Measles Cases at South Florida School Concern Pediatricians
DannyB writes:
'It's all preventable': Measles cases at South Florida school concern pediatricians
A local pediatrician is emphasizing the importance of parents vaccinating their kids as Manatee Bay Elementary School confirmed five cases of the infectious disease.
Broward County Public Schools announced late on Monday afternoon that there are now five confirmed cases of measles at Manatee Bay Elementary School in Weston. [...] infectious disease experts said as of Friday, when this outbreak became public knowledge, that it's highly likely the kids are not vaccinated.
Most children get the MMR - or measles, mumps and rubella - vaccine, but with a disease as contagious as measles, doctors say it only takes a few holdouts to fuel an outbreak. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows Florida among the states in which parents using a religious exemption to opt their children out of traditional childhood vaccinations is trending upward.
"Definitely, parents today are much more hesitant than ever. We actually are struggling in our pediatric practices to get kids completely immunized, to complete their series by the time they enter kindergarten because parents are scared, they're kind of feeding into this misinformation," said Dr. Lisa Gwynn, a pediatrician who teaches pediatrics at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. "It is extremely unfortunate because it's all preventable, and the measles vaccine has been around a long time and it's safe and effective, so the fact that we are still seeing this in modern times is really unfortunate, it's also dangerous for the community, measles is an extremely infectious and contagious virus."
How did a modern developed nation that first landed people on the moon come to this.
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