This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Stephen C. Schoenbaum, MD, MPH

JAMA. 1985;253(11):1611-1612.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

Just as all clinicians are aware that on occasion a seemingly simple case can unleash a host of complicated issues, so epidemiologists are aware that a seemingly simple outbreak can raise major theoretical and practical problems. The article in this issue by Remington et al,¹ which describes an outbreak of measles with only four secondary cases, is an example in point.

One, and perhaps two, of the four cases would not have occurred had these children been vaccinated against measles at exactly 15 months of age. It is unrealistic to think that all children will be vaccinated precisely on schedule and that may excuse the case that occurred in a 16-month-old, but the case that occurred in an unvaccinated 2 1/2-year-old child has to be considered a failure of preventive medicine. A nationwide immunization program has led to a dramatic reduction in the occurrence of measles in the United . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
Boston

Footnotes
Address editorial communications to the Editor, 535 N Dearborn St, Chicago, IL 60610.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?