September 29, 2024 • 27 mins
09/29/24
The Healthy Matters Podcast
S03_E23 - Measles! They're baaaaaaack...
Measles! There's been a bit of an outbreak recently across the planet which has raised significant public health concerns in many of our communities - including in Minnesota. So, we thought it was time to get wise on the topic. Many of us have gotten our MMR vaccines (and for good reason!), so does that mean we're safe? What is Measles exactly? How is it transmitted and why is the virus so contagious? What are common symptoms and what treatments are available?
Join us on Episode 23 for an in-depth conversation with Sheyanga Beecher (CNP, MPH). She's a nurse practitioner in the field of pediatrics and an expert on the virus and vaccines used to prevent the spread. We'll take a look at the state of the outbreak, its origins, the virus itself, and the best ways to keep yourself and your loved ones safe. As is true with much in the field, knowledge is sometimes the best medicine we have available, and there's plenty of it here. We hope you'll join us!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Healthy Matters podcast with
Dr. David Hilton , primary carephysician and acute care
hospitalist at HennepinHealthcare in downtown
Minneapolis, where we cover thelatest in health, healthcare
and what matters to you. Andnow here's our host, Dr. David
Hilton .
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Hey, everybody, it's Dr. David Hilden , your host of
the Healthy Matters podcast.
And welcome to episode 23 inwhich we are gonna talk about
measles. Joining me today isShea Younga Beecher. She is a
nurse practitioner in theDepartment of Pediatrics at
Hennepin Healthcare in downtownMinneapolis. And someone who's
seen lots of cases in measlesand frankly in expert on the
subject. Shay , thanks forbeing on the show.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Hi, nice
Speaker 2 (00:41):
To be here. It's great to have you on. First of
all, why are we talking aboutmeasles at all?
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Oh boy. We are in the middle of an outbreak
currently. We have 42 confirmedcases of measles here in the
Twin Cities. The outbreakstarted in May of 2024, and
because of the way measles istransmitted from person to
person and um, how it spreadsthrough communities, here we
are about four months later,still talking about it.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
We're still talking about measles. So we're, we're
broadcasting from Minneapolis,Minnesota. Uh , is this a
Minneapolis problem or is thisour outbreaks common?
Speaker 3 (01:15):
It, it's becoming more common. We thought we got
rid of it back in 2000. Weactually even say in the United
States, measles has beeneliminated, but the pandemic
really shifted , um, ways kidshave gotten their care, in
particular pediatricpreventative care such as
immunizations. And because ofthat , uh, everyone's behind on
their immunizations. What wenormally protect against
(01:37):
vaccine preventable diseasesaren't, and here we have the
diseases
Speaker 2 (01:40):
And here we are. So I'm an adult medicine
physician. I do not seechildren, and I've been
practicing now for well over 20years, and I can't recall the
last case of measles I saw,because for the last 20 years
it's been pretty much not athing, but you are in
pediatrics and now it's back tobeing a thing. So we're gonna
(02:02):
delve into that a lot morebecause this is a relevant
topic for our communities andchildren and, and , uh, the
adults that , uh, live withthem. So help us to understand
measles, if you could. So
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Measles is probably one of our most contagious
viruses that we know about. Um,it typically presents with a
high fever, so 103 to 105degrees, which if anyone's had
a kid, even 101 fever, scaryhigh,
Speaker 2 (02:28):
It feels
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Warm, right? Yep .
Um , in addition to that, youget the runny nose, the cough,
sort of the pink eyes, thecrusty eyes, and then there's
this rash. The rash spreadsfrom head to toe. And , uh,
once that rash presents itselfand you're like, okay, let's ,
let's test for measles. So
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Everything up to the rash, but maybe even a little
bit, the rash parents listeningto this right now are going,
yeah, my kid gets out all thetime. They get fevers, they get
runny, snotty nose. And how do, when , when , when should a
parent be worried that uhoh ,this might be measles?
Speaker 3 (02:59):
So for the most part , uh, measles happens if you're
unvaccinated. So if your childis unvaccinated, meaning they
don't have their completed twodoses required to be protected
against the disease, then it'simportant to keep an eye out
for high fevers, cough, runnynose, and the rash.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
So we work at a , a big hospital in a big city, and
every now and then of the pastfew months, we get these
messages from smart people whorun things and they say,
there's been a case of measles,they were on our campus, and
then all these precautions thatwe needed to take or do
something. So what I'm tryingto get at is how is this thing
(03:37):
transmitted? Why is it so dangcontagious? Because that
requires a message, a blanketmessage that goes out to a
whole hospital simply becauseone person was here.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Uh, this is airborne. So this means it
spreads in the air, and it'seither when someone coughs,
sneezes and those drop loadstravel, and then you inhale
them, or those same infectiousdroplets land on something. And
then you touch that something.
And here's the scary part. Withmeasles, it can remain in a
room for up to two hours afterthat person has infected the
(04:07):
space. So imagine that you'reon a school bus and a bunch of
middle schoolers got , got off,completed their route, and now
the bus is going around to pickup the kindergartners. It's
within that two hour timeframe.
So if a seventh grader coughedspread measles, and then your
kindergartner comes on the bus,breathes it in two hours later,
they can get infected ifthey're unvaccinated.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
That is , uh, impressive contagion. I mean,
yeah , it really, really is.
That's, and that is a littlescary, you know, and, and
frankly, during the covidyears, I did a lot of public
education Yeah . About covid,and we were wondering, is this
thing pet ? Is it like , yeah .
Is it ,
Speaker 3 (04:40):
It's like measles.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Is it like measles?
Because if it's like measles,we're in trouble.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
That's the standard at which we had measure Yes .
Everything else against. Andhere we have the standard that
we're concerned about in ourcommunity,
Speaker 2 (04:52):
It's actually happening. It is just that
contagious. Yeah . One of , Ican't think of anything.
Actually more contagious. Soyou're simply in a room where
somebody had it within the lastfew hours. You got it. Right .
If you're not, if
Speaker 3 (05:03):
You're not vaccinated,
Speaker 2 (05:03):
We're gonna talk much more about how to prevent
measles for in your child, inyour family, in your community,
in just a little bit, but a alittle bit more about the
disease itself. Mm-Hmm .
, what canhappen? So what my kid got
measles. What are some of thethings that can happen like
that can go wrong orcomplications or what can
happen?
Speaker 3 (05:20):
You hope that your kid gets measles and within a
week they're back to normal.
There are cases that result incomplications, or the most
common being secondarybacterial infections. So that,
that could mean an earinfection, pneumonia, diarrhea.
