Rubella has been eliminated from Americas...

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Today it is a official, the disease formally known as Rubella has been wiped out from the Americas.


[url]Rubella, a disease with terrible consequences for unborn children, has finally been eliminated from the Americas, a scientific panel set up by global health authorities announced on Wednesday.

The disease, also known as German measles, once infected millions of people in the Western Hemisphere. In a 1964-65 outbreak in the United States, 11,000 fetuses were miscarried, died in the womb or were therapeutically aborted, and 20,000 babies were born with defects.

Some regions are still not close enough to set firm target dates, so there is no chance that the disease will be eliminated worldwide before 2020, said Dr. Susan E. Reef, team lead for rubella at the C.D.C.’s global immunization division, who joined in the announcement.

Around the world, about 120,000 children are born each year with severe birth defects attributed to rubella.

Two other diseases were first eliminated in the Americas: smallpox in 1971, and polio in 1994. Smallpox is now eliminated worldwide. Polio is nearly gone, but has clung on stubbornly for decades — almost all remaining cases originate in Pakistan.

As with measles, there is no cure for rubella, but the disease is prevented by a very effective vaccine. In the United States, the shot usually contains three vaccines and is known as M.M.R., for measles, mumps and rubella.

Measles cases in the United States have surged recently because some parents who believe that the measles vaccine causes autism do not let their children receive the shot.

Endemic measles was eliminated from the hemisphere in 2002, but imported cases can surge in pockets of unvaccinated children, as happened last year in an outbreak that began at Disneyland in California.

Rubella is less contagious than measles, and the vaccine for it is somewhat more effective, so the rare imported cases have not spread as rapidly.

The Americas region is the first World Health Organization region to eliminate rubella. The European region — which includes Eastern Europe, Russia and Central Asia — hopes to follow next.http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/30/healt ... times&_r=0[/url]

Is this news worth celebrating or is it leftist propaganda to force vaccines on the public?

Sure, celebrate it. Doesn't this prove that coercing vaccines is unnecessary? The recent measles outbreak was a lot fear-mongering and hype for an outbreak that only effected a couple dozen with no serious complications.

Rubella is a mild disease in people from late infancy and beyond.

HOWEVER.....it causes SERIOUS birth defects.

I don't card about "vaccine propaganda" or whatever.

Rubella is a suitable disease to be eradicated.

I had it as a kid

Correlation so it must be the cause of my autism. I have got to peddle my story to the "Age of Autism". Um, they won't accept my story because they keep on asking "Where a all the 50 something's that have Autism" . Darn

It's bad because I have a personal vendetta against each and every American taxpayer and am thus opposed to anything which improves or does not worsen their lot in life.