Wednesday, August 14, 2019

Flight attendendant dies from measles complications


Oh, gosh. Remember earlier this year when I found out through a friend that the MMR vaccine I was positive that my incredibly responsible parents would've had me get as a youngster might not, in fact, be giving me any protection at all from our local measles outbreak?

 This is tragic. Rotem Amitai was most likely in a similar situation - she had been vaccinated as a child and probably, like me, just didn't know there was any reason to worry. She contracted the measles in late March, shortly before
 the time I got myself tested and re-vaccinated.

I'm so grateful to my friend Laura for cluing me in. Having my titers done proved that I was indeed among the large set of people who were given vaccinated in the late 60's/early 70's and yet did not, after all, have lifetime immunity due to the recommended dosages at the time being insufficient. With my asthma and allergies having a tendency to complicate even the stupidest of colds, I'm pretty sure a round of measles could have gone very badly. Hopefully not to this extent but I'm still having a little "That could so easily have been me" moment here.

And I'm just so sad for this lovely woman who should have had so much of her life ahead of her.

6 comments:

songbird's crazy world said...

It's so sad. Remind me to ask my doctor next time I see him to test me for immunity.

Alana said...

It's so sad, and let me add, even if you were born in the "safe years" (prior to 1957, I believe) where they assume you are immune - thanks to this blogger I found out I was not immune and got my MMR shot the next day. I've spread the word to family and co workers. What a tragic death. Tragic.

bonnie said...

i am so angry at the anti-vaccination people today. There's just no excuse, and no reason this woman had to die.

Rebecca Olkowski said...

That's so sad. I had the measles as a child before there was a vaccination as most of us did. Thankfully, there were no complications. But my kids were both vaccinated.

frankie said...

Thanks for the warning. I did have the measles as a child too but I'll definitely go for a check-up now.

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