TEXAS: Anti-Vax Republican State Rep Claims Measles Can Be Treated With Antibiotics (It Totally Cannot)

The Texas Observer reports:

Texas state Representative Bill Zedler doesn’t understand the fuss over the resurgence of infectious diseases. “When I grew up, I had a lot of these illnesses,” he said, listing measles, mumps and chickenpox.

“They wanted me to stay at home. But as far as being sick in bed, it wasn’t anything like that,” said Zedler, an outspoken anti-vaxxer and longtime member of the House Public Health Committee who has worked in the health-care industry.

“They want to say people are dying of measles. Yeah, in third-world countries they’re dying of measles,” Zedler said, shaking his head. “Today, with antibiotics and that kind of stuff, they’re not dying in America.”

Deadstate reports:

Zedler is flat out wrong. In modern medicine, there is no treatment for the measles. The only way to prevent it is to get the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine beforehand.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), there are currently six measles outbreaks taking place across the U.S.

Before the MMR vaccine was made widely available in 1971, around 500 people died each year from measles. But thanks to the growing movement of anti-vaxxers in the U.S., the threat is becoming very real again.