May 31, 2014
Coverage of the CDC report of 288 confirmed cases of measles in the US this year received almost universal coverage with nearly all sources quoting the CDC’s Dr. Anne Schuchat urging people to get vaccinated. ABC World News (5/29, lead story, 3:10, Sawyer) reported, “An old enemy is back: the CDC has issued an urgent new warning about measles,” adding, “remember, this is a virus that can take lives.” Dr. Richard Besser, former acting director of the CDC and ABC’s Chief Medical Editor, added, “Measles is wildly infectious,” and the number of cases this year is “the most since the virus was eliminated in the US back in 2000.” Besser pointed out that the Amish in Ohio and an area in San Diego both are home to unvaccinated residents, who acquired measles while traveling abroad. Besser added: “I just talked to the CDC and they’re very concerned about this.”
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CDC warns people to get measles vaccine
Nearly Half Of US Reporting Widespread Flu
January 6, 2014
Reuters (1/4, Lopes) reported that on Friday, the CDC said widespread influenza activity is being reported by nearly half of the United States, with most cases being attributed to the H1N1 virus. Dr. Joe Bresee, chief of Epidemiology and Prevention in the CDC’s Influenza Division, commented, “We are seeing a big uptick in disease in the past couple of weeks. The virus is all around the United States right now.”
ABC World News (1/3, story 6, 1:15, Sawyer) on Friday reported that “the flu is now hitting hard and spreading fast.” NBC Nightly News (1/3, story 4, 2:25, Williams) also reported this story in its Friday broadcast.
The AP (1/6) reports from Portland, Oregon that the state “is seeing a spike in flu hospitalizations and other signs that this year’s flu season may be more aggressive than the last few years.” Oregon Health Authority spokesman Jonathan Modie urged, “It’s not too late to get vaccinated. That’s the big message.”
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CDC: US facing uptick in measles
December 6, 2013
USA Today (12/6, Szabo) reports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has announced the US faces a spike in measles, with nine outbreaks and 175 confirmed cases to date in 2013, which roughly triples the yearly average, according to Director Thomas Frieden, MD. He added, “This isn’t the failure of a vaccine; it’s the failure to vaccinate,” as over 98% of patients failed to receive vaccinations. The paper notes that, while the disease has been virtually eliminated throughout the West, the US still sees an average of 60 “imported” cases each year, primarily among visitors from abroad. The article also attributes the spike to parents who refuse vaccinations, however, acknowledging that many of them live in the same communities.
Reuters (12/6, Beasley) reports the CDC acknowledges at least 172 of this year’s 175 US cases involved patients infected overseas or who caught the disease from somebody who traveled internationally, while the sources of the other three infections are yet to be determined.
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CDC: Influenza may be fatal even in healthy kids
October 28, 2013
USA Today (10/28, Hellmich, 5.82M) reports that, according to research to appear in the November issue of the journal Pediatrics, influenza “can be fatal to children, even healthy kids who don’t have other medical conditions.” Investigators at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention discovered that “830 kids died from flu-related complications between October 2004 and September 2012, and most of those children had not gotten a flu vaccine.” According to CDC Director Tom Frieden, MD, “All too often, people dismiss flu as a mild illness, but every year, children, including healthy children, die from flu.”
