1 traveler tied to more than half '05 U.S. measles cases

This makes me soooo angry, I feel like the title of this article suggests that this huge outbreak was somehow the fault of this one girl. But even though she should have been vaccinated, she was only responsible for her own infection and maybe any infections she caused in people who were immune suppressed or unable to take the measles vaccine for some other reason, anyone else who could have been vaccinated but chose not to, have only themselves to blame. I don't understand parents who refuse to vaccinate their children for a very real and very serious disease, because of some unproven allegations that there are some mysterious drawbacks to them. Those asshole parents are relying on everyone else to 'risk' getting vaccinated so that their kids can escape vaccinations and being exposed to the disease. I think I'm going to make these yahoos 'Dead to me' because they put their kids at risk of being dead to everyone.
December 21, 2006
ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- The biggest U.S. measles outbreak in a decade -- 34 people stricken in Indiana and Illinois last year -- was traced back to a 17-year-old girl who had traveled to Romania without first getting vaccinated, government health officials said Thursday.

The outbreak accounted for more than half of the 66 measles cases in the United States in 2005. Widespread use of the measles vaccine has dramatically reduced the incidence of the disease over the past four decades; in 2004, there were just 37 cases, the smallest number in nearly 90 years of record-keeping.

The girl unknowingly brought the viral disease back to her home state of Indiana, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. Thirty-two other people in Indiana and one from Illinois became infected. Three people were hospitalized, but no one died.

Only two of the 34 people had been vaccinated against measles.

"The outbreak occurred because measles was imported into a population of children whose parents had chosen not to vaccinate their children because of safety concerns, despite evidence that measles-containing vaccine is safe and effective," the CDC said.

Nearly all of the 32 other U.S. cases in 2005 originated abroad, including 16 involving U.S. residents infected while traveling overseas and seven involving foreigners who were infected before visiting the United States.

In the decade before a vaccine became available in 1963, about 450,000 measles cases and about 450 measles deaths were recorded in the U.S. each year. The disease -- often characterized by a rash that begins on the face and spreads -- can cause ear infections, diarrhea and pneumonia. It kills about one in 1,000 patients, according to the CDC.

The U.S. vaccination rate against measles is now more than 90 percent.