Measles in Michigan

Good evening all (and once again it may not be evening, but…),

Measles has made it to Oakland County. This newly-reported case doesn’t seem to be related to the Texas outbreak—like most cases we see, it was in someone who recently traveled abroad. So what does this mean for us here in Southeast Michigan?

I had assumed—as it turns out, incorrectly—that we here in SE Michigan were well-protected. To keep measles from spreading in a community (“herd immunity”) we need a vaccination rate of about 95%. Kids in Oakland county are only at about 82%. There are a number of reasons we’re failing our kids so badly. During the height of the pandemic, vaccine rates fell off along with a lot of preventive medical care. But one of the biggest contributers to low vaccine rates are waives for school vaccine requirements.

Michigan of course allows for medical waivers for vaccinations—if there’s a valid medical reason not to get a shot, you don’t have to get a shot to enter school. But Michigan also allows for religious and “philisophical” waivers. Religious waivers aren’t that common—very few religions are against childhood vaccination. The majority of these waivers are “philosophical”, meaning you don’t really have to have a reason. In 2014 Michigan started requiring an educational session before granting a non-medical waiver, and waiver rates dropped (and vaccine rates increased). This trend unfortunately didn’t last. This same trend has been seen nationally—the easier it is to get a non-medical waiver, the lower the vaccination rates.

Robert Kennedy, Jr, the head of Health and Human Services, has emphasized that vaccination is a “personal choice”. This is, like many things he says, sort of partly true. Measles is ridiculously contagious—in an unprotected population, each person with measles can infect a dozen others. And remember that before the introduction of the vaccine, hundreds of kids died of measles every year.

When someone exercises the “personal choice” not to vaccinate, they not only put their own child at risk, but the entire community. With vaccine rates among kids in the low 80s, it only take one sick kid to lead to dozens and even hundreds of others. Your personal choice harms your whole community. Failure to vaccinate your children is an inherently selfish and antisocial choice. So yeah, it’s a personal choice, but not a good one.

Measles vaccines (given as the MMR) are very safe and very effective. Please make sure your kids have had their two shot series. You can look up your kid’s vaccine history online. If you were born after 1957 and your not sure if you had your measles shots, consider either getting a shot or getting a blood test to check your immunity.

By the time we see a couple of measles cases there are probably a dozen. If you wait to see if things are going to get bad, you’ve waited too long.

Please, stay well.

-pal