This is the second part of a story on the cost of measles. Read the first part, "Measles Outbreaks Cost Taxpayers Millions."
One way to save money, time and suffering caused by outbreaks of measles and other preventable, contagious diseases, such as whooping cough, is to vaccinate. A dose costs $20 to $60 and is usually covered by insurance. Those without insurance can find free and low-cost vaccines at federally qualified health centers.
“Usually cost is not typically a barrier for the measles vaccine; and yes, [vaccinations are] considerably less expensive than having to be out of work for three weeks while your child is ruled out for measles and in quarantine,” said the RAND Corporation's Courtney Gidengil, MD, a physician who also practices at Boston Children’s Hospital in pediatric infectious diseases and has an affiliation with Harvard Medical School. “I can understand the level of frustration that would result when your child is already battling cancer and then have to worry about getting measles, which could actually kill a child who has cancer on top of that. It's a much more serious condition for kids that are infants who can't be immunized, or kids whose immune systems don't work normally, like kids who have cancer.”
One reason the epidemic of measles, whooping cough and other contagious diseases is growing is because some parents are skeptical of the science and don’t have a clear understanding about the safety of vaccines. Those parents file personal belief exemptions in the schools—and some state and local boards are cracking down on what constitutes an exemption besides medical need.
Mississippi has the one of the highest rates of the MMR (mumps, measles, rubella) vaccination; that state also has a tight exemption policy. Exemption policies are inconsistent, set by each state and sometimes by local school boards, creating a tension between what is federally recommended and what the local school does. “There have been a number of studies that show that the tighter the exemption policy, the less likely people are going to get exemptions , which increases the number of vaccinated children,” Gidengil says. That helps strengthen the "herd immunity," which protects those who medically cannot tolerate an immunization.
Ironically, the areas typically with lower vaccination rates are those with higher incomes. “I think people that are affluent may also tend to have much higher levels of education and are more likely to go onto the internet and seek out information before they make health decisions, which is great,” Gidengil says, “It's good to have informed parents and have discussions, but sometimes, and particularly I think in the case of vaccines, there's so much misinformation on the internet that it's very difficult, even for someone who is highly educated, if they're not educated in the health field to really sift through what is evidence based and what isn't . It's scary to think of doing something actively to your child that could harm them.”
A 2014 vaccine safety study in Pediatrics reported a few adverse affects with vaccines, notably, ferbile seizures. “Fortunately, the adverse events identified by the authors were rare and in most cases would be expected to resolve completely after the acute event. This contrasts starkly with the natural infections that vaccines are designed to prevent, which may reduce the quality of life through permanent morbidities, such as blindness, deafness, developmental delay, epilepsy, or paralysis and may also result in death,” the report states.
The other problem is that this generation of parents to young kids hasn’t seen the diseases up close, because it was essentially eradicated by herd immunity of vaccines for a generation. “Most of us have never seen this disease and we don't think of measles as being very dangerous, although in fact a certain number of kids will die or develop severe encephalitis from it ,” Gidengil says.
“I can't emphasize enough getting the vaccine is really the best thing that you can do for your children and for those that can't be protected.”
Read the first part of this story, "Measles Outbreaks Cost Taxpayers Millions."