Um, there's a something calledacute encephalitis, which is
inflammation of the brain thatcan lead to brain damage. And
(05:42):
in fact, one to three of athousand kids will die due to
either breathing or braincomplications.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
I'm so glad you mentioned that one, because we,
in the healthcare profession,we know about all these really
potentially life-threateningthings that can happen. You can
get a brain infection, but thepublic doesn't always know
that. And they go, well , mykid got better. Yeah. Three of
a thousand's. A lot. You don'twanna be the parent of that ,
one of those three.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
No. Here's another scary part about measles, and
I'm not here to instill here ,but you have to keep this on
your radar and you're trying todo all that you can do to
protect your kids. You'rethinking about all those rare
situations. That's why you putkids in a seatbelt and that
random off chance that you getinto a car accident, same way
with measles, there's an offchance that you might get that
rare illness. And there's onein particular called a subacute
(06:28):
sclerosis. And panencephalitis,it's fatal. It's this sort of
degenerative behavioralcognitive disease. It can
appear seven to 10 years afteryou're infected. So it's not
just a complication thathappens, boom, you're sick in
one week, you're in thehospital, and then you get
sicker. This is boom, you'resick, you get better. You go on
with your life. Seven to 10years later, you get this
(06:51):
illness that appears again andit kills you. And in fact, in
2015, there was a woman in thestate of Washington that died
from this because she gotmeasles 12 years prior.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Wow. Yeah. So it is, yeah. And, and I I appreciate
your earlier sentence. You'renot here to, to instill fear,
but you are here to give solidinformation. Yes. And and it's
really relevant to thisparticular topic. So do
vaccines prevent it?
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Yes. And I'm not gonna say a hundred percent,
but the rates are pretty good.
So we get two doses. The firstdose typically occurs by one
year of age, one to 15 months.
Um, the second dose happensright before kindergarten. So
between four and six years ofage with that first vaccine,
93%, you can prevent it withthat second vaccine, 97 to 98%.
(07:38):
That's phenomenal. There's
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Almost nothing in medicine that effective. Right
. I mean, there really isn't.
There's almost nothing thateffective. And frankly, we have
decades and decades and I mean,we're talking many decades of
experience with the measlesvaccine and how effective it
is. I'm an old cadre and I hadit, you know, way back in the
sixties, . So, so thething does work. So we will get
(08:01):
much more into the vaccines,but I wanna talk a little bit
more about, you said earlierthat somebody got an illness
many years after gettingmeasles. Are what's their
immune system's status? Arethey protected?
Speaker 3 (08:13):
They have some level of protection just because they
got the disease. Buttruthfully, to get the best
level, that 97% protection thatwe're aiming for, you need to
get the vaccine even if you hadmeasles.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Can adults get measles?
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Yes. In fact, in the current outbreak, one case
outta the 42 is in anindividual that's older than
20, I believe they're about 30years old.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
I'm gonna shift a little bit now about your
practice in your career. Youwork here in Minneapolis,
Minnesota, but you told me ,uh, you also have practiced in
the African country ofTanzania. Mm-Hmm.
. Could you talk about yourexperience in populations both
here in Minneapolis and inEastern Africa?
Speaker 3 (08:52):
The same things that work in East Africa, work here
in the Twin Cities. The samethings that families are
concerned about in East Africaare the same things that
families are concerned abouthere universally. We all , uh,
want the best for our children.
We wanna do everything that wecan to protect them. The same
things keep us up at night. Andwhat I'm finding is that we
(09:13):
need to make sure that we'regetting to sort of the, the
best way to promote health. Andthat's through one-on-one
interactions with individuals.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
So here in the Twin Cities, you do a mobile van. I
I've seen it folks, if youhaven't seen the Hennepin
Healthcare mobile pediatricsvan, it's, it goes out to
communities and provide somehealthcare . Could you talk
about that program?
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Yeah. We started this in May of 2020, which is
early pandemic. We were at thatstage where I think most of us
was still watching Tiger Kingand wiping down our milk
cartons with myself .
Speaker 2 (09:41):
We were wiping them down. Remember that ,
you stood out on your back ofyour house and you wiped down
your cheer.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Is it Tiger King? I don't
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Remember. No, it was, it was that guy who ran
the tigers . I doremember that . Oh , those were
Speaker 3 (09:52):
The , so we , we did not know much about nostalgia
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Corona
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Virus items . That's the , my weird word . But you
can call it, I dunno . Yeah .
Speaker 2 (09:58):
But at that time you were wondering how to care for
children.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Yes, because we knew that we weren't going out to
receive care. I mean, onething, we were limiting who we
would see in clinic. We wereprioritizing the youngest of
young. Um, and then on theother hand, nobody wanted to
leave their house. So we hadlarge communities of children
that were not getting theirvaccines, and we did not want a
measles outbreak on top of acoronavirus outbreak. So we
(10:21):
took this van, packed someneedles in the back of it,
, and went house tohouse, giving kids their shots.
It sounds a little sketchy, but No, it was,
Speaker 2 (10:29):
It was totally on the up . I've seen it. You
painted the logo on the side ofit . Oh ,
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Back in the day. It was a really sketchy mic ,
Speaker 2 (10:36):
. Oh , okay.
So you didn't have the sweetband you have today? We didn't
,
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Yeah. Uh , now it's a lot better. Super adorable.
It is , uh, superhero graphicsall over it and
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Kid friendly and cri And
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Then we have some street cred too. People know
what it is. Know the entity,know us, and it's a very
welcomed presence. And weearned our way to get to that
point. But the point was tobring kids their healthcare
when they couldn't come intoclinic or they didn't want to,
for whatever reasons, we wentto them and met them where they
were.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Do you know, I just absolutely love whenever I hear
of a healthcare system that ismeeting people where they are,
whether that be in Tanzania orwhether it be in Minneapolis,
Minnesota. And that program issimply amazing for getting
vaccines and other healthcareto families in our communities.
We're gonna take a short break.
We're talking to Shea Beecher .
She is a nurse practitioner andhas a master of public health.
(11:26):
So she has experience inpopulation health as well. She
practices here in Minneapolis,Minnesota at Hennepin
Healthcare. And we are talkingabout measles when we come
back. She's gonna talk aboutpreventive health measures and
the vaccine. Stay with us.
We'll be right back
Speaker 4 (11:44):
When he up in healthcare says, we are here
for life. They mean here foryou, your life and all that it
brings. He up in healthcare hasa hospital HCMC and a network
of clinics both downtown andacross the west Metro. They
provide all the primary careand specialty care you would
expect to find. But did youknow they also have services
like acupuncture andchiropractic care available at
(12:06):
many of their primary careclinics and at their
integrative health clinic indowntown Minneapolis? Learn
more@hennepinhealthcare.org.
