Arizona measles outbreak caused by stupidity, not virus

Measles is an illness for the history books, not the front page of The Arizona Republic. Not the Internet. Yet here we are in 2015 talking about, worrying about, and trying to deal with the spread of an illness that essentially had been eradicated at the end of the last century.

It shouldn't shock us.

It should make us angry.

The self-infected illness of ignorance has brought measles to Arizona by way of California's Disney parks, where local residents were exposed, and now has got the state trying to keep track of 1,000 individuals, among them nearly 200 children, who might have been exposed at a Valley medical center.

There aren't many cases of the illness here yet but state Health Services Director Will Humble seems to believe that number will rise.

He's asking that those who may have been exposed, and who haven't been vaccinated against measles, stay home for 21 days or wear masks in public.

Humble added, "To stay in your house for 21 days is hard. But we need people to follow those recommendations, because all it takes is a quick trip to the Costco before you're ill and, 'bam,' you've just exposed a few hundred people. We're at a real critical juncture with the outbreak."

The critical aspect of the problem is that part about people who have not been vaccinated.

Really?

This is the price we pay for the explosion of modern media. Everyone, even the ill-informed and the fanatical can find a place to speak and an audience to listen to them.

What happened, essentially, was an anti-vaccine movement sprang up after a few celebrity parents, who based their concerns and their decisions on faulty science, convinced a bunch of regular folks that the vaccine called MMR (for measles, mumps and rubella) was linked to autism.

The study suggesting that was debunked.

It didn't matter.

People still refused to have their children vaccinated. And are still refusing to have their children vaccinated. And so diseases we should, essentially, have been done with are making a comeback.

Earlier this week The Arizona Republic published a letter from a woman that should be required reading for parents thinking about not having their children vaccinated.

Her name is Carol Lee. She's from Sun City West.

Her brief letter to the editor reads: "I cannot understand why any parent would decide not to vaccinate their child.

"In the mid-1960s a measles pandemic caught me. I was a school teacher, pregnant and caught the measles from a student. As a result, my beloved son is deaf and had several heart surgeries before he was 10 years old.

"Don't risk a child's life withholding immunizations."

It's that simple, really.

Arizona taxpayers could end up paying a hefty price for dealing with this outbreak. An even heftier price could be paid by the families dealing with the illness, particularly those who already suffer from another illness or disorder that could be exacerbated by exposure to the measles virus.

Scientists worked long and hard to beat measles.

Unfortunately, there is no vaccine for stupidity.