2014 Will be remembered for a number of things: The Seahawks destroying the Broncos in the Super Bowl, Derek Jeter s last year, and the return of 24.
But it looks like we are heading for another milestone, and it isn t one to be proud of the highest incidence of measles in in twenty years. As you can see by the graph below, we are quite a bit ahead of (meaning behind) previous years, where the average number of cases in a bad year was in the 100-200 range. Yet, halfway through May, this number was already up to 288.
A simple online program, that predicts future measles cases based on current data (and the slope of the graph), estimates the number of cases will climb to 1,254 by the end of the year. This is a disgraceful (and completely preventable) estimate, that is 6-fold greater than the total for 2013 (about 200)--which was in itself the worst year in the past decade.
What is going on?
Almost all of the 2014 cases resulted from international travel by unvaccinated people, who in turn brought back the viral infection to the US where they in turn infected others who had not been vaccinated.
It is especially galling that in 2000, measles was declared to be eliminated in the United States Not exactly the paradigm of progress, comments ACSH s Dr. Josh Bloom.
He adds, It is beyond obscene that in 2014 ten years after Lancet retracted Wakefield s phony study that people are still being scared of the MMR vaccine. For no reason.
A brilliant summary of the Wakefield scandal can been seen here. We highly recommend that you read it.