WE NEED TO LEARN FROM WHAT’S HAPPENING
NOW SO THAT WE CAN PREVENT SIMILAR THINGS FROM HAPPENING IN THE FUTURE.
the difficulty with this bill: It takes some time to explain the issues. It is not a bill that lends itself easily to be explained in headlines.” Dr. Adams says it’s appropriate to
make immunization statistics avail- able to parents “maybe only in total numbers.” He says taking the size of a school district into account would be appropriate in determining what level of data to report. Dr. Swanson says district-level data
with more than 120 cases of the disease. Lone Star State physicians say they believe or hope an out- break of the mumps that started in Johnson County late last year might give lawmakers some added fuel for more granular immunization data. CDC says two doses of the MMR
vaccine are about 88 percent effec- tive at preventing mumps, while one dose is about 78 percent ef- fective. But several outbreaks of mumps brought cases of the dis- ease to levels not seen in the United States in 10 years. By Dec. 31, 2016, CDC had accounted for more than 5,300 cases of mumps nationwide, more than three times as many as CDC recorded the previous year and the most since 2006. Texas was one of eight states that had report- ed more than 100 cases. As of Jan. 31, the Johnson Coun-
ty mumps outbreak included 88 confi rmed cases, 70 probable cases, and three suspected cases, said El- vin Adams, MD, Johnson County’s health authority. Local offi cials be- lieved they had traced the outbreak to students from the town of Keene who had visited family in Arkansas, where offi cials were dealing with another outbreak. Dr. Adams said about 95 percent
of the Johnson County mumps cas- es thus far were people who had received two doses of the mumps vaccine. Noting the 88-percent protection rate for two MMR doses still leaves 12 percent of people sus- ceptible to mumps, Dr. Adams also said it was important to examine
30 TEXAS MEDICINE March 2017
what percentage of students and adults exposed to mumps in John- son County didn’t get the disease. “Here, the number is very close to
95 percent again, which is a little bit high because we might have expect- ed that only 88 percent of the class- room would be protected,” he said. That success rate shows the
MMR shot “is a highly effective vaccine, and the fact that a signifi - cant number of the students who got mumps in fact had two doses of vaccine shouldn’t detract from the fact that it is a very effective vac- cine,” Dr. Adams said. Dr. Swanson says the mumps
outbreak is “a good learning expe- rience because it isn’t one of the deadly diseases.”
ANOTHER LEGISLATIVE PUSH If Texas did begin reporting immu- nization data at the campus level, it wouldn’t be the fi rst state to do so. Minnesota, California, and Wash- ington, among others, already do it. But another legislative effort to do it in Texas will require backers to deal with passionate views among the public and nuance that Repre- sentative Sheffi eld says serves as a complication. “The different sides on this is-
sue are very well-entrenched, so there’s almost a knee-jerk reaction when you start to talk about this that there won’t be any compro- mise or attempt to see the other point of view here,” Representative Sheffi eld said. “And that ties into
may mislead parents about the risk a child is facing. “If one school in a large district had
a 50-percent immunization rate and all the other schools had a 95-percent immunization rate, the district might look like it’s in the upper 80s, so you might not realize you have this one school within the district [with a low rate],” she said. Dr. Terk says by supporting the availability of more information he’s not suggesting privacy and personal liberty aren’t important values. But he says there’s a need to strike a balance between upholding principles of pub- lic health and personal liberty. “We need to learn from what’s hap-
pening now,” Dr. Terk said, “so that we can prevent similar things from hap- pening in the future and prevent need- less suffering and potential death.”
Be Wise — Immunize is a joint initia- tive led by TMA physicians, medical students, and the TMA Alliance. It is funded by the TMA Foundation thanks to major gifts from H-E-B and TMF Health Quality Institute, along with generous contributions from physicians and their families. n
All articles in Texas Medicine that mention Texas Medical Association’s stance on state legislation are defined as “legislative advertising,” accord- ing to Texas Govt. Code Ann. §305.027. That law requires disclosure of the name and address of the person who contracts with the printer to pub- lish the legislative advertising in Texas Medicine: Louis J. Goodman, PhD, Executive Vice President, TMA, 401 W. 15th St., Austin, TX 78701.
Joey Berlin is associate editor for Texas Medicine. You can reach him by phone at (800) 880-1300, ext. 1393, or (512) 370-1393; by fax at (512) 370- 1629; or by email at
joey.berlin@
texmed.org.
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