, extensive and avoidable. Transmission of this highly contagious, awful illness can be devastating especially to our susceptible neighbors who might be too young for immunization, or who are immunocompromised.
I belong to an aging crop of physicians who cared for many hospitalized children, so ill, during the measles epidemic of the late 1980s and 90s.
New standards for widespread measles immunization were intently developed and administered. The effectiveness of the immunization schedule was demonstrated. Twenty-five years ago measles was considered obliterated from the United States.
Today’s measles resurgence is the effect of lax immunization. Communities in some regions of our country are once again at risk and contending with unnecessary illness, agony and death. Consequences from measles illness can be severe and include brain swelling encephalitis, suffocating pneumonitis, and immune system suppression triggered by the measles virus.
Some children will die unnecessarily from the acute effects of the virus and rarely by the delayed progressive brain swelling of Dawson disease (subacute sclerosing panencephalitis). But timely immunization virtually eliminates the risks.
Please be wary of out-of-context misrepresentations of vitamin A use in measles prevention or treatment. Impoverished countries see benefit when vitamin A supplement is administered to those malnourished children with vitamin A and other nutritional deficiencies.
These studies are not relevant to, and must not be extended to developed populations such as the United States where vitamin A deficiency is nearly nonexistent. Taking additional vitamin A when there is no deficiency is useless at best. To be clear, excess vitamin A is dangerous. It is toxic!
Likewise, we all agree that it is a very good idea to be physically fit, minimize Twinkies, and to sleep restfully. Fruits and vegetables are great, but they simply do not prevent, nor cure, nor create symptom protection from measles.
The vaccine, by the way, has nothing in the universe to do with autism. The rate of autism is identical whether immunized or unimmunized. The distinction is only that unvaccinated children, whether diagnosed with autism or not, are at greater risk of contracting measles, becoming ill and transmitting preventable infections to others.
The measles vaccine, given as the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) is extremely effective and exceptionally safe. There are rare times the vaccine should not be given for medical reasons, for example with extreme allergy, or when a person is severely immunocompromised.
Please continue to engage with our tireless, wonderful community physicians and clinical practitioners. They will be candid, their trust well-earned. Let us continue to minimize the considerable risk of significant physical injuries to our children and our families: Please IMMUNIZE.
Read the story on VTDigger here: David Schneider: Injury from measles is genuine, extensive and avoidable.