Measles Returns — Here's What You Need To Know

Transcript

Speaker 1 This message comes from ADP. Whether it's a last-minute policy change or adding a new company holiday, anything can change the world of work.

Speaker 1 From HR to payroll, ADP helps businesses take on the next anything. ADP, always designing for people.

Speaker 3 Hi, this is Levi in Hangzhou, China. I just finally bought tickets for Ne Jia Tu, the new record holder for the highest-grossing movie of all time in China.
This podcast was recorded at 1223 p.m.

Speaker 4 on Monday, March 10th.

Speaker 3 Things may have changed by the time you hear it, but I will probably still be searching all the Chinese I didn't understand in this two-hour, 20-minute movie everyone in China is talking about.

Speaker 2 Okay,

Speaker 2 here's the show.

Speaker 4 Well, now I know what I'm Googling after this podcast is over.

Speaker 5 My son was telling me about this movie and the push actually in China to make it the most seen movie of all time. There's a whole PR thing behind that, too.
It's really interesting.

Speaker 4 No, that's fascinating. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast.
I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics.

Speaker 5 I'm Domenico Montanaro, Senior Political Editor and Correspondent.

Speaker 4 And NPR's health correspondent, Maria Godoy, joins us today. Hi, Maria.

Speaker 6 Hi, how are you? I'm good.

Speaker 4 And this is, we should note, your very first time on the politics podcast.

Speaker 4 And we are so happy to have you today because today we're going to talk about measles and how the nation is responding to an ongoing outbreak in West Texas as new cases pop up across across the country.

Speaker 4 Maria, you are a health and science expert. Let's start with a little bit of 101.
Can you just explain what exactly measles is and how infectious it is?

Speaker 6 Yeah, so measles is probably one of the most contagious diseases known to mankind. It's more contagious than Ebola, polio, chickenpox, you know, just about anything you can think of.

Speaker 6 The way I'd like to explain it is like, when you think of how contagious a disease is, like in a vacuum where nobody is vaccinated, for every person who's sick with measles they would go on average to infect 18 other people wow and for context the original strain of the coronavirus you know circa 2020 for every person that was infected with that roughly they went on to infect roughly three others and we all saw how that went so that gives you a like perspective on how you know in the wild uh measles when i say in the wild i mean in an unvaccinated universe how infectious it can be and how exactly does measles spread so it's an airborne uh virus and basically you know, coughing or droplets, et cetera, when you emit those infectious particles, they can hang in the air for up to two hours.

Speaker 6 And that means like if someone is infected with measles, they cough, they leave the room, you come in two hours later, you're not vaccinated, you could catch measles.

Speaker 6 And the other thing is that you can actually be infectious with measles for four days before you get that telltale red rash from measles and up to four days after.

Speaker 6 So you could be going around spreading measles without knowing that you're infected.

Speaker 4 Okay, so there has been this outbreak in West Texas. How many people have been impacted in this community?

Speaker 6 Well, so all told in West Texas, you know, it's in several counties. The epicenter is Gaines County.
Yeah, it's like around 130 cases, but in Texas total, there's about 198 cases.

Speaker 6 And, you know, right over the border in New Mexico, we just had a death and an unvaccinated adult last week. That's the second death in this outbreak.
The first one was an unvaccinated child in Texas.

Speaker 4 I guess one thing I'm curious about here is perspective because it's not the first time there has been a measles outbreak in the country. Put this in that context.
Why is it happening now?

Speaker 4 Is it typical, cyclical, or is something really deviating from the norm?

Speaker 6 We shouldn't be seeing this. The last big outbreak we had in the U.S.

Speaker 6 was in like 2018, 2019 in New York, and that was in an Orthodox Jewish community that was targeted by anti-vaccine messaging for years.

Speaker 6 We saw about 649 cases in that outbreak. But to put it in perspective, in this outbreak, we've seen the first two deaths in the U.S.
since 2015.

