Stay updated with breaking news from Merck hilleman. Get real-time updates on events, politics, business, and more. Visit us for reliable news and exclusive interviews.
Advertisement For many midcentury American families, a bout of the measles kids home from school, feverish and rash-covered, eating Popsicles and reading comic books was a rite of passage. To officials looking at the big picture, the public health toll of measles, a common and extremely contagious childhood disease, looked unacceptably high. Measles causes encephalitis in 1 case per 1,000, with further serious complications (deafness, intellectual disabilities) occurring in one-third of those cases. Most kids weathered the measles fine, but there were lots of cases, and thus lots of complications. In the late 1950s, the country saw an average of 4,000 kids get encephalitis from measles every year, while about 450 died. ....