Hennepin Healthcare is here foryou and here for life.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
And we're back talking to Shea Beecher about
the measles. So you gave ussome good foundational
information in the first half.
Now I want to turn to thevaccine. The vaccine works. You
said that it is exceptionallyeffective in many of us. I
would say most of thepopulation has been vaccinated,
but not all. So what concernsare you hearing about in the
communities, especially thosewho are, who have questions
(12:43):
about the vaccine?
Speaker 3 (12:45):
I think in general, vaccines give families a pause.
Like with anything that you'regonna do to your kid, you wanna
make sure that it is safe andthat it promotes the health of
your child. One thing that wehear about is that vaccines
make my child sick. In general,you get a vaccine, your arm
hurts. My gosh, you get afever, you get aches, you get
chills. Why would you put yourchild through that? And the
(13:07):
truth is, the vaccines are sortof intended to trigger your
immune response as if there wasan actual infection. And so
they sort of give you this fakeresponse, right? We don't know
the difference. We still feelcrummy, but we can treat that
with some Tylenol ibuprofen.
Compare that to example, withactually getting a virus. You
(13:27):
might take some ibuprofenTylenol and that fever is gonna
keep coming back and therecould be complications. So we
expect that when you get avaccine, yes, you will get the
arm soreness. Yes, you'll getfever aches, but that goes
away. The second thing that Ihear from families is that, my
goodness, my kid gets so manyshots all at once. And the
truth is, kids are the mostvulnerable for infectious
(13:50):
diseases. A couple of reasonswhy they're young and have
never been exposed to it. Wewanna sort of expose them in
this controlled setting that wecan prime their immune system
and that they're ready to fightit when they really do come
across as infection.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Yeah . Their , their bodies are practicing.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
Bodies are practicing. Yeah. Um , the
second thing about kids is thatthey are in cesspools every
single day. If you have a kidin preschool, you know that
they're constantly snot nosed,coughing in your face, in each
other's faces ,
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Licking each other,
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Licking everything,
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Licking everything matter .
Speaker 3 (14:21):
So you wanna make sure that when they're in their
congregated spaces with othersnot nose kids, that they have
the best protection that theycan. So that's why we have to
unfortunately give kids aseries of vaccines pretty close
to each other when they'reyoung. And then the other , uh,
concern that I hear as itrelates specifically to the MMR
vaccine is that it causesautism. At the end of the day,
(14:45):
this theory that MMR causesautism was actually published
in a scientific journal. And itspurred this community,
including scientists anddoctors and nurses and families
to think, oh my gosh, what arewe doing with this vaccine? At
the end of it, it was peerreviewed, again with other
scientists and doctors andnurses, and they realized the
(15:07):
study was flawed. It didn'tmake sense, and there was
actually no truth to it. Butthat wasn't enough. People went
forth and looked at MMRVaccines autism and try to find
a link between the two. Andthere's now been incredible
amounts of data and studies andthere has been conclusively no
link between MMR and autism.
(15:27):
Unfortunately, one sold thatcat out the bag, the cat's out
there, and it's hard to pull itback in. And we, especially in
this age of social media andGoogle searching and podcast,
we can find whateverinformation we want to support
our worst concerns or fears.
And so it's been hard toaddress that fear of autism
linked to MMR . There is nolink. However, we do not know
(15:50):
what causes autism. And forthat reason, it's hard to say,
well, but get the vaccineanyways.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Right. Right. A lot to unpack there, but I so
appreciate what you just saidbecause the, the MMR measles,
mumps rubella , um, vaccine isso much, it's like the index
case of misinformation. Iremember when that thing was
published, it was discredited.
It was not actuallyscientifically sound. It is
(16:17):
just not supported by any factsthat there's a link between the
vaccine and autism. And yetbecause of the reasons you
said, it just flourishes outthere. Once that gets out
there, it's difficult to shakeit. So in your practice, how do
you address that? Because it'seasy to blame people, but
they've been exposed toinformation that sounds
(16:39):
reasonable. This guy's gottadoctor, you know , sounds
reasonable. How do you combatthat when you see families who,
it's not their fault, butthey've been fed wrong
information,
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Or they might have a cousin or a neighbor that has
autism Mm-Hmm.and they understand , um, how
challenging having such adiagnosis can be in social
interactions or on daily familylife. And so they're concerned
about whether that will affecttheir child. It's really hard.
And the, the fear is quiteintense. I've had families
(17:12):
where I've counseled one-on-oneup to 45 minutes about how the
vaccine is beneficial, how itwill not cause autism. And we
will go up to the point wherewe draw up the vaccine and are
seconds away and the familywill say, no, let's just pause
and I'll come back and thinkabout it at another time.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Well , that's dramatic. I've, I've often
heard of that Thing is , it'sthe act of commission versus
the act of omission. It'seasier to not do something and
just hope for the best than toactively do something. The act
of commission. Well, I am, I amdoing something to my child
here. What you're doing isprotecting them, but it doesn't
feel that way in the moment.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Right. Yeah. I was in travel clinic, I'm also ,
uh, see patients prior to theirinternational travel and we
provide counseling about how tomitigate your risks while
you're overseas. One of them isthrough vaccines. People think
yellow fever vaccine type foodvaccine. The biggest one I'm
trying to promote is your MMRvaccine. Measles is not only
blowing up here in the UnitedStates, it's blowing up
(18:10):
globally. And now where do youthink Italy, Mexico, Europe,
Europe, I just pulled this uprecently. They've had a 42 fold
increase in measles in 2022.
They had 914 cases in 202342,000 cases. Good
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Grief.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
So it is blowing up everywhere. So getting your
measles moms or Bella vaccinebefore you travel is really
important. And I had a familythat we were discussing this,
they were concerned aboutautism. And the father even
said, you know what? Um ,actually this is really good
because my cousin's wife'smother visited my mother's
house two weeks ago and theyhad measles and here they were
about to get onto their planewith their unvaccinated child
(18:50):
and travel to the same villagewhere there was measles. And
that it was hard to do it. Andso I understand how challenging
it is to be faced with all thisinformation. And at the end of
the day, science doesn't alwaysmatter. , you wanna do
what's best for your child. Andso you lead with your gut. And
(19:11):
I appreciate how muchconsideration families do give
to the vaccine, but sometimes Ithink we as providers and
public health officials andcommunity leaders can do more
to embrace that sort of space,that uncertainty, sit in it for
a little bit and then reach outand help them navigate through
a tough situation.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
I think you're so wise, Shay , um, and what you
just said there, because we,it's , it's pretty easy to
preach to people, you gotta dothis because I said so you
gotta do this 'cause I knowit's better for your child.
