Texas State Rep. Bill Zedler Is Not Concerned With Measles Outbreak

Over the last few months, there have reports of a measles outbreak in different areas of the country. Several cases have been reported in Washington State and, as a result, have been gaining a level of national attention. However, one Texas lawmaker doesn’t seem too worried about the outbreak.

Via The Hill, Republican Texas State Rep. Bill Zedler said in a recent interview with the Texas Observer that he wasn’t too concerned due to the availability of antibiotics.

"They want to say people are dying of measles. Yeah, in third-world countries they're dying of measles. Today, with antibiotics and that kind of stuff, they're not dying in America," Zedler said.

While antibiotics can help treat individual symptoms, they are meant to fight bacterial infections and not viruses. That has been the purpose of vaccines which have been proven to work in suppressing viruses like measles. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimated only two to five percent of children who were vaccinated within their first 12 months get measles.

One of the reasons believed to be a big reason for the measles outbreak has been the growing anti-vaccine movement that believes vaccines are dangerous. Zedler, himself, is one of the supporters of a bill that would provide parents easier access to vaccine exemptions for their kids in school.