Speaker 6 That was the last reported death from measles in the U.S. In the early 2000s, the U.S.
declared measles eliminated, which doesn't mean eradicated.

Speaker 6 It means we're not seeing ongoing transmission for a year. So that was a big win.
To be seeing sizable outbreaks, what's really changed is that we're seeing vaccination rates drop.

Speaker 6 And that's been happening for years, but it's a trend that accelerated during the COVID pandemic.

Speaker 4 Yeah I mean Dominico books can be written about the ways in which the pandemic has left a lasting effect on American culture and society and politics but it certainly seems like heightened vaccine hesitation is one of those problems.

Speaker 5 It absolutely is.

Speaker 5 And you know NIH kind of looked into this National Institutes of Health a little bit on the public opinion side on this and you know Maria mentioned in one of the religious communities in some religious communities it's as low as 12% of people who are vaccinated vaccinated, and you could go higher than 90% among medical center employees or healthcare workers.

Speaker 5 Hesitancy, they found, was worst among younger adults, those with lower education, lower income.

Speaker 5 You know, so financial insecurity, they said, and limited access to reliable health information, and those who believe in alternative forms of immunity or different kinds of treatments were also less likely to want to be vaccinated.

Speaker 5 And there's always been vaccine hesitancy, but it really spread during the pandemic. And we're seeing the effects of this now with all kinds of vaccines.

Speaker 5 And it's really troubling when you have something like measles, which can spread so quickly.

Speaker 6 You know, I cover children's health is one of the topics I cover. And I've been talking to pediatricians for, you know, the last year who've been worried about these trends you're seeing.

Speaker 6 And it really was something that's been happening for years, but it accelerated during COVID because

Speaker 6 we saw how much the COVID vaccine was politicized. It was almost like a political litmus litmus test, right? If you got the vaccine or not for a lot of people.

Speaker 6 And that sort of hesitancy about the COVID vaccine, pediatricians say, has like spilled over into general vaccine hesitancy among like the regularly scheduled immunizations the kids have.

Speaker 6 And so we've seen nationally vaccination rates dropping slowly. And in some places, they're really low.

Speaker 5 And it can be really dangerous when you have public officials then giving mixed messages about this.

Speaker 4 Yeah, Marie, I wanted to ask you about that because obviously this is now happening at a time when President Trump is in office, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F.

Speaker 4 Kennedy Jr., these are two men that have, I would say, at a minimum been tolerant of vaccine skeptical views. RFK Jr.
has a well-documented history of sort of giving credence to some of those views.

Speaker 4 So how is the administration responding in real time to this latest public health crisis?

Speaker 6 RFK Jr.

Speaker 6 made headlines last week because he published an editorial in Fox News that was later posted on the Health and Human Services website in which he was addressing this measles outbreak and he did say that vaccines were an important tool.

Speaker 6 You know, he said that people who are unvaccinated are more vulnerable to measles, but he didn't outright say go get vaccinated.

Speaker 6 He called vaccination a personal choice and he said people should be given all the facts on vaccines.

Speaker 6 And he did say that the best defense against chronic disease and infectious disease is good nutrition, which is interesting because the public health message historically, when you're talking about measles specifically, is the best defense against measles is vaccination.

Speaker 6 The other thing that was interesting is in comments both in that editorial and later in an interview with Fox News, Kennedy basically spent a lot of time talking about the role of things like vitamin A to treat measles.

Speaker 6 And vitamin A does have a role in measles prevention.

Speaker 6 There are studies done in lower and middle income countries that show when you have kids who have vitamin deficiencies and vitamin A deficiencies and you give them vitamin A, it does help reduce the risk of death and severe disease.

Speaker 6 There is some evidence that even in the absence of vitamin A deficiency, measles seems to deplete your vitamin A stores.

Speaker 6 So the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics both do recommend vitamin A supplementation for kids with measles, but that's not the same as preventing measles.