That probably doesn't work sowell with a parent. So I really
appreciate that. Is thatworking with families and
working with parents andrecognizing that that tension
that people are having, couldyou touch briefly on public
(19:53):
health campaigns? Do they workor what should we be doing as a
society to get the word outabout measles?
Speaker 3 (20:01):
So public health campaigns, there is one going
on right now because of ourmeasles outbreak. The Minnesota
Department of Health, or MDHhas been spending a lot of time
speaking with families at thosethat are infected as well as
those that have been exposed.
They spend time , uh, meetingwith schools, childcare
centers, communityorganizations. They're working
with us. We're a part of theirteam as a mobile vaccinator,
(20:23):
able to get two areas of risk,meaning that there's least
amount of immune kids orhaven't been vaccinated pockets
around the Twin cities. Andmaking sure that we do the
community education and we dothe outreach. And then we also
vaccinate, there's multipleefforts across the Twin Cities
trying to control Liz Measlesoutbreak, whether it's the
(20:44):
provider and the patient,having that one-on-one
counseling in the clinic, visitthe community leaders posting
on their social media platformsor speaking out at their place
of serve our faith or thepublic health officials
knocking on doors trying to seeif they can connect with
families. There's a lot ofthings going on. And I think
thinking about this currentoutbreak and then coming out of
(21:07):
this ginormous global pandemic,wouldn't it be great if we as a
society could spend more efforton the prevention as opposed to
their reaction when somethinggoes south ?
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Yeah, that , yeah.
Yeah, that makes perfect sense.
You know, and it's much harderto deal with it when the
outbreak has occurred. I, Ialluded to it earlier here in
this hospital, if we have asingle patient in our emergency
department, we have to gothrough very complex protocols
of not only making that placesafe for the next patient, but
(21:40):
also monitoring fortransmission of new cases for
weeks to come every time asingle person comes in. And
that single person deserves ourcare. But it does get a whole
public health apparatus rollingand it's sometimes hard to
break that cycle. So itclearly, we , we need to move
way further upstream, upstreamand work on immunizations. So
(22:03):
we're talking about measlesbecause we're currently in a
several month outbreak ofmeasles right here in
Minnesota. But that's not theonly illness that's frankly
preventable in children. Sowhat other illnesses should
families know about and whatcan they do about it
Speaker 3 (22:18):
Because of these gaps in vaccination rates,
possibly due to the pandemic,possibly due to misinformation
or vaccine hesitancy. We nowsee new old diseases cropping
up, for example. Uh , we knowthat there's been a couple of
cases and outbreaks thatpertussis are whooping cough ,
uh, and various schooldistricts across the Twin
(22:38):
cities. We also know thatthere's varicella or chickenpox
cases that are cropping up. Andthese are because we haven't
been up to date with ourimmunizations to the best that
we possibly can as a acommunity.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Yeah. Things that, that folks of a certain age
listening to this maybe youwere well familiar with
whooping cough and all thesethings that are vaccine
preventable. Even polio. Evenpolio. Um, you'll hear about it
here and there. Polio is notgone from the world, although
it is nearly gone from theworld and it's essentially gone
(23:10):
from , uh, the United States.
But this is because of vaccinesand most of us don't have
personal knowledge of some ofthese illnesses. So you said
bringing out some of theoldies. It is, it's like we're
going into the archive andpulling out diseases that
should be gone. So , um, Iappreciate you bringing those
up. These are great things forfamilies to know to keep your
(23:33):
children safe. Before I let yougo, if you could give advice to
our listeners, what would itbe?
Speaker 3 (23:40):
At the end of the day, I think , uh, we as
providers, public healthofficials and families are
trying to do the best that wecan for each other. We wanna
make sure that everybody issafe and healthy, and sometimes
we have questions about how tobest get to that point. The
best way in terms of providingcare to your child is to talk
(24:02):
to people and get that researchfrom credible sources. And this
sounds silly to compare it tobuying a toaster, but if you're
gonna buy a toaster, you aregonna figure out, you know, who
sells the best toaster? Lookingup online, what other people
are saying about that toaster.
Maybe go to the source of wherethe toasters were made and
figuring out, all right , I didmy research, I collected the
(24:22):
data. This is a toaster I'mgonna go with.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
I think it's a pretty good analogy to be
honest.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Know if that's the best example. But I think with
kids, you're gonna do yourresearch the same way that you
wanna figure out what is thebest baby high chair , or what
is the best brand of clothingor the best diapers. You're
gonna figure out, are thesevaccines the way to go? And in
your research, you might talkto your provider, you might
talk to your community leader,your faith leader, your
(24:47):
neighbor. You might do yourresearch online, and then you
are gonna make that decisionand we're all gonna understand
that's the best decision thatyou know you made with the
available resources that youdid. It's our job as providers
and public health professionalsto make sure that information
is available for you to makethose choices.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
So I vouch for this podcast as being , uh, solid
information and I would saythat with 100% certainty on
this episode as on the otherones. But where else do you
think people can go to get moreinformation?
Speaker 3 (25:19):
I'm a big fan of one-on-one conversations with
people you trust. Um, sometimesthat can be your provider and
if you are a person of color orspeak a different language,
finding a provider that's ofcolor or speaks your language
is even better because there isthat level of trust that can be
established through yourconversations. If it's your
community faith leader , uh, ifit's your school health nurse
(25:40):
or your childcare center'scommunity health worker, having
a discussion and ongoingdialogue about what is the
available information, thereputation of that information,
and whether it makes sense foryou and your child.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
We've been talking to Chang Beecher. She is a
certified pediatric nursepractitioner and a public
health professional here indowntown Minneapolis, and a
colleague of mine here atHennepin Healthcare Shea . This
has been an incredibly valuableconversation to so many people.
So thank you. Thank
Speaker 3 (26:08):
You for having me.
Appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
It's been great having you here. So we're
talking about measles becausewe're in the middle of an
outbreak, but the best way toget through an outbreak is to
stay informed. So I appreciateyou listening and on our next
episode, we're gonna be talkingabout insomnia. So you are not
gonna wanna snooze on that one.
I hope you'll join us. In themeantime, be healthy and be
well.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Thanks for listening to the Healthy Matters podcast
with Dr. David Hilden . To findout more about the Healthy
Matters podcast or browse thearchive, visit healthy
matters.org. Got a question ora comment for the show, email
us at Healthy matters@hcme.orgor call 6 1 2 8 7 3 talk.
