Yet another unintended consequence of our errancy, our profound stupidity

I had the measles when I was 4 or 5. It was during the summer, I remember that. And my sister Kath, who would have been 6 or 7, had it at the same time. We spent the course of our illness in the double bed that we shared at the time. (A couple of years later, we graduated to twin beds.) Our bedroom was darkened for the duration, as at that point in time (1950's) it was believed that keeping light to a minimum lessened the likelihood of vision problems, or even blindness, associated with having had the measles. Most kids did get measles, and most kids didn't die from it. But hundreds of measles death a year were recorded during the 1950's. It wasn't a death warrant, like leukemia. And it wasn't as terrible as polio. But kids did die. 

I don't know if my brother Tom, who would have been 2 or 3 at the time, ever had measles. He doesn't know, either. But given how contagious measles is, and how we were living in fairly close quarters in a flat in my grandmother's three decker, he probably did.  

There was no cure for measles. Treatment consisted of isolation and bedrest. Maybe calamine lotion or cool compresses? St. Joseph's Baby Aspirin for fever? I don't think our family was quarantined when we had measles, as we were a few years later when we all got chicken pox. (My father could go out to work, but that was about it.) 

Measles vaccine became aailable in the early 1960's, so the younger kiddos in my family likely dodged that particular childhood illness bullet. Trish knows for certain that she never had measles; Rick isn't sure. 

Thanks to that measles vaccine, this disease was, by the year 2000, pretty much eradicated in the United States. 

But that was then and this is now, and the now is that more people are refusing to get their children vaccinated. And the now is that more kids are getting the measles. And the now is that some of those children are dying. Not many, but some. And some seems like an awful lot, given that the disease was once considered eradicated in this country. 

In the before times, as I noted, there was no particular treatment, let alone a cure. Measles ran its course. And then, thanks to the vaccine, measles ran out of steam. So there was absolutely no impetus to develop any treatment for it. In the before times, I have no idea whether - when millions of kids were suffering through house arrest in darkened rooms; or like the quarantined kiddos in the 1943 ad, were just stuck inside, not able to go out an play in their Red Goose shoes - there were pharma companies researching measles treatment. Everyone was more laissez faire back then when it came to things like childhood disease. 

But that was then and this is now. And the current regime's antipathy to vaccines means that there's an opportunity to work on treatment. So:

...as vaccination rates fall and infections rise, scientists are racing to develop drugs they say could prevent or treat the disease in vulnerable and unvaccinated people...

Scientists across the country including at biotechs Invivyd and Saravir Biopharma—and institutions such as Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Georgia State University—are in the early stages of measles-treatment development. The drugs are still a ways from becoming available to patients but could offer alternatives to people who are immunocompromised, don’t respond to the measles vaccine or are vaccine skeptics. Antibody treatments could treat someone who is sick or help prevent measles in people recently exposed to the virus. (Source: Wall Street Journal)

So if I've got this straight, because there are vaccine skeptics who for some reason believe that vaccines do more harm than good, because lunatics like RFK Jr. are in charge of our healthcare system, and when we're at a time when all sorts of research grants are drying up, pharma companies and academic institutions are investing in research on treatment for a disease that was already eradicated. Rather than investing in research for maladies - like, say, all forms of childhood cancer - for which there is no known prevention and cure.

Swell, just swell...

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