Measles cases climb, officials urge vaccination

All right, well, you know, over the last several years for sure, and even more recently, we've heard a lot of reports about measles outbreaks across the country. The Minnesota Department of Health reporting that we've had a couple of outbreaks just since mid-September in Minnesota, two unrelated clusters in two different counties. And of course, the concern here is about vaccinations. These are all among unvaccinated people. and what's the root of this? Where does it go from here? For that conversation, Patsy Stinchfield coming in here to join us. For those who remember your name but don't remember why, tell people what you used to do before you briefly retired. Yes, I worked in infectious disease at Children's Hospital for 35 years and led us through the 1990 measles outbreak, the 2017 COVID, I was on with you during that time. So retired in 21 and I'm back out because measles is back and I know a lot about measles and how we prevent it and really don't wanna see any child or family suffer from it. So you're part of the what's called the measles collaborative, which was formed this summer. What is it? Yeah, so the measles collaborative is a group of professional societies, American Academy of Pediatrics, nurse practitioners, public health entities that are very worried about the fast pace that the measles outbreak in the US is doing right now. We gathered in the spring and looked at what are the issues? Why is this happening? What can we do? And then we formed what's known as the Measles Collaborative. And we've got 12 different work groups looking at what happens to your immune system? What happens to your brain and your nervous system? What can we do from a public health standpoint? How about infection control in hospitals? And these groups are all working really hard to educate and communicate and try to get us back to eliminate measles in our community. Well, let's put that in that perspective then that measles was effectively eradicated in this country is of what? 2000. 2000, yeah, so a quarter century ago. It has been popping up now as parents elect not to use the MMR vaccine out of concerns for autism. That's really where this started, right? Well, I think that's an old theory that has been thoroughly debunked. That's way back from the 90s. And I think what we're seeing now is conscientious objection of parents who are choosing not to use the MMR vaccine. It's for a variety of reasons. There's no reason to be concerned about MMR and autism. There's a couple of dozen studies that have disproven that. This is one of the safest vaccines we have and very effective two doses a month apart will get you a 97% lifetime protection. So how does this concern over these vaccines continue to gain steam and we see more outbreaks? There's a lot of misinformation and disinformation and coordinated efforts to take down what we know is safe and effective ways to prevent infectious diseases through vaccination. And so we and public health and infectious disease need to be out there in social media and try to get that right information out there to families. Okay, what is it that you may know or can add to this? The Department of Health reporting 25 cases in Minnesota since mid-September, so we're talking a month. Yes. Two unrelated clusters, let's see, 19 cases in Todd County, six in Fillmore County, all unvaccinated. Right. What do you know about this? So it's adults and children, these are all US cases. And we know that it started with an adult that traveled in the US, got measles. Because they were unvaccinated, brought it back into a very poorly vaccinated community and it spreads like a wildfire. I think the biggest number that I'm concerned about is the number of kids entering kindergarten who are unvaccinated. It used to be 1%. And there's always some kids with medical reasons, but that non-medical reason has jumped now to 6.8%. That's 4,000 Minnesota kindergartners who are being sent to school unprotected. What do you do about that? You get them vaccinated. That's the main message is check your family's records, make sure you've had your MMR vaccines. If you haven't, come on in, talk to us, we'll get you vaccinated. If you have concerns about the safety, we want to talk to you about it. We'll listen, we'll hear your concerns. And the safest thing to do is to prevent measles through vaccination. There is an issue here though of parental control or authority. That they want to exert their choices over their children here. And you know, how do you communicate with people who say, listen, this should be our choice not yours? Well, in 40 years of talking to families about this very topic, I would come at it, we both want your child to be safe. And not only your child, but every other child. And there's some kids who can't be vaccinated, babies too young to be immunized, kids in school with leukemia or other immune deficiencies, people who are pregnant or undergoing chemotherapy. We've gotta not only protect our own children, but the whole community. In terms of measles, for those who are unvaccinated, those who get it, this is something that can be absolutely life-threatening. Absolutely, right, one in a thousand will die from it, one or so of 20 people will be in the hospital with it. And everyone will have a miserable course, fever, rash, cough, everyone will have some impact to their immune system. The virus hijacks your immune memory cells and will wipe out some of the antibodies that you had to colds or even other vaccine preventable diseases. And we don't wanna see that happen. And then some people can even have a brain infection that leaves them permanently developmentally disabled, deaf, blind. It's a very serious disease. It is not a mild rash by any means. And I bring the voice of parents at Children's hospital who say, I didn't know. I didn't know my child could be this sick. I wish I had vaccinated. That's what they ask us to tell the public. No, you're focused on measles. Obviously, vaccinations as a whole have become, I guess, debated. There's a roundtable discussion coming up at one o'clock today with Congresswoman Betty McCollum about vaccinations. So where do you see measles in the broader, I guess, back in some quarters against vaccinations as a whole. Right, I see measles as sort of the leading disease because it is the most contagious virus on the planet. So when that vaccination rate drops, it'll be the first disease that we see out. And we're gonna see others. If our vaccination rates continue to drop overall, we'll see bad diseases like haemophilus influenza B or whooping cough or things like that. So we've gotta keep all of those vaccine rates up, not just the measles vaccine. Where would we be in this discussion if the COVID-19 pandemic didn't happen, that raised the debate over vaccines to a higher level. And I would imagine that spilled over then to these other vaccines. I agree with you. I think there's still some sort of hangover from COVID where people are just like, we had to wear masks, we had to get vaccinated. But I would ask people to please look at the science, the evidence, listen to those of us who have seen the consequences of these diseases and know that yes, that was a bad time. But getting measles in your family, maybe even just exposed, you will be out of work for 21 days, your children out of school for 21 days, no income for that amount of time. So things could be bad in lots of different ways. But do you think that debate over the efficacy or safety of the COVID-19 vaccine did spill over into concerns for other vaccines? I think we are seeing that we stayed home during that time, and so we did get behind on vaccine rates in children and adults, but I think that's mostly caught up at this point. And so now I just think there's a little bit of sort of poor sentiment, but the main thing to know is that the vast majority of parents vaccinate their kids on schedule and on time. It is a small group of people that don't vaccinate, but because measles is so contagious, it will find that small group and then also infect those who can't be vaccinated. Okay, and then lastly, where do you guys the measles collaborative? What is the work ahead? What is your plan? What is your game plan? What is the next six months doing here? Yeah, so we are right now we're doing a lot of writing and we're going to be publishing for doctors and nurses and pharmacists who've never seen measles. They don't know how to take care of it, how to diagnose it. So we're doing a lot of work around clinician education. We've set up a website at the nfid.org/measles collaborative, lots of parent information and provider information there, education, getting out there and making sure that we turn this around. All right, Patsy, thank you so much. Obviously, this brought you out of retirement, so it is something that you feel very strongly about. I've seen children die of measles. I've seen the entire floor of a children's hospital turned into a measles ward in 1990. I've seen us spend a lot of public health and health care dollars. I've seen families be very disrupted in their life, and I don't want us to go back to that. So I'm here at it with all my colleagues. All right, Patsy Stinchfield with the Measles Collaborative and the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases. Thanks for coming in. Good to see you. Thanks so much.