There's also a link in the shownotes. The Healthy Matters
(26:51):
Podcast is made possible byHennepin Healthcare in
Minneapolis, Minnesota, andengineered and produced by John
Lucas At Highball Executiveproducers are Jonathan, CTO and
Christine Hill . Pleaseremember, we can only give
general medical advice duringthis program, and every case is
unique. We urge you to consultwith your physician if you have
a more serious or pressinghealth concern. Until next
(27:13):
time, be healthy and be well.
Welcome to the Healthy Matters podcast with
Dr. David Hilton , primary carephysician and acute care
hospitalist at HennepinHealthcare in downtown
Minneapolis, where we cover thelatest in health, healthcare
and what matters to you. Andnow here's our host, Dr. David
Hilton .
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Hey, everybody, it's Dr. David Hilden , your host of
the Healthy Matters podcast.
And welcome to episode 23 inwhich we are gonna talk about
measles. Joining me today isShea Younga Beecher. She is a
nurse practitioner in theDepartment of Pediatrics at
Hennepin Healthcare in downtownMinneapolis. And someone who's
seen lots of cases in measlesand frankly in expert on the
subject. Shay , thanks forbeing on the show.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Hi, nice
Speaker 2 (00:41):
To be here. It's great to have you on. First of
all, why are we talking aboutmeasles at all?
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Oh boy. We are in the middle of an outbreak
currently. We have 42 confirmedcases of measles here in the
Twin Cities. The outbreakstarted in May of 2024, and
because of the way measles istransmitted from person to
person and um, how it spreadsthrough communities, here we
are about four months later,still talking about it.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
We're still talking about measles. So we're, we're
broadcasting from Minneapolis,Minnesota. Uh , is this a
Minneapolis problem or is thisour outbreaks common?
Speaker 3 (01:15):
It, it's becoming more common. We thought we got
rid of it back in 2000. Weactually even say in the United
States, measles has beeneliminated, but the pandemic
really shifted , um, ways kidshave gotten their care, in
particular pediatricpreventative care such as
immunizations. And because ofthat , uh, everyone's behind on
their immunizations. What wenormally protect against
(01:37):
vaccine preventable diseasesaren't, and here we have the
diseases
Speaker 2 (01:40):
And here we are. So I'm an adult medicine
physician. I do not seechildren, and I've been
practicing now for well over 20years, and I can't recall the
last case of measles I saw,because for the last 20 years
it's been pretty much not athing, but you are in
pediatrics and now it's back tobeing a thing. So we're gonna
(02:02):
delve into that a lot morebecause this is a relevant
topic for our communities andchildren and, and , uh, the
adults that , uh, live withthem. So help us to understand
measles, if you could. So
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Measles is probably one of our most contagious
viruses that we know about. Um,it typically presents with a
high fever, so 103 to 105degrees, which if anyone's had
a kid, even 101 fever, scaryhigh,
Speaker 2 (02:28):
It feels
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Warm, right? Yep .
Um , in addition to that, youget the runny nose, the cough,
sort of the pink eyes, thecrusty eyes, and then there's
this rash. The rash spreadsfrom head to toe. And , uh,
once that rash presents itselfand you're like, okay, let's ,
let's test for measles. So
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Everything up to the rash, but maybe even a little
bit, the rash parents listeningto this right now are going,
yeah, my kid gets out all thetime. They get fevers, they get
runny, snotty nose. And how do, when , when , when should a
parent be worried that uhoh ,this might be measles?
Speaker 3 (02:59):
So for the most part , uh, measles happens if you're
unvaccinated. So if your childis unvaccinated, meaning they
don't have their completed twodoses required to be protected
against the disease, then it'simportant to keep an eye out
for high fevers, cough, runnynose, and the rash.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
So we work at a , a big hospital in a big city, and
every now and then of the pastfew months, we get these
messages from smart people whorun things and they say,
there's been a case of measles,they were on our campus, and
then all these precautions thatwe needed to take or do
something. So what I'm tryingto get at is how is this thing
(03:37):
transmitted? Why is it so dangcontagious? Because that
requires a message, a blanketmessage that goes out to a
whole hospital simply becauseone person was here.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Uh, this is airborne. So this means it
spreads in the air, and it'seither when someone coughs,
sneezes and those drop loadstravel, and then you inhale
them, or those same infectiousdroplets land on something. And
then you touch that something.
And here's the scary part. Withmeasles, it can remain in a
room for up to two hours afterthat person has infected the
(04:07):
space. So imagine that you'reon a school bus and a bunch of
middle schoolers got , got off,completed their route, and now
the bus is going around to pickup the kindergartners. It's
within that two hour timeframe.
So if a seventh grader coughedspread measles, and then your
kindergartner comes on the bus,breathes it in two hours later,
they can get infected ifthey're unvaccinated.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
That is , uh, impressive contagion. I mean,
yeah , it really, really is.
That's, and that is a littlescary, you know, and, and
frankly, during the covidyears, I did a lot of public
education Yeah . About covid,and we were wondering, is this
thing pet ? Is it like , yeah .
Is it ,
Speaker 3 (04:40):
It's like measles.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Is it like measles?
Because if it's like measles,we're in trouble.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
That's the standard at which we had measure Yes .
Everything else against. Andhere we have the standard that
we're concerned about in ourcommunity,
Speaker 2 (04:52):
It's actually happening. It is just that
contagious. Yeah . One of , Ican't think of anything.
Actually more contagious. Soyou're simply in a room where
somebody had it within the lastfew hours. You got it. Right .
If you're not, if
Speaker 3 (05:03):
You're not vaccinated,
Speaker 2 (05:03):
We're gonna talk much more about how to prevent
measles for in your child, inyour family, in your community,
in just a little bit, but a alittle bit more about the
disease itself. Mm-Hmm .
measles. What are some of thethings that can happen like
that can go wrong orcomplications or what can
happen?
Speaker 3 (05:20):
You hope that your kid gets measles and within a
week they're back to normal.
There are cases that result incomplications, or the most
common being secondarybacterial infections. So that,
that could mean an earinfection, pneumonia, diarrhea.
