Family's Anguish After Exposing 1,000 People to Measles

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An Arizona mother of four has spoken out about her decision not to vaccinate her children and the subsequent role she and her family have played in infecting one person and exposing up to 1,000 with measles in the state’s recent outbreak.

“People think we were willy-nilly exposing people,” Jannae Yslas-Roach told the Arizona Republic this week. “That’s not the case; that’s not what happened. That is something that is really important to me and that I want people to understand.”

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Yslas-Roach, a 32-year-old copper-mine employee who lives in the small town of Kearny, found herself at the center of the national vaccine debate — and a slew of social-media attacks — after she and her family visited Disneyland, ground zero for at least 140 measles cases, as a Christmas present to the kids.

The mother is not immunized because her uncle suffered from a “severe reaction” to a vaccine and her own mother “worried I might have a genetic problem,” she told the newspaper. In turn, Yslas-Roach made the decision to not vaccinate her own children —Christian Day, 13; Isaiah Biano-Yslas, 9; Gabriel Biano-Yslas, 5; and Serenity Biano-Yslas, 7. “I was worried about a one-size-fits-all vaccine,” explained Yslas-Roach, who could not be reached for comment by Yahoo Parenting. Her husband Aaron Roach and her niece Neveah Yslas, 7, who also went on the trip to Disneyland and who live in the household, have been vaccinated.

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Several weeks after traveling to the theme park, Yslas-Roach and all the children except for Neveah came down with the measles, definitively receiving a diagnosis from county health officials on Jan. 22. The county got involved, according to the Arizona Republic, because the nurse at the children’s school knew the family was not vaccinated and had traveled to Disneyland, and worried that the children’s absences were tied to the measles outbreak.

But before the county’s involvement, various members of the family had traveled around Pinal County, going about their business (before they knew they were sick) and then visiting various medical clinics, as they became ill one by one. In turn, three others in Arizona came to be infected, including another Kearny resident, and about 1,000 more in three counties total were exposed.

Some of the residents in the town of 2,000 showed their anger toward the family, with some suspecting who they were, through social media and previous interviews with the Arizona Republic. “If I was the one that had the measles, I would let people know it was me,” Kearny resident Erin Keeney had told the paper in a separate article this week. “I suppose it’s been awful for them. But the fact they kept it so quiet isn’t right. We have a lot of newborns here.”

But, Yslas-Roach told the newspaper, “I never in a million years thought this would go as far as it has. I’m a believer that if you do not vaccinate your children, you have a responsibility to keep your kids out and away from others, if they’re sick.”

Before the county health officials became involved with Yslas-Roach’s family, they had visited physicians without getting a firm diagnosis; in one case a doctor allegedly did not do a blood test because it was too late in the day for samples to be collected, and in another case, Christian’s, a doctor decided against giving a measles test (available as a blood test or nose and mouth swab) and diagnosed a viral infection. Health officials later diagnosed Christian with measles and found that his office visit exposed 18 people, one of whom became infected. That individual, an adult, later returned to the same doctor, in turn exposing at least 195 others.

“Fortunately there have only been a small number of infections linked to the exposures, but imagine if the 1,000 exposed were children under the age of one year old?” notes Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious-disease physician with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and a member of the public health committee of the Infectious Disease Society of America. “Measles is one of the most contagious infectious diseases known to humankind.”

Adalja tells Yahoo Parenting that both types of measles tests are accurate — particularly in an unvaccinated person, who would not have the presence of measles antibodies from a measles shot to create a possible false positive. “The reason the test is often not ordered is that measles has been eliminated from this country since 2000, and most physicians have never seen a case of measles, so it’s not often what’s even being considered,” he explains. However, he adds, of the outbreak and the heavy media coverage, “Measles definitely should be on the mind of any physician at this point.”

But Adalja also explains that, in order to do the more-definitive swab test, doctors must first make arrangements with local health department authorities, and that “some doctors may see that as a hassle,” especially when coupled with the thought of having to possibly alert a slew of patients that they might have been exposed in the waiting room. “So sometimes you find doctors not doing their due diligence — because measles, in the current context, is a public health emergency, and you can’t approach it in a cavalier fashion. Each diagnosis has public-health implications.”

Regarding Yslas-Roach’s wariness of vaccines — something she said she’s considering putting aside in order immunize her family after their experience — Adalja says it’s the type of fear that physicians need to address head-on with their patients. “You have to really sit with the patient to discuss the risks and benefits,” he says. “You have to make the best case for vaccines in the context of what they’re scared about.”

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