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t m c » p u l s e | j u n e 2 0 1 7 20 MEASLES VACCINE: A HISTORY THOMAS PEEBLES, M.D., isolates measles virus in the lab of John Enders, Ph.D., at Boston Children's Hospital, using the blood of an infected 13-year-old boy. That isolated virus was used to create a series of vaccines. Just three years earlier, measles erupted in southern Greenland for the first time. Only five people out of 4,262 did not contract the disease. SAM KATZ, M.D., working in conjunction with Peebles at Boston Children's Hospital, tests the first measles vaccine on 11 children. JOHN ENDERS, PH.D., and colleagues license the first measles vaccine in the United States. MERCK begins distribut- ing an improved vaccine, the only measles vaccine used in the U.S. since it was licensed. "It's a global world, and higher immunization rates are safeguards to keep us from being susceptible to these diseases," said Brian Reed, M.D., director of disease control and clinical prevention at Harris County Public Health and Environmental Services. "Parents may be thinking they're doing the right thing for their child, but they're inadvertently harming the community." The consequences of reducing herd immunity can currently be seen in action in Minnesota, where a measles outbreak has been spreading since April. Minnesota-Austin connection Like all epidemics, the Minnesota measles outbreak started out small. In early April, Hennepin County reported three cases of the disease. Two months later, that number has grown to about 70—the worst outbreak the state has seen in 30 years. Like Texas, Minnesota's vaccination rates are over 90 percent. The current outbreak can be traced to a Somali immigrant community in Minneapolis, where the vaccination rate in 2014 was reported to be 42 percent—a significant decrease since 2008, when the same community had some of the highest vaccination rates for two-year-olds in the state. This swift decline is a result of targeting by anti-vaccine advocates. Most notable: Andrew Wakefield, the British doc- tor who rocked the medical community with his 1998 paper, published in The Lancet, claiming a link between autism and the MMR vaccine. In 2010, the U.K. barred Wakefield from practicing med- icine and The Lancet formally retracted his paper, but the damage had been done. Despite numerous studies debunk- ing the link between autism and vaccines, the myth persists. Wakefield continues to campaign against vaccines and parents continue to listen. In 2008, he visited the Somali- American community in Minneapolis and vaccination rates have been decreasing ever since. 1954 1958 1963 1968 Houston Austin Dallas San Antonio El Paso Lubbock Conscientious Exemption Rate 0.0% 4.8% T E X A S CONSCIENTIOUS VACCINE * EXEMPTIONS IN TEXAS, BY COUNTY Source: Texas Department of State Health Services, 2015-16 Annual Report of Immunization Status. Includes data reported by independent school districts and accredited private schools. * Includes DTaP, Hepatitis A and B, MMR II, Polio, Varicella 2