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City to offer free measles vaccines at Juneteenth event

City to offer free measles vaccines at Juneteenth event

Yahoo14-06-2025

EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — The City of El Paso Public Health Department will offer free measles (MMR) vaccines during the Juneteenth celebration this weekend.
The event will be from 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday, June 14 at Nations Tobin Park, 8831 Railroad Dr.
City officials also remind residents to regularly check the Measles Information Dashboard for updates on confirmed cases, demographic data, and vaccination status.
The dashboard is updated daily around 9 a.m. and is available at EPHealth.com under the Measles information page.
The City also said that anyone who was at El Paso International Airport from 11:15 to 11:45 a.m. May 31 and June 1-2 should monitor their symptoms and check their immunization status. People who were at the airport at that time were potentially exposed to the measles, the City said.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Takeaways from interviews with families forever changed by diseases that vaccines can prevent
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Hamilton Spectator

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Takeaways from interviews with families forever changed by diseases that vaccines can prevent

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — In the time before widespread vaccination, devastating infectious diseases ran rampant in America, killing millions of children and leaving others with lifelong health problems. Over the next century, vaccines virtually wiped out long-feared scourges like polio and measles and drastically reduced the toll of many others. Today, however, some preventable, contagious diseases are making a comeback as vaccine hesitancy pushes immunization rates down. And well-established vaccines are facing suspicion even from public officials, with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist , running the federal health department. 'This concern, this hesitancy, these questions about vaccines are a consequence of the great success of the vaccines – because they eliminated the diseases,' said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. 'If you're not familiar with the disease, you don't respect or even fear it. And therefore you don't value the vaccine.' Anti-vaccine activists even portray the shots as a threat, focusing on the rare risk of side effects while ignoring the far larger risks posed by the diseases themselves — and years of real-world data that experts say proves the vaccines are safe. Some Americans know the reality of vaccine-preventable diseases all too well. Here are takeaways from interviews with a few of them by The Associated Press. Getting a disease while pregnant can change two lives. Janith Farnham has helped shepherd her daughter Jacque through life for decades. Jacque, 60, was born with congenital rubella syndrome, which resulted in hearing, eye and heart problems at birth. There was no vaccine against rubella back then, and Janith contracted it in early pregnancy. Though Janith, 80, did all she could to help Jacque thrive, the condition took its toll. Jacque eventually developed diabetes, glaucoma, autistic behaviors and arthritis. Today, Jacque lives in an adult residential home and gets together with Janith four or five days a week. Janith marvels at Jacque's sense of humor and affectionate nature despite all she's endured. Jacque is generous with kisses and often signs 'double I love yous,' even to new people she meets. Given what her family has been through, Janith finds it 'more than frustrating' when people choose not to get children the MMR shot against measles, mumps and rubella. 'I know what can happen,' she said. 'I just don't want anybody else to go through this.' Delaying a vaccine can be deadly. More than half a century has passed, but Patricia Tobin still vividly recalls seeing her little sister Karen unconscious on the bathroom floor. It was 1970, Karen was 6, and she had measles. The vaccine against it wasn't required for school in Miami where they lived. Though Karen's doctor discussed immunizing the first grader, their mother didn't share his sense of urgency. 'It's not that she was against it,' Tobin said. 'She just thought there was time.' Then came a measles outbreak. After she collapsed in the bathroom, Karen never regained consciousness. She died of encephalitis. 'We never did get to speak to her again,' Tobin said. Today, all states require that children get certain vaccines to attend school. But a growing number of people are making use of exemptions. Vanderbilt's Schaffner said fading memories of measles outbreaks were exacerbated by a fraudulent, retracted study claiming a link between the MMR shot and autism. The result? Most states are below the 95% vaccination threshold for kindergartners — the level needed to protect communities against measles outbreaks. Preventable diseases can have long-term effects. One of Lora Duguay's earliest memories is lying in a hospital isolation ward with her feverish, paralyzed body packed in ice. She was three years old. It was 1959 and Duguay, of Clearwater, Florida, had polio. 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Takeaways from interviews with families forever changed by diseases that vaccines can prevent
Takeaways from interviews with families forever changed by diseases that vaccines can prevent

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time2 days ago

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Takeaways from interviews with families forever changed by diseases that vaccines can prevent

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — In the time before widespread vaccination, devastating infectious diseases ran rampant in America, killing millions of children and leaving others with lifelong health problems. Over the next century, vaccines virtually wiped out long-feared scourges like polio and measles and drastically reduced the toll of many others. Today, however, some preventable, contagious diseases are making a comeback as vaccine hesitancy pushes immunization rates down. And well-established vaccines are facing suspicion even from public officials, with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist, running the federal health department. 'This concern, this hesitancy, these questions about vaccines are a consequence of the great success of the vaccines – because they eliminated the diseases,' said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. 'If you're not familiar with the disease, you don't respect or even fear it. 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RFK Jr. vaccine panel's rocky debut
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