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Vaccines. Preventable diseases. And stupidity. [1]

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Date: 2025-02-26

The measles outbreak in West Texas is moving so rapidly that the correct current number today, 2/26/25, now standing at 124, will be a memory in the next hours. Further, as news has also been reported of the outbreak spreading to New Mexico, this will likely be the next US hotspot.

But worse, there is now reportedly a death from measles (2/26/25). And although the fact that there has been a death clearly would not surprise anyone in the medical field, apparently this has been a shock to parents who, until now, just figured, hey, why bother, it's just a childhood disease. Never mind that the first-mentioned, those in medicine, have been warning that measles is anything but a harmless disease---which means that providing their best take on it has fallen on deaf ears.

That is, until right now. Right now. Reportedly, parents in Texas are beginning to panic over their decision not to vaccinate their children. Now we just have to hope that this newfound urgency won't be a day late and a dollar short. Measles has an incredibly high transmission rate--depending on which statistics you choose, at the highest end, it can be up to nine out of every 10 exposed to measles if they were either unvaccinated or only received one of the two shots.

As the measles vaccine wasn't introduced for wide usage until 1963, there are millions of folks who have had measles and, having been fortunate enough to survive it, can talk about the disease with firsthand knowledge. I am among those.

I was quite little and have no memory of it, but the stories from my parents, neither of whom were prone to breathless anecdotes, are enough even now to raise the hair on the back of my neck when I recall what they told my brother and me about it. But worse than just our stories, one child in their social circle died. Another one was diagnosed later with encephalitis and suffered lifelong disability.

And to frame this in numbers too big to ignore: before the vaccine was widely given, up to 2.6 million human beings, almost all of them under the age of five, died worldwide every year. Every year. And as recently as 2023, in those who were unvaccinated,107,000 died due to the world-wide push to vaccinate all children.

This article begins by being about only one childhood disease. And the consequences of not vaccinating our kids against measles. There will be many, many more stories that will shove their way onto the stage to report on whooping cough (pertussis), diphtheria, polio, German measles (especially related to its impact on pregnant women and their unborn), and other diseases preventable with simple vaccines. Then what? How many preventable diseases, and how many deaths from these diseases or their complications, will the American people be willing to tolerate? How many? This nonsense is an uninformed game of chicken being played using our most vulnerable, our kids.

Oh, and meanwhile, our Congress has begun the push to dismantle Medicaid, under which up to 40% of all American kids are covered through CHIP (the Children's Health Insurance Program). So then, on one hand, vaccinate if you choose to do so (or who knows, maybe parents won't be permitted to access vaccines for their kids--we don't know at this point what RFK Jr. is going to do) but shoot, maybe you won't be able to afford it anyway. This is not merely a game of chicken but a total zero-sum game.

And why? Ignorance of science? Sure. Disdain for it? Sure. The devaluing of vulnerable populations? Sure. But why again remains the question. Why would the richest country on the face of the planet go backwards towards a time when some maps bore the words, "Here Be Dragons" (hic sunt dracones in Latin--which was actually what was on those maps). It cannot be a whack-a-doodle fascination with the Medieval world. Right?

So then, maybe it is one of those intersectionality "thangs," huh? Trillions to the wealthiest not merely among us, but on the entire planet and coming out of our tax dollars. Plus the dumbing down of our educational system that has made millions vulnerable to half-baked, pseudo-science. And that really big one perhaps? Arrogance so outsized it has become hubris.

Regardless of the myriad causes, we are nationally and internationally riding for perhaps the biggest disaster the world has ever faced--and no, it won't likely be caused primarily by preventable childhood diseases, but by the biggies, AIDS and Ebola. Because those tax dollars going into the pockets and investments of the gazillionaires are also making sure a current Ebola outbreak in Uganda receives no help from USAID. And WHO has been hampered even as they are in the field fighting Ebola because we withdrew from this global agency too. (News flash: it is only 15 hours by air from Uganda to the East Coast of the USA--just sayin')

I'm a huge fan of Rachel Maddow and was delighted when it was announced that she would be back on five nights a week until the end of April. And for the first time since I began to watch her program, last night she used the word, "stupid." So, pretty good company then--what I've described and presented here? All. Of. It. Is. Stupid.

(I canceled cable yesterday; which means I will now only watch her and another fave, Lawrence O'Donnell, on YouTube; and this cancellation was due to something else I'd put in the category of stupid. Getting rid of some of their best anchors, and with every darned one of them not white.) Okay, getting off of my soapbox now.

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