Ava Chiang
1/30/19
Biology 10H
Current Event #1
Chodosh, Sara. “1 In 4 Kindergartners Aren't Fully Vaccinated in County with Measles Outbreak.” Popular Science, Bonnier Corporation, 29 Jan. 2019, www.popsci.com/measles-outbreak-vaccination.
For current event 1 I read an article named “1 in 4 kindergarteners aren’t fully vaccinated in county with measles outbreak” by Sara Chodosh. I chose to read this article because I’ve always been interested in social events and anti-vaccination movements is an highly controversial topic. In this article, Chodosh described the circumstances that led the governor of Washington to declare a state of emergency after an outbreak of measles in Clark and King counties. Measles is “one of the most highly contagious disease” and “a prime candidate for causing outbreaks.” It requires at least 95 percent of a population “to be immunized for herd immunity to work against measles.” Therefore, it shouldn’t be a surprise that “only 76.5 percent of Clark County’s kindergarteners had completed vaccinations in the last school year.” Currently, there are 36 cases with 11 more potential victims waiting for confirmation. Among the 36 cases, 35 are children under 18 years old. This is another alarming aspect of measles, people such as newborns or “individuals with deficient immune systems” who are unable to get immunized are at an increased risk of contracting the disease. The tragedy of this situation is that the United States had once eradicated measles from this country. Other than “a small number of Americans [who] contracted the disease by traveling abroad” and those who came into contact with them, there were no cases of measles in the United States. This was until anti-vaccination movements ruined the streak. Studies have found that in states that allow exemptions from vaccinations based on personal belief, there is “an upward trajectory” in numbers of these exemptions with Washington state and Texas being “hotspots of low vaccination coverage” among the 18 states that allow exemptions. The article concludes by warning people who live near Clark County or have recently visited to get the MMR vaccine (measles, mumps, rubella) to avoid contracting the disease and reassured people that most cases so far had been unvaccinated children.
This article describes the effect of unvaccinated children on society and the potential disaster it could cause. Measles was an disease that could’ve been completely eliminated from society but due to the selfish decisions of certain people, countless families are at risk of contracting a dangerous disease. Among these people are innocent newborns and people who are unable to be vaccinated; they don’t have a choice but those who do chose to throw their’s away based on faulty science. On the other hand, the statistics given in this article shows in-depth research and proves the connection between anti-vaccination movements and outbreaks of disease.
This article acts like a summary to help people that don’t know about the measle outbreak understand the situation quickly. Its concise and has a fast pace without being repetitive of ideas. The flow of topics was smooth and her arguments and ideas were backed with statistics. However, there are a few typos that show the author’s hastiness; for example “Texas is one of the worth offenders.” I feel like small mistakes like this don’t affect the flow of the article but it does damage the credibility of authors. Other than small mistakes like this there is nothing majorly wrong with this article, however, i would’ve preferred the author to give a little background about anti-vaccination movements. I believe that it would better clarify the situation.