In Southern California, Disneyland officials have been working to make it clear that their popular park is safe to visit. When California state health officials traced the possible source of the recent measles outbreak that included some 100 cases, they found that some of those infected had visited the park. Six were employees.
Disney’s message has been to reassure the public that the outbreak could have occurred anywhere, and for those who are vaccinated, there is no reason to stay away, according to news reports.
Unlike Ebola, in the headlines last fall, measles can travel airborne and is highly contagious. Vaccine is the defense.
Disney’s concerns represent an economic reason to embrace vaccinations.
Americans are showing signs of being in a period of distrust of science. That the planet is warming with mankind’s assistance is rejected by many.
Some of the distrust is for good reason. The current season’s flu vaccine is only about 30 percent effective. Flu sources can take different forms, and when the drug companies began the vaccine manufacturing process last year, they estimated incorrectly. Another variety dominated. Again, nature showed that it is in control.
There are also very reasonably theories that endorse the value of “bad” bacteria in the system to ward off illness, that it is possible to be too clean, in a sense, causing an individual to be too vulnerable to some maladies.
In some cases, preventive health-care advocates with the best intentions unwittingly have done this to themselves. After years of emphasizing the importance of universal early and regular female breast exams to detect cancer, professionals have recently argued that exams can begin later, occur less frequently and should come as the result of the appearance of some symptoms. So, too, prostate exams for men. At some point in life, there is no need to deal with a slow-moving prostate cancer.
From a sweeping emphasis on checkups and preventive care for all, medical professionals have stepped back somewhat to a position of more selective testing.
What is a person occupied with so many other issues in life to believe?
The United States has been free of significant outbreaks of disease for decades, perhaps since polio in the 1950s. Effective public health, which has included vaccines, has been a large part of the reason.
No one wants that to change. Perhaps if Disneyland required visitors to show their vaccination record the country would shake off its opposition to childhood vaccinations.
There are better reasons, but the inability to see Mickey might be the most effective.