Um, there's a something calledacute encephalitis, which is
inflammation of the brain thatcan lead to brain damage. And
(05:42):
in fact, one to three of athousand kids will die due to
either breathing or braincomplications.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
I'm so glad you mentioned that one, because we,
in the healthcare profession,we know about all these really
potentially life-threateningthings that can happen. You can
get a brain infection, but thepublic doesn't always know
that. And they go, well , mykid got better. Yeah. Three of
a thousand's. A lot. You don'twanna be the parent of that ,
one of those three.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
No. Here's another scary part about measles, and
I'm not here to instill here ,but you have to keep this on
your radar and you're trying todo all that you can do to
protect your kids. You'rethinking about all those rare
situations. That's why you putkids in a seatbelt and that
random off chance that you getinto a car accident, same way
with measles, there's an offchance that you might get that
rare illness. And there's onein particular called a subacute
(06:28):
sclerosis. And panencephalitis,it's fatal. It's this sort of
degenerative behavioralcognitive disease. It can
appear seven to 10 years afteryou're infected. So it's not
just a complication thathappens, boom, you're sick in
one week, you're in thehospital, and then you get
sicker. This is boom, you'resick, you get better. You go on
with your life. Seven to 10years later, you get this
(06:51):
illness that appears again andit kills you. And in fact, in
2015, there was a woman in thestate of Washington that died
from this because she gotmeasles 12 years prior.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Wow. Yeah. So it is, yeah. And, and I I appreciate
your earlier sentence. You'renot here to, to instill fear,
but you are here to give solidinformation. Yes. And and it's
really relevant to thisparticular topic. So do
vaccines prevent it?
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Yes. And I'm not gonna say a hundred percent,
but the rates are pretty good.
So we get two doses. The firstdose typically occurs by one
year of age, one to 15 months.
Um, the second dose happensright before kindergarten. So
between four and six years ofage with that first vaccine,
93%, you can prevent it withthat second vaccine, 97 to 98%.
(07:38):
That's phenomenal. There's
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Almost nothing in medicine that effective. Right
. I mean, there really isn't.
There's almost nothing thateffective. And frankly, we have
decades and decades and I mean,we're talking many decades of
experience with the measlesvaccine and how effective it
is. I'm an old cadre and I hadit, you know, way back in the
sixties,
(08:01):
much more into the vaccines,but I wanna talk a little bit
more about, you said earlierthat somebody got an illness
many years after gettingmeasles. Are what's their
immune system's status? Arethey protected?
Speaker 3 (08:13):
They have some level of protection just because they
got the disease. Buttruthfully, to get the best
level, that 97% protection thatwe're aiming for, you need to
get the vaccine even if you hadmeasles.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Can adults get measles?
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Yes. In fact, in the current outbreak, one case
outta the 42 is in anindividual that's older than
20, I believe they're about 30years old.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
I'm gonna shift a little bit now about your
practice in your career. Youwork here in Minneapolis,
Minnesota, but you told me ,uh, you also have practiced in
the African country ofTanzania. Mm-Hmm.
. Could you talk about yourexperience in populations both
here in Minneapolis and inEastern Africa?
Speaker 3 (08:52):
The same things that work in East Africa, work here
in the Twin Cities. The samethings that families are
concerned about in East Africaare the same things that
families are concerned abouthere universally. We all , uh,
want the best for our children.
We wanna do everything that wecan to protect them. The same
things keep us up at night. Andwhat I'm finding is that we
(09:13):
need to make sure that we'regetting to sort of the, the
best way to promote health. Andthat's through one-on-one
interactions with individuals.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
So here in the Twin Cities, you do a mobile van. I
I've seen it folks, if youhaven't seen the Hennepin
Healthcare mobile pediatricsvan, it's, it goes out to
communities and provide somehealthcare . Could you talk
about that program?
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Yeah. We started this in May of 2020, which is
early pandemic. We were at thatstage where I think most of us
was still watching Tiger Kingand wiping down our milk
cartons with myself .
Speaker 2 (09:41):
We were wiping them down. Remember that
you stood out on your back ofyour house and you wiped down
your cheer.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Is it Tiger King? I don't
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Remember. No, it was, it was that guy who ran
the tigers
Speaker 3 (09:52):
The , so we , we did not know much about nostalgia
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Corona
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Virus items . That's the , my weird word . But you
can call it, I dunno . Yeah .
Speaker 2 (09:58):
But at that time you were wondering how to care for
children.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Yes, because we knew that we weren't going out to
receive care. I mean, onething, we were limiting who we
would see in clinic. We wereprioritizing the youngest of
young. Um, and then on theother hand, nobody wanted to
leave their house. So we hadlarge communities of children
that were not getting theirvaccines, and we did not want a
measles outbreak on top of acoronavirus outbreak. So we
(10:21):
took this van, packed someneedles in the back of it,
It sounds a little sketchy, but
Speaker 2 (10:29):
It was totally on the up . I've seen it. You
painted the logo on the side ofit . Oh ,
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Back in the day. It was a really sketchy mic ,
Speaker 2 (10:36):
So you didn't have the sweetband you have today? We didn't
,
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Yeah. Uh , now it's a lot better. Super adorable.
It is , uh, superhero graphicsall over it and
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Kid friendly and cri And
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Then we have some street cred too. People know
what it is. Know the entity,know us, and it's a very
welcomed presence. And weearned our way to get to that
point. But the point was tobring kids their healthcare
when they couldn't come intoclinic or they didn't want to,
for whatever reasons, we wentto them and met them where they
were.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Do you know, I just absolutely love whenever I hear
of a healthcare system that ismeeting people where they are,
whether that be in Tanzania orwhether it be in Minneapolis,
Minnesota. And that program issimply amazing for getting
vaccines and other healthcareto families in our communities.
We're gonna take a short break.
We're talking to Shea Beecher .
She is a nurse practitioner andhas a master of public health.
(11:26):
So she has experience inpopulation health as well. She
practices here in Minneapolis,Minnesota at Hennepin
Healthcare. And we are talkingabout measles when we come
back. She's gonna talk aboutpreventive health measures and
the vaccine. Stay with us.
We'll be right back
Speaker 4 (11:44):
When he up in healthcare says, we are here
for life. They mean here foryou, your life and all that it
brings. He up in healthcare hasa hospital HCMC and a network
of clinics both downtown andacross the west Metro. They
provide all the primary careand specialty care you would
expect to find. But did youknow they also have services
like acupuncture andchiropractic care available at
(12:06):
many of their primary careclinics and at their
integrative health clinic indowntown Minneapolis? Learn
more@hennepinhealthcare.org.
Hennepin Healthcare is here foryou and here for life.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
And we're back talking to Shea Beecher about
the measles. So you gave ussome good foundational
information in the first half.
Now I want to turn to thevaccine. The vaccine works. You
said that it is exceptionallyeffective in many of us. I
would say most of thepopulation has been vaccinated,
but not all. So what concernsare you hearing about in the
communities, especially thosewho are, who have questions
(12:43):
about the vaccine?
