Flashback -- Texas Could Be First State To Experience Serious Measles Outbreaks -- Dallas News -- February 9, 2017 -- Re-Posted January 24, 2018 -- Nothing About The Bakken

Link here, dated February 9, 2017.

It's looking as if 2017 could become the year when the anti-vaccination movement gains ascendancy in the United States and we begin to see a reversal of several decades in steady public health gains. The first blow will be measles outbreaks in America.

Measles is one of the most contagious and most lethal of all human diseases. A single person infected with the virus can infect more than a dozen unvaccinated people, typically infants too young to have received their first measles shots. Such high levels of transmissibility mean that when the percentage of children in a community who have received the measles vaccine falls below the range of 90 percent to 95 percent, we can start to see major outbreaks, as in the 1950s when, on average, 4 million Americans a year were infected and 450 died. Worldwide, measles still kills around 100,000 children each year.

The myth that vaccines like the one that prevents measles are connected to autism has persisted despite rock-solid proof to the contrary. Donald Trump has given credence to such views in tweets and during a Republican debate, but as president he has said nothing to support vaccination opponents, so there is reason to hope that his views are changing.

Texas, where I live and work, may be the first state to once again experience serious measles outbreaks. As of last fall, more than 45,000 children here had received nonmedical exemptions for their school vaccinations. A political action committee is raising money to protect this "conscientious exemption" loophole and to instruct parents on how to file for it. As a result, some public school systems in the state are coming dangerously close to the threshold when measles outbreaks can be expected, and a third of students at some private schools are unvaccinated.

That was last year.

Today, January 24, 2018: measles outbreak in Waxahachie, Texas.

Google measles outbreaks worldwide 2018 for more. Last year, 2017, was a particularly bad year for Europe. Hmmm, one wonders why. Readers: three guesses, and the first two don't county. Minnesota also experienced a measles outbreak last year.

The CDC's publications on recent outbreaks:

• 2018 (0) as of January 24, 2018; first report for US will probably be released in May, 2018
• 2017 (1): Minnesota (an outlier; outbreak occurred in community concerned about autism, Somali-American community
• 2016 (2): Arizona (ICE detention center), Tennessee (unknown source)
• 2015 (2): US (70% associated with Disneyland outbreak, California); California (linked to two Disney theme parks in Orange County, CA
• 2014 (4): Florida (international traveler source); Washington State (Micronesian community); US (97% associated with importations from at least 18 countries); California
• 2013 (3): US (99% import-associated); Brooklyn, NYC (religious community); North Carolina (source: traveler from India) 

Huge thanks to Senator Orrin Hatch for all his work. Not.

From NACCHO: 

The British Medical Journal (BMJ) declared the 1998 Lancet paper that implied a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism "an elaborate fraud." Dr Fiona Godlee, BMJ Editor in Chief says "the MMR scare was based not on bad science but on a deliberate fraud" and that such "clear evidence of falsification of data should now close the door on this damaging vaccine scare." A series of three articles starting this week reveal the true extent of the scam behind the scare. The series is based on interviews, documents and data, collected during seven years of inquiries by award-winning investigative journalist Brian Deer. These articles have been widely picked up by traditional and social media.  See below for a variety of media coverage.

I was very, very aware of the Lancet paper. Lancet's credibility after that paper was published plummeted and I don't think it's ever recovered.