Search This Blog

Monday, July 8, 2019

1109

In The Politics of Autism, I look at the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism.  TwitterFacebook, and other social media platforms have helped spread this dangerous myth.

From CDC: "From January 1 to July 3, 2019, 1,109 individual cases of measles have been confirmed in 28 states. This is an increase of 14 cases from the previous week. This is the greatest number of cases reported in the U.S. since 1992 and since measles was declared eliminated in 2000."

At CNN, Jacqueline Howard quotes Dr. Peter Hotez:

"Measles historically is seasonal. We know it peaks in the spring and then declines in the summer. So there is a seasonality to the virus, just like there's a seasonality to influenza," Hotez said, adding that another factor is that children are currently out of school.
"A couple of questions that I'm looking at is: One, what happens when kids come back to school in the fall? Because although measles cases have declined, they haven't disappeared," he said. "I am concerned that we're going to see the uptick again as we move into the fall months -- and then the other question: What happens in 2020? Will we see a big jump in the spring of 2020? In other words, is this peak in the spring of 2019 just the beginning of frequent peaks?"