I don’t think that’s true. I was surprised, because some of those nations are in pretty tough shape.
So I looked at MMR vax rates, and found Paraguay at 54%, Venezuela at 68%, etc.
I’m sure Trump’ll start deporting them . . . as soon as Trump figures out where Mennon is.
I stand corrected. But for the country where most come from, Guatemala and Honduras are at 87% and 89%, respectively, compared with 91% for the US, and otherwise you have to get into South America to find countries with deplorably low rates. Mexico and the rest of Central America have higher rates of measles vaccination than we do.
In Texas alone, preventable disease outbreaks have been more typically associated with megachurches in lily-white middle class suburbs than with immigrants.
This is another variation on ‘immigrant criminal’ rhetoric, despite the fact that crime rates among immigrants tends to be lower than for US citizens. Facts don’t really matter to these folks. There’s no reason to think that will change when they switch from violent crime to preventable disease as justification for treating them like walking garbage.
I don’t think that’s true for Mexico. A decade or more ago Mexico had high MMR vaccination rates, but that had slipped by 2021. According to the W.H.O., stats for 2023 (the latest I could find) showed 76% of Mexican children had gotten two doses of MMR compared to 95% of American children. Percentages for both nations may well have dropped since then.
It still doesn’t mean that migrants can be blamed for the Texas measles outbreak.
The 95% hasn’t been true for a while. Certainly not in 2023. That’s still herd immunity level, and we’re clearly not there.
This might be comparing apples with oranges.
If you told me 95% of all US adults had 2 doses, I’d believe you, but we slipped closer to 90% years ago for kids and lower than that in many enclaves (it’s reportedly just over 80% for kindergartners in the West Texas region with the outbreak). The 76% stat for Mexico seems suspect as well.
I tried to get a COVID booster and RSV at the same time and the pharmacist refused, which was annoying. It was nearly a year before I got around to dealing with the RSV shot. I suspect this was a personal opinion, not any accepted medical advice.
Fortunately, I avoided catching RSV in the interim.
I don’t know how the measles virus got to those adjoining counties in Texas and New Mexico, but I do know that the Texas community has a large number of a very conservative Mennonite sect who “live separately” and chose this region because of limited government oversight. The New Mexico cases may simply be due to spread.
Given how fast measles spreads, I’m surprised that, despite the overall vaccination rate, we haven’t seen 130 cases become 13,000 in the past two weeks’ time. I would guess Texas is not at 95% vaccinated.
For those of us who had measles when little, do we have to worry?
A “declining response” in that study doesn’t mean that immunity is lost 10-15 years after measles vaccination.
The general consensus is that MMR vaccination provides lifelong or near lifelong immunity to measles and rubella.
Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) Vaccination | CDC.
If current administration policy leads to extensive, sustained resurgence of childhood measles, we may see recommendations for at least some older vaccinated individuals to get a booster. In the event of such resurgence I might even consider it, despite having had measles as a child.
Probably not.
If you really are concerned, your doctor could order a titer, which measures your immunity.
Texas has now reported the first death from the current measles outbreak.
I cannot begin to say how angry this makes me.
Appears to be paywalled.
This has me very angry as well. I can’t understand how far we are sliding into the seriously diseased past.
Thank you.
I have mentioned a great grandmother who lost three of six children to diseases that are now preventable. One was probably complications from scarlet fever. The infant was a twin, to all appearances healthy who simply passed a day after birth. My great grandmother had the fever while pregnant. Oddly enough his twin, who seemed sick, survived and became my great uncle George. Then one died of whooping cough and another of diptheria. A fourth child dies in her early thirties due to childbirth complications. So great uncle George and my grandmother Esther were the only two out of six kids to live long enough to see their grandchildren.
The thread title is the most true thing about this all.
Thank you. I didn’t realize it was paywalled since it let me access it.