Morning Rounds: Measles outbreak and vaccine safety

A measles outbreak near Portland, Oregon, has revived a bitter debate over so-called "philosophical" exemptions to childhood vaccinations as public health officials across the Pacific Northwest scramble to limit the fallout. Public health officials said they have not identified any new locations where people may have been exposed to measles.

California state Sen. Richard Pan, a pediatrician who sponsored his state's bill, said he got death threats over it and had anti-vaccination advocates jam his phone lines and harass him on social media. Along with Washington and NY, at least seven other states - Hawaii, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Colorado, California and Georgia - have reported measles cases this year. Once a person has measles, about 90% of close contacts who are susceptible to it will develop the disease, she added.

Early symptoms include a runny nose, red eyes, a hacking cough and a high fever that comes and goes.

"If your child has received all the scheduled immunizations including the 12-to-15 month MMR vaccine and the vaccine between 4 and 6 years of age - for pre-kindergarten - those would confirm complete protection against measles", Dr. Wilson explained.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee last week declared a state of emergency because of the outbreak.

The MMR vaccine is one of two immunizations recommended by the federal government to help prevent measles. Older children and adults, even if they've never been vaccinated, may have developed natural immunity through previous infections.

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"We expect to see more and more cases", she said.

Before the measles vaccination program started in 1963, more than three million people got measles each year in the United States - of those, more than 400 died. Forty-one of them had not been vaccinated against the disease. Then, families travel to other countries where the virus is more common, and since they are unprotected, they bring the virus back to the U.S. This is when outbreaks occur.

The highly contagious virus spreads through the air and can linger for up to two hours in an isolated space.

Dr. Shamard Charles is a physician-journalist for NBC News and Today, reporting on health policy, public health initiatives, diversity in medicine, and new developments in health care research and medical treatments. Those who get the proper doses of the vaccine rarely contract the disease even if they are exposed. "It is very clear that there is no connection between vaccination and autism", Richards said.

Insinuations that vaccines are unsafe spread via misinformation and anecdotal reports of alleged vaccine reactions, either by unqualified professionals, the media, the internet and/or anti-vaccination groups, and this leads parents to question the need for immunization.