Speaker 3 (12:45):
I think in general, vaccines give families a pause.
Like with anything that you'regonna do to your kid, you wanna
make sure that it is safe andthat it promotes the health of
your child. One thing that wehear about is that vaccines
make my child sick. In general,you get a vaccine, your arm
hurts. My gosh, you get afever, you get aches, you get
chills. Why would you put yourchild through that? And the
(13:07):
truth is, the vaccines are sortof intended to trigger your
immune response as if there wasan actual infection. And so
they sort of give you this fakeresponse, right? We don't know
the difference. We still feelcrummy, but we can treat that
with some Tylenol ibuprofen.
Compare that to example, withactually getting a virus. You
(13:27):
might take some ibuprofenTylenol and that fever is gonna
keep coming back and therecould be complications. So we
expect that when you get avaccine, yes, you will get the
arm soreness. Yes, you'll getfever aches, but that goes
away. The second thing that Ihear from families is that, my
goodness, my kid gets so manyshots all at once. And the
truth is, kids are the mostvulnerable for infectious
(13:50):
diseases. A couple of reasonswhy they're young and have
never been exposed to it. Wewanna sort of expose them in
this controlled setting that wecan prime their immune system
and that they're ready to fightit when they really do come
across as infection.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Yeah . Their , their bodies are practicing.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
Bodies are practicing. Yeah. Um , the
second thing about kids is thatthey are in cesspools every
single day. If you have a kidin preschool, you know that
they're constantly snot nosed,coughing in your face, in each
other's faces ,
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Licking each other,
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Licking everything,
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Licking everything matter .
Speaker 3 (14:21):
So you wanna make sure that when they're in their
congregated spaces with othersnot nose kids, that they have
the best protection that theycan. So that's why we have to
unfortunately give kids aseries of vaccines pretty close
to each other when they'reyoung. And then the other , uh,
concern that I hear as itrelates specifically to the MMR
vaccine is that it causesautism. At the end of the day,
(14:45):
this theory that MMR causesautism was actually published
in a scientific journal. And itspurred this community,
including scientists anddoctors and nurses and families
to think, oh my gosh, what arewe doing with this vaccine? At
the end of it, it was peerreviewed, again with other
scientists and doctors andnurses, and they realized the
(15:07):
study was flawed. It didn'tmake sense, and there was
actually no truth to it. Butthat wasn't enough. People went
forth and looked at MMRVaccines autism and try to find
a link between the two. Andthere's now been incredible
amounts of data and studies andthere has been conclusively no
link between MMR and autism.
(15:27):
Unfortunately, one sold thatcat out the bag, the cat's out
there, and it's hard to pull itback in. And we, especially in
this age of social media andGoogle searching and podcast,
we can find whateverinformation we want to support
our worst concerns or fears.
And so it's been hard toaddress that fear of autism
linked to MMR . There is nolink. However, we do not know
(15:50):
what causes autism. And forthat reason, it's hard to say,
well, but get the vaccineanyways.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Right. Right. A lot to unpack there, but I so
appreciate what you just saidbecause the, the MMR measles,
mumps rubella , um, vaccine isso much, it's like the index
case of misinformation. Iremember when that thing was
published, it was discredited.
It was not actuallyscientifically sound. It is
(16:17):
just not supported by any factsthat there's a link between the
vaccine and autism. And yetbecause of the reasons you
said, it just flourishes outthere. Once that gets out
there, it's difficult to shakeit. So in your practice, how do
you address that? Because it'seasy to blame people, but
they've been exposed toinformation that sounds
(16:39):
reasonable. This guy's gottadoctor, you know , sounds
reasonable. How do you combatthat when you see families who,
it's not their fault, butthey've been fed wrong
information,
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Or they might have a cousin or a neighbor that has
autism Mm-Hmm.
challenging having such adiagnosis can be in social
interactions or on daily familylife. And so they're concerned
about whether that will affecttheir child. It's really hard.
And the, the fear is quiteintense. I've had families
(17:12):
where I've counseled one-on-oneup to 45 minutes about how the
vaccine is beneficial, how itwill not cause autism. And we
will go up to the point wherewe draw up the vaccine and are
seconds away and the familywill say, no, let's just pause
and I'll come back and thinkabout it at another time.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Well , that's dramatic. I've, I've often
heard of that Thing is , it'sthe act of commission versus
the act of omission. It'seasier to not do something and
just hope for the best than toactively do something. The act
of commission. Well, I am, I amdoing something to my child
here. What you're doing isprotecting them, but it doesn't
feel that way in the moment.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Right. Yeah. I was in travel clinic, I'm also ,
uh, see patients prior to theirinternational travel and we
provide counseling about how tomitigate your risks while
you're overseas. One of them isthrough vaccines. People think
yellow fever vaccine type foodvaccine. The biggest one I'm
trying to promote is your MMRvaccine. Measles is not only
blowing up here in the UnitedStates, it's blowing up
(18:10):
globally. And now where do youthink Italy, Mexico, Europe,
Europe, I just pulled this uprecently. They've had a 42 fold
increase in measles in 2022.
They had 914 cases in 202342,000 cases. Good
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Grief.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
So it is blowing up everywhere. So getting your
measles moms or Bella vaccinebefore you travel is really
important. And I had a familythat we were discussing this,
they were concerned aboutautism. And the father even
said, you know what? Um ,actually this is really good
because my cousin's wife'smother visited my mother's
house two weeks ago and theyhad measles and here they were
about to get onto their planewith their unvaccinated child
(18:50):
and travel to the same villagewhere there was measles. And
that it was hard to do it. Andso I understand how challenging
it is to be faced with all thisinformation. And at the end of
the day, science doesn't alwaysmatter.
what's best for your child. Andso you lead with your gut. And
(19:11):
I appreciate how muchconsideration families do give
to the vaccine, but sometimes Ithink we as providers and
public health officials andcommunity leaders can do more
to embrace that sort of space,that uncertainty, sit in it for
a little bit and then reach outand help them navigate through
a tough situation.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
I think you're so wise, Shay , um, and what you
just said there, because we,it's , it's pretty easy to
preach to people, you gotta dothis because I said so you
gotta do this 'cause I knowit's better for your child.
That probably doesn't work sowell with a parent. So I really
appreciate that. Is thatworking with families and
working with parents andrecognizing that that tension
that people are having, couldyou touch briefly on public
(19:53):
health campaigns? Do they workor what should we be doing as a
society to get the word outabout measles?