Speaker 6 And it's very important to say that vitamin A can absolutely not prevent measles.

Speaker 6 And the concern is that some parents may be giving their kids vitamin A routinely long term to help protect against measles, which of course it can't.

Speaker 6 But that could actually do damage because vitamin A builds up in the body and it can be toxic to the liver.

Speaker 4 Okay, we need to take a quick break, but more on this when we get back.

Speaker 7 This message comes from Bayer. Science is a rigorous process that requires questions, testing, transparency, and results that can be proven again and again.

Speaker 7 It's the approach that mapped the human genome, advancing advancing therapies for chronic diseases. It transformed farming to help feed billions of people.

Speaker 7 It produces countless innovations that improve lives worldwide. This approach is integral to every breakthrough Bayer brings forward.

Speaker 7 Innovations that save lives and feed the world because the future depends on it. More at sciencedelivers.com.

Speaker 2 This message comes from Mint Mobile. At Mint Mobile, their favorite word is no.
No contracts, no monthly bills, no hidden fees. Plans start at $15 a month.

Speaker 2 Make the switch at mintmobile.com/slash switch. That's mintmobile.com/slash switch.
Upfront payment of $45 for three months 5 gigabyte plan required. Equivalent to $15 a month.

Speaker 2 New customer offer for first three months only. Then full price plan options available.
Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details.

Speaker 7 This message comes from Mint Mobile. Starting at $15 a month, make the switch at mintmobile.com slash switch.
$45 upfront payment for three months. 5GB gigabyte plan equivalent to $15 a month.

Speaker 7 Taxes and fees extra. First three months only.
See terms.

Speaker 2 This message comes from Wealthfront. It's time your hard-earned money works harder for you.

Speaker 2 With WealthFront's cash account, you earn a competitive APY on your cash from program banks higher than the average savings rate with free, instant withdrawals to eligible accounts.

Speaker 2 Go to WealthFront.com. Cash account offered by Wealthfront Brokerage LLC, member FINRA SIPC, not a bank.
Funds are swept to program banks where they earn the variable annual percentage yield.

Speaker 4 And we're back. And Maria, can you talk more about the measles vaccine? It's obviously been around for a very long time and it's pretty effective.

Speaker 6 It's highly effective. One dose of the measles vaccine is 93% effective, and that means that 93% of people who get it will have an immune response after that first dose.
Two doses is 97% effective.

Speaker 6 It's very safe. It's been tested again and again.
It's your best defense against getting the measles.

Speaker 4 And like right now, because I imagine that there might be some parents or individuals who don't know if they're vaccinated or like, oh man, I should go get a measles vaccine.

Speaker 4 It's pretty easy to get and effective pretty quickly.

Speaker 6 Yes. Okay.
So most of us will have gotten a measles vaccine because it's required for like, you know, kindergarten enrollment.

Speaker 6 There are ways to get exemptions, but if you're not sure about your vaccination status, you can look up your records, talk to your doctor.

Speaker 6 But if you really are not sure if you've been immunized, yeah, there's no harm in getting another measles shot.

Speaker 6 At worst, it won't do anything. And at best, it'll protect you if you weren't protected previously.

Speaker 6 One of the things I should note is that people who got vaccinated before 1968 may have gotten a weaker version of the vaccine. So they should get revaccinated.

Speaker 6 If they haven't been already, they probably have been.

Speaker 6 And people

Speaker 6 who were vaccinated before 1989, routinely, the recommendation back then was one dose, which is pretty effective.

Speaker 6 But certainly if you work in healthcare or you're heading to a place that has a measles outbreak or you live there, you want a second dose then if you haven't gotten one already.

Speaker 4 Do you want to go the politics of this, because this is a politics podcast, but it's also, as I sit here thinking about it, it's not lost on me that a very large and maybe the singularly most important contributing factor to Donald Trump's loss in 2020 was the public confidence in his ability to handle the COVID pandemic.

