美国国家公共电台 NPR Millennial And Gen-X Travelers: Need Another Measles Shot?（在线收听）

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

As kids go back to school, health officials are reminding parents how important vaccines are. There've been more than 1,200 cases of measles in the U.S. this year. But a lot of those cases actually involve adults who traveled to countries with current measles outbreaks. April Dembosky of member station KQED learned this firsthand when she scheduled a trip overseas this summer.

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APRIL DEMBOSKY, BYLINE: Destination Bulgaria - a tiny country in Eastern Europe typically overlooked by American tourists. But my husband's father grew up there, so it's long been on our travel list. It's also on the list of countries with measles outbreaks. Some of the biggest are in the Philippines and Ukraine. Bulgaria has had almost 800 cases this year. That's why my travel nurse wanted to check my vaccination status before I left. When the Measles, Mumps Rubella vaccine was first introduced in the early 1970s, scientists recommended just one dose. It wasn't until 1989 that they changed the guidelines to two doses. So a lot of people like me, now in their 30s and 40s, aren't sure if they ever got that second dose or not.

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DEMBOSKY: So my nurse recommended I go to the lab to get a blood test to check my immunity. It's a basic test that looks for antibodies to measles that should come back positive or negative, yes or no.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Now serving 142 at reception B.

DEMBOSKY: Well, my results came back borderline. In other words, maybe I'm immune; maybe I'm not.

ART REINGOLD: The blood test is imperfect.

DEMBOSKY: Dr. Art Reingold is a professor of epidemiology at UC Berkeley.

REINGOLD: If you don't have antibodies, you may still be immune, but your antibodies are not detectable by the test.

DEMBOSKY: So it's possible I got a false negative, but there's no way to know for sure.

REINGOLD: I know a lot of people who would say that's a good reason not to do testing (laughter) because you get these results. You don't know how to interpret them. People worry.

DEMBOSKY: So now what? My doctor suggested getting another dose of the vaccine. It's safe. But when I look into it, it turns out there are some side effects in adults that don't occur in babies. Twenty-five percent of women get acute arthritis one to three weeks after getting the vaccine. That would be right in the middle of my trip, right when my husband and I are due to arrive at Bulgaria's Black Sea coast. I imagine lying on the beach, meditating on the rolling waves, racked with joint pain. That would be horrible. But, then, getting measles would be worse.

LISA WINSTON: I can fully appreciate getting measles is not something you want.

DEMBOSKY: So I went back to the experts; this time, Dr. Lisa Winston, an epidemiologist at San Francisco General Hospital. First, she tells me not to worry about the acute arthritis, which really means sudden onset and short lived. And she says the joint pain is usually mild, nothing a couple ibuprofen wouldn't take care of.

WINSTON: If the choice is between, I'm a little worried that I, you know, may get this arthritis or some joint pain versus I'm going someplace where I'm really going to be at risk for measles, the balance would swing towards being vaccinated, for sure.

DEMBOSKY: But before I went through the trouble of another medical visit, I wanted to make sure I really needed it. My mom was a nurse, and she kept my pediatric vaccine records. Squeezed in the margin, scribbled in black pen, it says that when I was 11, I got a second dose of measles vaccine. Winston tells me, in general, medical records are more reliable than the blood test.

WINSTON: For somebody who knows that they have been vaccinated, who has their history, you would actually be considered immune regardless of what your blood test shows.

DEMBOSKY: Bottom line? if you're not sure what your vaccination status is and you're traveling to a country with a known measles outbreak, there's no harm getting a second dose of vaccine. But if you know you've had two doses, there's no benefit to getting a third.

For NPR News, I'm April Dembosky.