Measles, quarantine, and opinions

I am not intending this post to be a bashing towards anyone, instead I hope that it will create a place for discussion. Given that, I would like to tell you a little story about what we are currently going through.

Matthew will be having surgery on April 29th to repair a hernia, fix an undescended testicle, and remove a cyst in his eyebrow. Because of this we had to take him for a pre-op appt. at Children's hospital here in Pittsburgh on March 23rd. Little did we know, on April 3rd we would be notified by Children's hospital that Matthew had been exposed to measles. MEASLES!!!! I figured it was not a big deal until I realized that Matthew did not catch up with his vaccinations until April 2nd. He had been sick for his last round of vaccinations and did not receive the crucial MMR vaccine. Children's hospital told us they were not concerned but had to inform everyone. Okay, no big deal.....

Fast forward to April 6th when I receive a phone call from the county health dept. To make a long story short, measles are highly contagious. The doctor that saw Matthew for his pre-op appt. came down with measles and so the likeliness of Matthew getting it is now increased (really increased). A 30 something year old father and his two preschoolers also came down with measles. I was also informed that this is not considered an outbreak, however; there have only been 6 confirmed cases in the entire United States over the last three years.

Matthew is quarantined in the house through Saturday. This is serious stuff and I am a little ticked off that Matthew was needlesly exposed. The reason these people got measles is because they were never vaccinated. Does anyone know what measles can do??? The following information, including the picture, is from the CDC.

Description
A respiratory disease caused by a virus.The virus normally grows in the cells that line the back of the throat and in the cells that line the lungs.

Symptoms
Rash, high fever, cough, runny nose, and red, watery eyes (lasts about a week).

Complications
Diarrhea, ear infections, pneumonia, encephalitis, seizures, and death
Approximately 20% of reported measles cases experience one or more complications. These complications are more common among children under 5 years of age and adults over 20 years old.
Measles causes ear infections in nearly one out of every 10 children who get it. As many as one out of 20 children with measles gets pneumonia, and about one child in every 1,000 who get measles will develop encephalitis. (This is an inflammation of the brain that can lead to convulsions, and can leave your child deaf or mentally retarded.) For every 1,000 children who get measles, one or two will die from it. Measles can also make a pregnant woman have a miscarriage, give birth prematurely, or have a low-birth-weight baby.
In developing countries, where malnutrition and vitamin A deficiency are prevalent, measles has been known to kill as many as one out of four people. It is the leading cause of blindness among African children. Measles kills almost 1 million children in the world each year.

I understand the fear about autism realated to vaccines but there is NO PROOF that vaccinations, including MMR, are anywhere remotely tied to autism. Instead, not vaccinating your children is bringing these diseases back into our communities and threatening lives. It can be so simply avoided. Measles is the #1 death in children which can be avoided by a simple vaccination. I don't understand. Please explain it to me someone. I would really like to understand with hard facts, not emotions. I am irritated that my child is threatened with this disease because of the choice of others. We were not given the choice and should not have to suffer because of it.

Thankfully, Matthew does not have measles at this time but he is not out of the woods until Saturday. Please keep us in your prayers as well as the many other people around the Pittsburgh area that were also exposed and are locked in their house at this time.

I would love to hear your opinion on this. Please keep your comments respectful to everyone.