Speaker 4 And this, of course, is not that, but I do think that so much has changed both politically about what the public is willing to tolerate in these public health crises and also a bit of forgiveness towards Trump in the electorate this time around.

Speaker 5 And I have to say, one of the interesting things I kept finding when I talked to undecided voters, I heard from

Speaker 2 several people who were

Speaker 5 certainly in that category of potentially wanting to vote for Trump, but didn't like that he was pro-vaccine, they said. And there's really seemingly no convincing folks like that.

Speaker 5 And we saw that sort of bubble up even

Speaker 5 this past week with the Trump's NIH nominee,

Speaker 5 who then was testifying and got into this back and forth with Senator Bill Cassidy from Louisiana, who's a doctor.

Speaker 5 And they were talking about whether the MMR vaccine, the measles, mumps, rumbella vaccine, can cause autism.

Speaker 4 So here's a bit of that exchange between Senator Cassidy and the Trump administration's nominee to run the National Institutes of Health, Jay Bhattacharya.

Speaker 8 Yeah, I mean, I think, as I said, Senator, I don't think that there's a link

Speaker 8 between the MMR vaccine and autism. I'm convinced based on that literature.

Speaker 8 The only reason I'm not wholeheartedly saying yes to your question, which

Speaker 8 every instinct of mine is to do that, is that there are people who might disagree with me.

Speaker 2 I want to make sure that you're not. But that's life.

Speaker 9 I mean, there's people who disagree that the world is round.

Speaker 9 And I say that not to to minimize these concerns, but

Speaker 9 people still think Elvis is alive.

Speaker 9 And so if you just say someone disagrees with me, so therefore I'm going to put precious, limited taxpayer dollars to this and not to addressing issues of obesity, heart disease, cancer.

Speaker 5 I mean, this is what's happened with the misinformation and disinformation that really sprung up during the pandemic. It certainly hurt Trump during

Speaker 5 the pandemic and into 2020 about his competence in dealing with this, but then the entire sort of blogosphere, internet

Speaker 5 strain of people who are the do your own research crowd and saying that these are things that could be problems

Speaker 5 are a big portion of the people who voted for Donald Trump.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Maria, I hesitate to put the big burden on you, but I do think you're the one watching this closely.

Speaker 4 What are you watching for next? I mean, is the concern that this could spread? What's the response to it? Sort of, what's the next turn here?

Speaker 6 So here's the thing. You want to have a really robust response, right? Like the way you contain a measles outbreak is you vaccinate people who are unvaccinated.

Speaker 6 In terms of how big this could get, the infectious disease modelers I've spoken to say, you know, given that the nation as a whole has high vaccination rates, we wouldn't expect to see this go into the like, you know, thousands of cases like we saw measles outbreaks in the past, like in the 1990s, I think it was like 1,400 cases or so in Philadelphia.

Speaker 6 But that said, if vaccination rates continue to decline like they have been, we could see that again in five to ten years.

Speaker 4 Well, Maria, thank you so much for coming on the podcast for the first time and for sharing all of your reporting with us. We really appreciate it.

Speaker 6 Oh, it's my pleasure.

Speaker 4 That is it for us today. I'm Susan Davis.
I cover politics.

Speaker 5 I'm Domenico Montanero, Senior Political Editor and Corresponder.

Speaker 4 And thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.

Upfront payment of $45 for 3-month 5GB plan required. Equivalent to $15 a month.

Speaker 2 Support for this podcast and the following message come from Lisa. Lisa has a lineup of beautifully crafted mattresses tailored to how you sleep.

Speaker 2 Each mattress is meticulously designed and assembled in the USA and designed with specific sleep positions and feel preferences in mind.

Speaker 2 Visit Lisa.com for 25% off, plus get an extra $50 off with promo code NPR. That's L-E-E-S-A.com, promo code NPR.

Upfront payment of $45 for 3-month 5-gigabyte plan required. Equivalent to $15 a month.