A Measles Outbreak Is Happening In Two Dozen States Due To Unvaccinated Patients

Moms.com

By Jayme Kennedy

Published Aug 21, 2018

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control has confirmed an outbreak of measles in 21 states.

The scientific and medical communities have long been in agreement: vaccines are good. They are effective. And most importantly, they are safe. Despite the overwhelming evidence to support all of those statements, parents all over the country and world STILL choose to not vaccinate their children. We could go on and on about the dangers of not vaccinating your kids: the danger it puts them in, the danger it poses to people who have compromised immune systems, and the impact not vaccinating your kids has on herd immunity.

All of this information is readily available and backed up by decades of reputable medical science. And yet, we still find ourselves reported on outbreaks of diseases that should be prevented by vaccines. In most recent news, a measles outbreak is unfolding across two dozen states in the country. Most of the patients who've contracted the disease have been unvaccinated.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control has confirmed an outbreak of measles in 21 states. About 107 people have been infected so far, with cases confirmed between January 1 and July 14, 2018. Over that six month period, about 18 people became infected every month. The CDC says that the majority of people who contracted the potentially deadly disease had not yet been vaccinated.

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2018 in on track to exceed both 2016 and 2017 for number of measles cases reported. In 2016, the CDC confirmed 86 cases in 19 states. In 2017, there were 118 cases in 15 states and the District of Columbia. There have been 107 already in 2018, and it's only August.

The states included in this latest outbreak are Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington. The District of Columbia was also reported to have confirmed cases in the first part of 2018, according to the CDC.

Of the states involved in this outbreak, nine of them allow for parents to claim exemption from vaccines based on their personal beliefs. Those states are Arkansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Washington. Currently, 18 states in the nation allow for a philosophical exemption from vaccines, but more and more states are introducing legislation to expand that exemption.