{"id":5839,"date":"2024-02-06T18:07:25","date_gmt":"2024-02-07T00:07:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=5839"},"modified":"2024-02-06T18:07:28","modified_gmt":"2024-02-07T00:07:28","slug":"how-the-anti-vaccine-movement-is-downplaying-the-danger-of-measles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2024\/02\/06\/how-the-anti-vaccine-movement-is-downplaying-the-danger-of-measles\/","title":{"rendered":"How the anti-vaccine movement is downplaying the danger of measles"},"content":{"rendered":"
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NBC News<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As outbreaks of measles spread throughout the world<\/a>, anti-vaccine activists aren\u2019t just urging people not to get vaccinated \u2014 they\u2019re taking a page from a well-worn playbook, falsely downplaying the dangers from the highly contagious respiratory disease. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe truth is, measles is not a super severe serious illness when you\u2019re a child,\u201d Mary Holland, president of the country\u2019s best-funded anti-vaccine organization, Children\u2019s Health Defense, said last week<\/a> on the group\u2019s online morning show. Children\u2019s Health Defense was founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who took a leave from the organization in April to run for president. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Holland, a lawyer, called government responses to recent outbreaks \u201cfearmongering\u201d and \u201ccrying wolf.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a couple days of spots and then you move on,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But national health agencies warn the fear of measles is well-founded. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Measles \u2014 a disease so contagious it acts as a bellwether for threats from other infectious diseases \u2014 is marked by fever, flu-like symptoms and an itchy rash, and sometimes comes with dire complications<\/a> including pneumonia, seizures and brain damage. For every 1,000 cases of  measles, about<\/a> 200 children may be hospitalized, 50 may get pneumonia, one child may develop brain swelling along with deafness or disability, and between one and three may die. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the availability of an incredibly effective vaccine, the disease is spreading worldwide. The reasons behind the surge are complex. For countries in Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, there are issues of access; childhood vaccine campaigns suffered<\/a> when Covid weakened already-stretched public health systems. Europe, the U.K. and the U.S. experienced similar, if smaller-scale, disruptions to their childhood vaccine programs during Covid. Rising vaccine skepticism plays a smaller<\/a> but significant part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last month, the World Health Organization\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0an \u201calarming\u201d 45-fold increase in measles in Europe from 2022 to 2023, while health officials in the U.K.\u00a0declared<\/a>\u00a0a \u201cnational incident\u201d stemming from an outbreak of hundreds of cases in the West Midlands, warning of a likely spread to other regions. U.K. officials\u00a0attribute<\/a>\u00a0the rise to a drop in vaccine uptake.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NBC News As outbreaks of measles spread throughout the world, anti-vaccine activists aren\u2019t just urging people not to get vaccinated \u2014 they\u2019re taking a page from a well-worn playbook, falsely downplaying the dangers from the highly contagious respiratory disease.  \u201cThe truth is, measles is not a super severe serious illness when you\u2019re a child,\u201d Mary Holland, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misinformation-disinformation-and-conspiracy-theories"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5839"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5839\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5840,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5839\/revisions\/5840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}