Measles oop north
There is a northern slant to the news that measles is on the up. It isn’t uniformly up and London is actually down. I have blogged about this before: Measles – A Spot of Bother.
Cases in the NW, SE and W Midlands have been on the rise. More details from the HPA here. 75% of the new cases in November were attributable regions outside of London. London enjoyed its lowest monthly rate for the whole year. Have a look:
It is an interesting picture. I am not sure if I am imagining this but it looks as if it is possible there is some kind of lag effect going on. If the Rest of E&W had a left shift there could be some recent similarity. Maybe the catch up program is doing the job. The spike in Jun 07 wouldn’t quite fit though… It certainly needs some clever epidemiologist types to model the disease patterns but I wonder if we are just about to get over the hump.
I don’t recall having ever seen a case of measles and I am hopeful it will stay that way. Though I do recall when I was doing paediatrics a case of sub-acute sclerosing pan-encephalitis. Grim.
Of course, the HPA message will remain the same and it may well go pear-shaped yet. There ain’t any room for complacency and hopefully more folk will be encouraged to protect their children.
You’ve never seen a case of measles? Seriously?
I was born in the sixties and had a cousin die of measles complications and I myself was seriously ill when I had it. Not just a little bit sick, but seriously very poorly indeed.
People take ridiculous risks (IMO) with their children when they don’t give them the MMR vaccine.
I am another 60s child who had measles, but I was OK. Of course, the problem (from the POV of anti-vaccine scares) is that my experience is more common than Lexin’s, as you would expect with the serious complication rate then applying. So people in his and my age group commonly tend to know people that had measles (them and all their friends) but who got better with no serious, or at least lasting, consequences.
With the benefit of years that wipe away the memory of how lousy you felt at the time (again, unless, like Lexin, you were REALLY ill so that it became a “life event”) this gets remembered as “I had measles, so did everyone I know, we were all fine” (which may be accurate) and then translated on into “measles is a totally harmless childhood illness” (which of course is rubbish) .
There is a great article on this, and the underlying statistics, here. It is written by a retired epidemiologist who survived serious measles complications as a kid in the late 50s. The author blogs as “EpiWonk”, and has done a great job deconstructing the bullshit arguments of the MMR=horrors nitwits when they abuse epidemiology on his blog of the same name.
Nope. Never seen measles. I graduated in 1997: so 10 years and a bit and no measles. I doubt if that is particularly unusual. It must have been around in the 70s but curiously I don’t remember anyone with it either.
Thanks for the links Dr Aust – will take a look.
Well, with the way the trend is going, you may be seeing your measles before too long, Euan.
Talking of measles, vaccination, and the North-west of England, an
an honourable “local hero” mention should go to Peter Flegg, an Infectious Disease consultant from Blackpool who spends a fair amount of his time online patiently explaining risk-benefit (and related topics) to do with vaccination.
Of course, a lot of the people he is trying to explain it to are figuratively sat with their fingers stuck permanently in their ears while shouting “nyeeah nyeeah nee nyeeah nyeeah, I can’t hear you” .
For a fairly recent example of both of these, try the thread here, where you will find him discussing the relative risks and benefits of vaccination vs actually catching measles, and manfully managing not to lose his rag with Jackie Fletcher of JABS and her equally crackers friends.
While I am usually the type who is quite happy to start a bunfight with anyone I have to confess I have really not delved into the vaccination/MMR arguments.
I think this is probably because I retain just about enough self-awareness to know that I am not capable of exercising the necessary self-control to engage with them. Who was that BBC journo that freaked out at the scientology fruitloops? That could be me…
That is possibly what I admire most about people like Richard Dawkins (and it seems Peter Flegg). The ability to pursue a measured rationale argument in the face of the overwhelming primitive desire to bash some zealot with the nearest lump of mammoth poo.
You’re thinking of John Sweeney, Euan. The clip of him losing it with the Scientologists (who are a pretty sinister lot) is around on Youtube, and in fact you can see the whole Panorama programme here.
On a lighter note, Sweeney wrote a very funny book about the Hamiltons (the former Tory MP for Knutsford Neil Hamiltonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Hamilton_(politician), unseated by Martin Bell in 1997, and his wife Christine), which is a jolly read.
PS Oops, sorry – ‘scuse the HTML
I sympathise with you.
Because I was so ill when I had measles, it’s one of those areas where I have no patience at all for the arguments against vaccination, and I tend to go off like a bomb (red in the face, windmill arms, the whole bit) if someone suggests they even might not vaccinate their child.