Discussion of measles outbreak today at 1:35 pm on KOMO-Seattle

May 26th, 2011 → 12:53 pm @

According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Washington State has one of the highest school-immunization exemption rates in the country — and the current measles outbreak that’s spreading across the country has reached there as well.

Today at 1:35 pm PST, I’ll be on KOMO-Newsradio AM 1000/97.7 FM to talk about the ways in which declining vaccination rates have contributing to the situation. If you’re not in the station’s broadcast range, you can also listen online.

Post Categories: Media appearance

New on PLoS: The financial implications of the US measles outbreaks

May 24th, 2011 → 11:58 pm @

Earlier today, the CDC released a report about the measles outbreaks that have been occurring across the country since the beginning of the year. (Hat tip to USA Today‘s Liz Szabo for this story.) One reason measles outbreaks are so scary (and so difficult to contain) is that measles is the most infectious microbe known to man–it’s transmission rate is around 90 percent. It has also killed more children than any other disease in history.

Read the rest of this post on The Panic Virus PLoS Blog…

Post Categories: Blog post & PLoS

Dept. of corrections: The phantom $10 million measles outbreak

February 23rd, 2011 → 9:26 pm @

Earlier today, I got an email from Randy Dotinga, who writes regularly for Voice of San Diego, an online watchdog news site. One of the site’s regular features is called “Fact Check,” and Randy was factchecking something I said on Anderson Cooper 360 on January 5:

In 2010 alone, 10 infants died of whooping cough in California, which is astounding that that is happening today. There are children that have died of Hib, diseases that I have always assumed were definitely in the past in this country. There was a measles epidemic several years ago in California, in San Diego, that cost $10 million to contain, and resulted in a quarantine of dozens of children. That meant that those parents then had to find some way to take care of those kids, either not go to work or pay for day care. So, even when you have a case like with that measles epidemic, where it’s true that children didn’t die, you had one infant that was hospitalized for a serious amount of time, and dozens of families that had to pay an enormous amount of money because of this.

(more…)

Post Categories: Blog post