A measles outbreak in Philadelphia has expanded to eight confirmed and three suspected cases with three patients hospitalized, city health officials said Monday. Vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles and polio remain a public health threat. And with childhood vaccine hesitancy on the rise, the problem could get worse.
Officials at the Philadelphia Department of Public Health are now warning the public about several known exposure sites across the city, including healthcare facilities and a daycare center.
Placed in a larger context, the current situation in Philadelphia speaks to a wider problem of the return of vaccine-preventable diseases as a result of the steady increase in vaccine hesitancy in recent years.
The MMR vaccine was where the antivax movement really took off for the first time. An opportunistic hack called Andrew Wakefield falsified experiments to pretend that it was causing Autism in children so he could sell his own alternative vaccine. He lost his medical license for this and is likely responsible for millions of children being unprotected from Measels, Mumps and Rubella.
Here’s an excellent video that covers the start of the antivax movement, for anyone interested