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Close watch on measles outbreak in Arkansas by health officials

New data in the vaccination debate is raising concern, particularly in Texas, that a Measles outbreak could be on the way.

New data in the vaccination debate is raising concern, particularly in Texas, that a Measles outbreak could be on the way.

Public health officials say conditions there are ripe for a problem. They blame a growing number of people getting exemptions from having their children vaccinated.

“Measles is one of the most contagious childhood conditions and is a risk for fatality,” said Dr. Joe Thompson, the president of the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement and the former state surgeon general under governor Mike Beebe. “We've had control of that for much of the last two decades.”

The Arkansas Department of Health says exemptions for children in grades K-12 has increased each of the last three school years, with 4,962 avoiding shots in 2015-16 to 5,787 at the start of school last year. The majority of the exemptions are for philosophical reasons. That’s a fraction of the 57,000 exemptions in Texas, but Dr. Thompson says it leaves Arkansas with a potential vulnerability.

“Our colleagues in Texas, because of the influx of individuals across the border and other concerns have raised concerns about measles,” Dr. Thompson said. “We in our state do allow for exemptions to vaccinations. Luckily while that number is growing it's still relatively low. But there is the potential for concentrations of exemptions to erode the protections that vaccines give in a single school or in a single community.”

Nationwide, the C.D.C. says 107 people in 21 states and Washington D.C. have measles. That includes one person here in Arkansas.

For now health officials say you should check with your local school district to see how many exemptions there are.

Meanwhile advocates like Dr. Thompson will continue to push back at groups scared off from vaccines by what they hear online.

“There's been a number of reports and misinformation out there about immunizations causing other conditions in children, but every review of the scientific evidence says that immunizations convey far more protection than any risk that has been discussed,” Dr. Thompson said. “Families need to trust their pediatrician and use them as the expert. The Web has many horror stories on it. Most of them are inaccurate and I would use your health professional for accurate, solid advice.”

Thompson says the side effects of vaccinations are usually soreness at the site of the injection and occasionally a low-grade fever. Papers and studies acknowledge that in very rare cases a fever after getting the shot could cause a seizure, but those studies also say that actually getting measles leads to more seizures than the M-M-R shot.

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