Senators stand in favor of measles vaccine

Senators took a stand in favor of vaccinating children at a hearing Tuesday.

The Senate Health Committee discussed public health successes and challenges of vaccinating children. The CDC’s immunization chief joined senators in emphasizing the importance of vaccines.

“Vaccines are safe and highly effective and it’s important for parents to know that they are the best way to protect their kids,” said Dr. Anne Schuchat with the CDC.

According to KRDO’s medical expert, Dr. John Torres, immunization is the best form of measles prevention. But as the rate of immunization decreases, it hurts the community’s herd immunity.

“If enough people are vaccinated, then everybody’s protected,” he said. “That number is usually around 95 percent. Right now the vaccination rate in this country has dropped to about 92 percent and here in Colorado in kindergarteners we’re dead last in the 80 percent range for kindergarteners who are vaccinated against measles.”

Torres said he was also concerned about parents exposing their children to the measles on purpose, like some parents do with the chicken pox.

“These measles parties are not a good idea because you’re dealing with a disease that can be deadly,” Torres said.

According to the CDC, one in 10 children with measles can get an ear infection and some of those can result in deafness. One in 20 can get pneumonia and have to be hospitalized. One in 1,000 can develop encephalitis that can result in blindness and brain issues. One in 2,000 can die from the measles.

Torres said it can be difficult to convince some parents to immunize their children, but encourages all parents to talk to their doctors.

“The benefit of the vaccine outweighs any risk that it might have because the disease is so much worse,” Torres said. “They think they’re protecting their children by not getting them vaccinated and what I would counter that with is think about life before 1950, before we had these vaccines, and how many thousands and tens of thousands of children died from these simple diseases. We don’t have that happen anymore in our country.”

Torres said some parents choose not to vaccinate because of the notion that vaccines and autism are linked, but that has been disproved many times.