Measles threat becomes real

With the number of confirmed measles cases in central Washington's Grant County rising to 15, medical experts say children should be vaccinated to prevent a similar outbreak in South Sound.

"I think it's becoming a real issue," Olympia pediatrician Henry de Give said. "It's no longer a question of out of sight, out of mind."

Once dismissed as a minor red rash and fever, measles is "becoming a real threat," de Give said.

With outbreaks in nine states, Israel, some European countries and now Washington, measles vaccination should be a higher priority, de Give added.

"I think we respect the rights of parents to make informed choices, but we want to make sure they really are informed and not just one-sided," de Give said.

He said there are areas in the state with unvaccinated children because of religious beliefs or because parents are concerned that the vaccines cause health problems, such as autism.

In Grant County, about 200 miles east of Olympia, seven cases were identified during the weekend and eight were reported April 28. All 15 children were unvaccinated. Public health officials there are poised to bar all unvaccinated children from coming to school, according to an alert sent out by the Grant County Health District.

Donn Moyer, state health department spokesman, said epidemiologists in Seattle are studying whether the Kirkland church gathering place where the Grant County measles cases were thought to have originated was contaminated — or if the disease might have come from event attendees from out of the country. The Generation Church Conference, which was March 27-29, attracted attendees from several nations, as well as members of a family from Grant County who contracted measles.

"We're still investigating that situation," he said.

Vaccinated children

As of 2006, 87.5 percent of Washington toddlers and 94.9 percent of kindergartners have had at least one dose of the measles vaccine, said Michele Roberts of the state Department of Health. The national average is 92.3 percent of toddlers and 95.6 percent of kindergartners, she said.

"I think anytime we see activity around a disease that's preventable with vaccine, it's a wake-up call," said Jeanie Knight, communicable disease supervisor for the Thurston County Department of Public Health and Social Services. "The more vaccinated a population is, the less likely we are to see people getting ill."

Children usually get the first dose of vaccine when they're 12 months to 18 months old, followed by the second one between ages 4 and 6.

Vaccines have been in the news lately because of concerns about potential side effects, such as those allegedly caused by a flu vaccine preservative, thimerosal. Thimerosal, which is not in measles vaccines, is the subject of a lawsuit brought this week in federal court on behalf of two 10-year-old Portland boys.

"There was a major Denmark measles study of 537,000 children in 2002," de Give said. "It found no relationship between autism and measles vaccine. I don't think you're going to get a better study than that."

In Switzerland, which has a vaccination rate of 78 percent, more than 2,500 measles cases have occurred since 2006, de Give said. In Israel, there have been 1,000 cases, he said.

Keri Brenner covers Thurston County for The Olympian. She can be reached at 360-754-5435 or kbrenner@theolympian.com.