Also called Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE), it affects like 1 in 5,000 people who contract measles (vaccinated), but jumps to 1 in 609 in the unvaccinated.
Basically, you get measles and then seem fine, but anywhere from months to 15+ years later, you develop brain inflammation, seizures, spasms, blindness, and coma, and it’s basically 100% fatal. The disease attacks your nerves and brain. There’s no treatment or cure, and it hurts the whole time you’re dying. It can take months or more of excruciating suffering to kill you. It’s similar to rabies, in that you lose all control and are guaranteed a protracted, painful death.
It’s preventable by getting the measles vaccine.
I don't understand how both these things can be true:
There are numbers missing: the vast amount of people who don’t contract measles because they were vaccinated isn’t identified here – just those who contract it despite being vaccinated (which is a much smaller amount of the population). Of those, 1 in 5,000 will get Dawson disease.
This is why it jumps so much in unvaccinated populations.
The 1 in 5,000 number is of people who do contract measles even though they were vaccinated, which is very small compared to unvaccinated numbers.
There are 2 sets of numbers here, and it’s only talking about that subset. Does that make sense?
I know what odds I'll take. I'm also assuming a vaccinated person has much lower chances of contracting measles in the first place.
Yes, that’s the point.
Contrary to my sibling’s comment, the point here is that it’s 1 in 5,000 people who get measles despite being vaccinated, which is rather rare. This is why the number jumps so much in the unvaccinated (nothing to do with infants – it’s just that infants are when we normally give this vaccine; the disease usually happens in children and young adults who weren’t vaccinated as infants).
OP misquoted. It's 1 in 609 unvaxxed infants.
Still better to fucking vaccinate, though.
I didn’t misquote. This disease doesn’t usually happen in infants – it happens in children and young adults who weren’t vaccinated as infants.
The wording may be confusing, but the point is you have a near exponential chance of getting this if you weren’t vaccinated as an infant, which is when we typically give this vaccination.
I went back and checked. That 1 in 609 was about children under 12 months who contracted measles.
From the wiki source:
Everyone should still get vaccinated for measles to prevent any of it!
Yeah, and the larger number was in a largely vaccinated population.
The 1 in 609 number is in unvaccinated populations.
It’s kind of apples to oranges, where the oranges are very stupid and never get protection and the apples are protected.
It’s a bit hard to compare these ratios in progressive populations where some are really dumb.
They can’t. OP should have said that the chances can be mitigated by getting the measles vaccine.