OPINION:
ANALYSIS/OPINION:
IRS employees are processing annual tax returns. TSA workers are protecting airline passengers. Members of the military, federal law enforcers and other first responders are manning their posts. Health professionals are on edge, sounding alarms about measles “hot spots.”
The measles outbreaks in Washington state is acute as Laura Kelly reports in Friday’s Washington Times: “Researchers last year warned of a dozen states and cities where significant numbers of healthy kindergartners were not being vaccinated, especially for measles. One of those cities — Portland, Oregon — is dangerously close to a measles outbreak in Clark County, Washington, which declared a public health emergency last week.”
Opioid overdoses get the attention of Congress. Guns get the attention of Congress. Mass killings get the attention of Congress. Hurt feelings get the attention of Congress. Even fashion gets the attention of Congress, as it did at President Trump’s first State of the Union address in 2017, when Democratic women wore black as if in mourning in recognition of Donald Trump’s defeat of Hillary Clinton.
Now a return to the measles problem — a public health issue.
The crux of the problem is threefold.
1) Due diligence by U.S. politicians and medical professionals aided in ridding measles in this country in 2000 by bolstering vaccinations for measles, mumps and rubella. The series of shots are part of health regimens for infants, toddlers and children. Parents have to prove their children’s documentation to enroll them in day care and public schools.
2) Some parents, for religious purposes, do not have their children vaccinated. While the lack of some vaccinations poses a risk, the measles is a highly contagious disease, meaning it can spread quickly. As things currently stand, authorities are concerned that someone who attended the Jan. 11 Portland Trail Blazers game had measles.
3) Congress has been so blinded its “resist Trump” caucus they’re failing to call the re-emergence of a public health problem a crisis.
Opioid presents a public safety crisis. Street crime is a public safety crisis. Mass killings are a public health crisis. Heck, some might even characterize embattled R&B singer R. Kelly as a public health because of his behavior toward teen girls.
If HIV-AIDS numbers were to spike upward, the problem would be declared a crisis. If gonorrhea, syphilis or chlamydia, or chicken pox, or alcoholism, or narcotics abuse were to run rampant in “hot spots,” the problems would be declared crises.
And they were, and Congress probed and appropriated funding to tackle those crises.
Not to incite, but America’s penchant for open borders might be contributing to measles “hot spots.” We don’t know.
Laura did report that while the U.S. is piratically rid of measles, “it is reintroduced by people returning from places where it is rampant, such as Europe, which had about 60,000 cases last year, and Israel, where an outbreak is ongoing.”
What we do know is that measles, a communicable disease, can spread quietly. Symptoms include a fever, cough, runny nose and feeling tired. Other symptoms may include red eyes, bumps on the tongue and red spots all over the body.
Partisan drum beats are the overwhelming pastime inside the Beltway, and more so since the Donald moved into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in 2017 and the House regained the House in 2018. But it’s irresponsible for our elected leaders to ignore the fact that America could be losing the gains on public health issues such as measles.
Shame on Congress if lawmakers ignore this problem.
• Deborah Simmons can be contacted at dsimmons@washingtontimes.com.
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