Amber Gorrow holds her 8-week-old son Leon at their home in Vancouver, Washington. He is too young for a measles vaccination right now, so his mother keeps him at home as much as possible to limit his exposure to the disease. Photo: Alisha Jucevic / The Washington Post
Amber Gorrow holds her 8-week-old son Leon at their home in Vancouver, Washington. He is too young for a measles vaccination right now, so his mother keeps him at home as much as possible to limit his exposure to the disease. Photo: Alisha Jucevic / The Washington Post

By Lena H. Sun and Maureen O’Hagan
6 February 2019

VANCOUVER, Washington (The Washington Post) – Amber Gorrow is afraid to leave her house with her infant son because she lives at the epicenter of Washington state’s worst measles outbreak in more than two decades. Born eight weeks ago, Leon is too young to get his first measles shot, putting him at risk for the highly contagious respiratory virus, which can be fatal in small children.

Gorrow also lives in a community where she said being anti-vaccine is as acceptable as being vegan or going gluten free. Almost a quarter of kids in Clark County, Wash., a suburb of Portland, Ore., go to school without measles, mumps and rubella immunizations, and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) recently declared a state of emergency amid concern that things could rapidly spin out of control.

Measles outbreaks have sprung up in nine other states this winter, but officials are particularly alarmed about the one in Clark County because of its potential to go very big, very quickly.

The Pacific Northwest is home to some of the nation’s most vocal and organized anti-vaccination activists. That movement has helped drive down child immunizations in Washington, as well as in neighboring Oregon and Idaho, to some of the lowest rates in the country, with as many as 10.5 percent of kindergartners statewide in Idaho unvaccinated for measles. That is almost double the median rate nationally.

Libertarian-leaning lawmakers, meanwhile, have bowed to public pressure to relax state laws to exempt virtually any child from state vaccination requirements whose parents object. Three states allow only medical exemptions; most others also permit religious exemptions. And 17, including Washington, Oregon and Idaho, allow what they call “philosophical” exemptions, meaning virtually anyone can opt out of the requirements.

All those elements combine into a dangerous mix, spurring concern about the resurgence of a deadly disease that once sent tens of thousands of Americans to hospitals each year and killed an estimated 400 to 500 people, many of them young children.

“You know what keeps me up at night?” said Clark County Public Health Director Alan Melnick. “Measles is exquisitely contagious. If you have an under-vaccinated population, and you introduce a measles case into that population, it will take off like a wildfire.”

To date, at least 55 people in Washington and neighboring Oregon have gotten sick with the virus, with new cases tallied almost daily. All but five are in Clark County. King County, which includes Seattle, has one case; Multnomah County in Oregon, which includes Portland, has four, including three cases reported Wednesday. Most of those infected are unvaccinated children under 10, health officials said. [more]

‘It will take off like a wildfire’: The unique dangers of the Washington state measles outbreak