Speaker 3 (20:01):
So public health campaigns, there is one going
on right now because of ourmeasles outbreak. The Minnesota
Department of Health, or MDHhas been spending a lot of time
speaking with families at thosethat are infected as well as
those that have been exposed.
They spend time , uh, meetingwith schools, childcare
centers, communityorganizations. They're working
with us. We're a part of theirteam as a mobile vaccinator,
(20:23):
able to get two areas of risk,meaning that there's least
amount of immune kids orhaven't been vaccinated pockets
around the Twin cities. Andmaking sure that we do the
community education and we dothe outreach. And then we also
vaccinate, there's multipleefforts across the Twin Cities
trying to control Liz Measlesoutbreak, whether it's the
(20:44):
provider and the patient,having that one-on-one
counseling in the clinic, visitthe community leaders posting
on their social media platformsor speaking out at their place
of serve our faith or thepublic health officials
knocking on doors trying to seeif they can connect with
families. There's a lot ofthings going on. And I think
thinking about this currentoutbreak and then coming out of
(21:07):
this ginormous global pandemic,wouldn't it be great if we as a
society could spend more efforton the prevention as opposed to
their reaction when somethinggoes south ?
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Yeah, that , yeah.
Yeah, that makes perfect sense.
You know, and it's much harderto deal with it when the
outbreak has occurred. I, Ialluded to it earlier here in
this hospital, if we have asingle patient in our emergency
department, we have to gothrough very complex protocols
of not only making that placesafe for the next patient, but
(21:40):
also monitoring fortransmission of new cases for
weeks to come every time asingle person comes in. And
that single person deserves ourcare. But it does get a whole
public health apparatus rollingand it's sometimes hard to
break that cycle. So itclearly, we , we need to move
way further upstream, upstreamand work on immunizations. So
(22:03):
we're talking about measlesbecause we're currently in a
several month outbreak ofmeasles right here in
Minnesota. But that's not theonly illness that's frankly
preventable in children. Sowhat other illnesses should
families know about and whatcan they do about it
Speaker 3 (22:18):
Because of these gaps in vaccination rates,
possibly due to the pandemic,possibly due to misinformation
or vaccine hesitancy. We nowsee new old diseases cropping
up, for example. Uh , we knowthat there's been a couple of
cases and outbreaks thatpertussis are whooping cough ,
uh, and various schooldistricts across the Twin
(22:38):
cities. We also know thatthere's varicella or chickenpox
cases that are cropping up. Andthese are because we haven't
been up to date with ourimmunizations to the best that
we possibly can as a acommunity.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Yeah. Things that, that folks of a certain age
listening to this maybe youwere well familiar with
whooping cough and all thesethings that are vaccine
preventable. Even polio. Evenpolio. Um, you'll hear about it
here and there. Polio is notgone from the world, although
it is nearly gone from theworld and it's essentially gone
(23:10):
from , uh, the United States.
But this is because of vaccinesand most of us don't have
personal knowledge of some ofthese illnesses. So you said
bringing out some of theoldies. It is, it's like we're
going into the archive andpulling out diseases that
should be gone. So , um, Iappreciate you bringing those
up. These are great things forfamilies to know to keep your
(23:33):
children safe. Before I let yougo, if you could give advice to
our listeners, what would itbe?
Speaker 3 (23:40):
At the end of the day, I think , uh, we as
providers, public healthofficials and families are
trying to do the best that wecan for each other. We wanna
make sure that everybody issafe and healthy, and sometimes
we have questions about how tobest get to that point. The
best way in terms of providingcare to your child is to talk
(24:02):
to people and get that researchfrom credible sources. And this
sounds silly to compare it tobuying a toaster, but if you're
gonna buy a toaster, you aregonna figure out, you know, who
sells the best toaster? Lookingup online, what other people
are saying about that toaster.
Maybe go to the source of wherethe toasters were made and
figuring out, all right , I didmy research, I collected the
(24:22):
data. This is a toaster I'mgonna go with.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
I think it's a pretty good analogy to be
honest.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Know if that's the best example. But I think with
kids, you're gonna do yourresearch the same way that you
wanna figure out what is thebest baby high chair , or what
is the best brand of clothingor the best diapers. You're
gonna figure out, are thesevaccines the way to go? And in
your research, you might talkto your provider, you might
talk to your community leader,your faith leader, your
(24:47):
neighbor. You might do yourresearch online, and then you
are gonna make that decisionand we're all gonna understand
that's the best decision thatyou know you made with the
available resources that youdid. It's our job as providers
and public health professionalsto make sure that information
is available for you to makethose choices.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
So I vouch for this podcast as being , uh, solid
information and I would saythat with 100% certainty on
this episode as on the otherones. But where else do you
think people can go to get moreinformation?
Speaker 3 (25:19):
I'm a big fan of one-on-one conversations with
people you trust. Um, sometimesthat can be your provider and
if you are a person of color orspeak a different language,
finding a provider that's ofcolor or speaks your language
is even better because there isthat level of trust that can be
established through yourconversations. If it's your
community faith leader , uh, ifit's your school health nurse
(25:40):
or your childcare center'scommunity health worker, having
a discussion and ongoingdialogue about what is the
available information, thereputation of that information,
and whether it makes sense foryou and your child.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
We've been talking to Chang Beecher. She is a
certified pediatric nursepractitioner and a public
health professional here indowntown Minneapolis, and a
colleague of mine here atHennepin Healthcare Shea . This
has been an incredibly valuableconversation to so many people.
So thank you. Thank
Speaker 3 (26:08):
You for having me.
Appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
It's been great having you here. So we're
talking about measles becausewe're in the middle of an
outbreak, but the best way toget through an outbreak is to
stay informed. So I appreciateyou listening and on our next
episode, we're gonna be talkingabout insomnia. So you are not
gonna wanna snooze on that one.
I hope you'll join us. In themeantime, be healthy and be
well.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Thanks for listening to the Healthy Matters podcast
with Dr. David Hilden . To findout more about the Healthy
Matters podcast or browse thearchive, visit healthy
matters.org. Got a question ora comment for the show, email
us at Healthy matters@hcme.orgor call 6 1 2 8 7 3 talk.
There's also a link in the shownotes. The Healthy Matters
(26:51):
Podcast is made possible byHennepin Healthcare in
Minneapolis, Minnesota, andengineered and produced by John
Lucas At Highball Executiveproducers are Jonathan, CTO and
Christine Hill . Pleaseremember, we can only give
general medical advice duringthis program, and every case is
unique. We urge you to consultwith your physician if you have
a more serious or pressinghealth concern. Until next
(27:13):
time, be healthy and be well.
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