Regarding the article, “Utah becomes the new center of U.S. measles cases.”
I thought that having the worst air on the planet was a bad headline but this might even be worse. Why, because it can easily be avoided, while fixing our air quality requires years of hard work.
Maybe it’s time for a little history lesson, just in case the people in rural Utah, where this outbreak began, haven’t read a science book in the last 72 years. (Or maybe these books were banned?)
First, measles is a virus and viruses can be defeated — if not cured — by vaccines, if science-thinking people are lucky enough to isolate the virus. This happened for measles in 1954, through the work of Dr. Thomas Peebles. Nine years later, in 1963, under John Enders’ work, a vaccine was developed and licensed. Only five years later, Dr. Maurice Hilleman developed a more stable vaccine, with viewer side effects, and this remains the basis for the measles vaccine used today.
Eventually, this vaccine was combined with mumps and rubella into a single shot known as the MMR vaccine. Which led ultimately to the year 2000, when measles was officially declared “eliminated” from the United States.
So, what happened? The short story: Trump was elected president “again”!
This 2.0 version decided to replace all science-related learning and industry personnel with incompetent, faith-based, uneducated neophytes. All of whom are dedicated followers of the most unqualified, egotistical, misogynistic president this country has yet to survive.
Vaccines were misrepresented as dangerous, and maligned as the root of autism in young children. Misinformation became the mainline source of actuality and reality, and fact became a distant memory.
Simply put: 90% of the people with confirmed measles in Utah were not vaccinated!
Robert Hoff, Taylorsville