No, You Can't Blame Measles Outbreak on Immigrants Sputnik
go to original February 18, 2015

Vaccines: An Unhealthy Skepticism (The New York Times)

While pundits try to blame the US measles outbreak on immigrants from south of the border, the outbreak that started in Southern California has spread to both Mexico and Canada.

Immigrants have long been a favorite scapegoat for all sorts of social problems, and the recent measles outbreak that began at Disneyland is no exception. Public figures, from Rush Limbaugh to possible presidential hopeful Ben Carson have tried to claim there’s a connection between immigrants and the recent resurgence of measles in the US.

“We have to account for the fact that we now have people coming into the country, sometimes undocumented people, who perhaps have diseases that we had under control,” Carson told CNN’s Jake Tapper in a Feb. 3 interview. “So now we need to be doubly vigilant about making sure that we immunize our people to keep them from getting diseases that once were under control.” Los Angeles County Department of Public Health Interim Health Officer Dr. Jeffrey Gunzenhauser speaks about the state's measles outbreak during a news conference.

Though it’s likely that the recent outbreak started with someone overseas — the Disneyland parks do attract tourists from all over the world — there’s been no evidence to link it to immigrants, documented or otherwise. The central American countries that the recent surge of child migrants have been coming from have vaccination rates comparable to the US’ rate of 91%: El Salvador's was 94%, Guatemala's 85% and Honduras' 89%, according to the most recent World Health Organization data.



...Meanwhile, cases originating with the Disneyland outbreak have been documented both south and north of the border. Though officials in Mexico reported 2 related cases early in the outbreak, health officials in Quebec’s Lanaudiere region also confirmed related cases on Feb. 3.

Read the rest at Sputnik

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