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(Reuters Health) - The rapid spread of a measles outbreak from Disneyland in California to communities around the country suggests that vaccination rates in some places may be as low as 50 percent, a study suggests.
"Disneyland is an international attraction and sometimes people are coming from places where measles vaccination rates are low or they don't get the recommended two doses, and that, combined with the fact that there are a lot of pockets of non-vaccination in California and people coming from all over the U.S. created the perfect storm for a big outbreak," lead author Maimuna Majumder of Boston Children's Hospital and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology told Reuters Health.
This year, the U.S. is experiencing a multi-state measles outbreak believed to have started at Disneyland this past December, as well as three other unrelated outbreaks in Illinois, Nevada, and Washington, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As of March 6, 173 people from 17 states and the District of Columbia were reported to have measles, with most linked back to Disneyland.
Measles is a highly contagious virus that can be serious or even fatal. It starts with a fever that can last a couple of days, followed by a cough, runny nose, and pink eye. A rash develops on the face and neck then spreads to the rest of the body. In severe cases, pneumonia and encephalitis can develop.
People with measles can be spreading the virus for four days before and after the rash appears, according to the CDC.
The virus can live for up to two hours on surfaces where an infected person coughs or sneezes. People who breathe the contaminated air or touch an infected surface and then touch their eyes, nose or mouth can become infected.
About 96 to 99 percent of people in the community need to be vaccinated against measles to effectively halt its spread. Because about 7 percent of people won't get immunity from one dose of the vaccine, two doses are recommended in the U.S.
Before the vaccine was developed, each person with measles typically infected 11 to 18 others, Majumder and colleagues write in JAMA Pediatrics.
Based on historical infection rates and the number of individuals infected in the current outbreak, the researchers estimate that vaccination rates in some communities might be as low as 50 percent and probably are no higher than 86 percent.
"Clearly, based on the number of infections we have seen so far, we can say that (the current vaccination rate) is far below the level necessary to achieve herd immunity," Majumder said.
The timing of the current outbreak, starting during school vacations for many people in the U.S., likely made measles spread more quickly, said Dr. George Rutherford, vice chair of the department of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco, in a phone interview.
"There's nothing magic about Disneyland except that there are a lot of people there," said Rutherford, who wasn't involved in the study. "If anything, because it's outdoors and so spread out, it might be a little harder to transmit."
Still, mixing tourists from countries where vaccination rates are low, with U.S. kids whose parents don't vaccinate them for medical or personal reasons, is a likely cause of the current outbreak, he said.
"In this scenario, any one child with measles is going to quickly spread it to just about every other child around them who isn't already immune,

Imagine you're attending a Gertrude Stein-style salon. And you've arrived at the gathering only to find yourself facing a set of chairs, beckoning you to sit, as one is wont to do at a salon. But as you grow closer to the inner sanctum, you begin to notice the strangeness of the chairs, draped in fabric that looms bigger and brighter with every step you take. You start to see the pustules, tendrils and spikes that, from a distance, might appear like part of a pattern, but are in fact three-dimensional features that prevent any human being from planting her body.

No, this is not a Dalian nightmare. Your very fictional, intellectual host has adorned her home with the work of Margarita Sampson. Those chairs are art. Please don't sit on the art.




The above work is part of Sampson's series "Infectious Desires," on view now at Stanley Street Gallery in Sydney, Australia. The imaginary salon idea is hers, only in her universe, the textile growths are more violent, warping and mutating and giving birth to colonies that turn love seats into war zones. The outgrowths mimic the exchange of ideas, competing and compromising in ever changing combinations.

"Natural patterns are warped, the man-made crumbles under an invasive eco-system in flux," she writes in a statement. "Built structures are warped, broken, reconfigured, re-imagined... the invented dichotomies are brought into collision – the chaotic, organic, changeable, exterior 'other' comes to bear upon the ordered, the known, the interior, the safe."

