'I Feel Like I've Been Lied To': When a Measles Outbreak Hits Home

[Demovictory9]

‘I Feel Like I’ve Been Lied To’: When a Measles Outbreak Hits Home
From a lone clinic in Texas to an entire school district in North Dakota, the virus is upending daily life and revealing a deeper crisis of belief.


__________.



It wasn’t until early this spring that he started to notice something unfamiliar coming through the door: aches that lingered, fevers that wouldn’t break, discolored patches of skin that didn’t make sense. At first, he blamed it on a bad flu season, but the symptoms stuck around and then multiplied. By late March, a third of his patients were telling him about relatives who couldn’t breathe. And then Kiley started coughing, too.

His wife, Carrollyn, had recently tested positive for Covid, but her symptoms eased as Kiley’s intensified. He went to a doctor at the beginning of April for a viral panel, but every result came back negative. The doctor decided to test for the remote possibility of measles, since there was a large outbreak spreading through a Mennonite community 40 miles away, but Kiley was vaccinated.

“I feel like I’m dying,” Kiley texted a friend. He couldn’t hold down food or water. He had already lost 10 pounds. His chest went numb, and his arms began to tingle. His oxygen was dropping dangerously low when he finally got the results.


“Positive for measles,” he wrote to his sister, in mid-April. “Just miserable. I can’t believe this.”

Twenty-five years after measles was officially declared eliminated from the United States, this spring marked a harrowing time of rediscovery.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/22/us/i-feel-like-ive-been-lied-to-when-a-measles-outbreak-hits-home.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Q08.pfl-.2OaTHzJx6-zR&smid=url-share

[lindysalsagal]

1. Bbbbbuuuuuut their jeasas was supposed to be their vaccination!!!

Welcome to the 15th century, fools. Have a reighteous time.

[Heidi]

2. Kick!

[RockRaven]

3. Get a mirror. Look into it. There is the liar. That's who has been lying to you the most.

[Baitball Blogger]

4. So the virus has changed and our

Old vaccinations won’t work?

[ProfessorGAC]

6. Perhaps, But...

...it may be viral load.
When nearly everyone is vaxxed, the level of exposure would be exceedingly low.
The old vaccinations may still be giving sufficient immunity.
But, when vax rates drop, more people get it, and more virus gets spread. Now, the viral load may be in excess of any residual from once having measles, or getting the vax 30 years ago.
I'm just speculating, but there's at least logic in there.

[hlthe2b]

9. Even the best vaccines can be overwhelmed by too many people carrying active virus...too much exposure

Two doses of MMR in childhood is considered 97% effective; one dose is 93% effective. However, immunity DOES wane with time and for those with heavy exposure--including travel and work in health care, a booster dose as frequently as every 15 years may be necessary. And even 3-6% receiving who do not mount a fully protective immune response is a lot if there is significant virus circulating--especially given this is the most infectious virus we deal with.

Then there is the specific case for a subset of older people born before 1963 who may have had inadequate immunity if they received two doses of INACTIVATED vaccine, rather than modified live virus as used subsequently (and which the jackass, RFK JR wants to pull, despite his endlessly and intensively discounted claims of an association with autism).

"Cold chain"/ Storing/Holding Temperatures:
While most facilities, clinics, and hospitals take great pains to ensure that they store and hold vaccines at the proper temperatures, this may increasingly need to be looked at. Merck's NEW MMR-II vaccine has more flexible storage temps after reconstitution (i.e., powdered product added to diluent sterile liquid) and can be refrigerated (36-46F) OUT OF LIGHT for up to 8 hours, but not frozen. The problem comes when it sits out at room temperature after reconstituting for hours in direct light--something not all that uncommonly seen at busy clinics.

Other brands of MMR vaccines have even stricter handling and storage requirements.

For all those reasons, it is possible that some of the "breakthrough infections" in seemingly fully vaccinated people, especially children, may be from a partially inactive vaccine resulting from handling and storage issues. One would hope this is a rare phenomenon, but not one I'm aware of receiving recent investigation.

[ProfessorGAC]

10. Good Points

Was pretty sure that was the case, but not certain.

[yardwork]

11. I'm one of those born before 1963 who got the iffy vaccine.

My graduate school required me to be vaccinated again against measles before I could enroll. I'm very grateful for that.

[Demovictory9]

5. More: national vaccination rates for children have fallen below 80 in some parts of TX

Measles stops spreading when 95 percent of a community is immune, but national vaccination rates for children have fallen to less than 92 percent. In parts of West Texas, they’ve dropped below 80.

[tanyev]

7. And yet after all his (unvaccinated) kids got so sick they all went to the hospital,

then recovered enough to go home, he scheduled a follow up appointment with the antivax doc who’s been treating everyone with cod liver oil.


I read the whole article, but it feels unfinished. It moves from Kiley & family on to the antivax doc and then on to a school nurse in North Dakota. No follow up with Kiley on whether he changed his mind on vaccinations.

Is it maybe part one of a series of articles?

[CrispyQ]

8. TY for the gift link.

I read stories like this & think I'll probably never go out in public w/o a mask again. There are a couple of employees at the grocery store I shop at who wear masks but I hardly ever see a customer with a mask. The other day I stood in the crowded front end & three people near me were coughing/sneezing. A friend went on vacation & came home with pneumonia. She could hardly breath & went to the ER & it's taken her three more weeks to feel decent again.

If I were an alien species trying to kill off humanity I'd probably use a respiratory virus/infection, too. What an unexpected bonus that we've politicized mask wearing. 👽

[yardwork]

12. Viruses are very bad, sneaky things.

It's jaw-droppingly stupid of us to be politicizing vaccines. It's one thing I really never expected to see.

[Ms. Toad]

13. Nope. You choose to find someone to listen to

Who was saying what you wanted to hear.

Note: I selectively vaccinate due to autoimmune issues. My choices are made based on both personal (inclusion of adjuvants in the vaccine, live v. attenuated virus, personal disease associated risks) and community choices (how contagious the disease is, risk to community, effectiveness of the vaccine). So I'm not one to say everyone should take every vaccine available without making an informed choice.

But there are diseases which are so debilitating both personally and to the community that I can't even think of a responsible reason (other than age restriction, or a medical condition which makes the vaccination riskier than the disease). Measles, COVID, and polio fall in that category.

And even if I decide not to get a vaccination, I would never dream of blaming the consequences of my choice on someone lying to me.