Sampson admits the pieces are sensual too. The chairs are chaotic and messy in a way that bleeds into decadence and luxury like punk couture. "Glamour is the strict control of the body or the environment," the artist adds, "sublimated to an ideal -- there's no body fluids or stains in glamour. It's about boundaries, zones of comfort. We feel we are betrayed by our bodies -- a lot of this work is about my own aging, my body, about death and disease, about fear and surrender, tightening and release."

While Yayoi Kusama's 1984 "Pollen" piece, a polka-dotted chair littered with protuberances, caught the attention of passersby at this year's Armory Show, Sampson takes the tension between the natural world and humanity to new heights. Installations mime dying ecosystems and works of interior design give way to artsy infection. As she noted in a press release for Stanley Street Gallery, "there is no safe place."

Margarita Sampson's "Infectious Desires" was previously on view at Stanley Street Gallery.

There are plenty of reasons to despair about the state of the world: ISIL's depredations in the Middle East, Boko Haram's atrocities in Nigeria, and Russia's slow-drip incursion into Ukraine are just a few. These phenomena are more distressing when one considers that they're occurring against the backdrop of an eroding postwar order. Contrary to the oft-heard refrain, though, that the world is becoming more dangerous -- or, according to some observers, has never been more dangerous -- it has actually never been safer. Steven Pinker and Andrew Mack recently documented the declines in global rates of homicide, violence against women, genocide, and war, among other categories.

We're also becoming more prosperous. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, real global GDP more than tripled between 1970 and 2010, and real global GDP per capita nearly doubled. Last month the Economist reported that the percent of the world's population living in "abject poverty" fell from 36 in 1990 to 18 in 2010 (translating to about 900 million people who escaped that condition).

Finally, we're living longer, better lives. The University of Washington's Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation found that "global life expectancy increased by 5.8 years for men and 6.6 years for women" between 1990 and 2013. According to the United Nations, moreover, the mortality rate for children under five fell from 90 per thousand births to 46 during that same period, while the percent of the world's population that is "clinically malnourished" fell more than seven points.

It's no accident the world is becoming safer, wealthier and healthier: there are extraordinary people around the world who're trying to make it better. Too often, though, their names remain unknown; their contributions, unacknowledged. "What's Working" is a crucial platform for spotlighting them.

When the news of the day feels overwhelming, I take comfort in three facts.

First, the ingenuity of our minds has always scaled with the magnitude of our calling. There's no reason to believe it won't continue doing so.

Second, we're pushing forward the frontiers of possibility every second, far more rapidly than we can comprehend. Before coming to MIT, I believed certain problems were simply too hard for human beings to address. In retrospect, though, my skepticism simply reflected my failure of imagination. I now assume that once a problem has been identified, folks will eventually solve it or find a way to manage it. The tipping point for me came six years ago, when MIT News ran an article discussing a new project Professor Angela Belcher and a few of her colleagues had undertaken. "For the first time," it explained, "MIT researchers have shown they can genetically engineer viruses to build both the positively and negatively charged ends of a lithium-ion battery." If we can figure out how to make batteries from viruses -- I never imagined I'd see those two words in the same sentence, and I still can't get my head around the idea -- what can't we do?

Third, no matter what problem keeps you up at night, there are brilliant, passionate people around the world who're working on it. You may not hear about them amid the daily barrage of depressing headlines, but they're easy to find if you want to find them. Among the extraordinary individuals I've met, spoken to over e-mail, or reconnected with in recent months: Ruzwana Bashir, the cofounder and CEO of Peek, who's using her own experience of sexual abuse to help other victims find their voices; Pardis Sabeti, a professor of organismic and evolutionary biology at Harvard, who's developing treatments to fight Ebola; Donald Sadoway, a professor of materials chemistry at MIT, whose work on liquid-metal batteries could revolutionize electricity storage; Shiza Shahid, the cofounder of the Malala Fund, who's working to give young women around the world a chance at an education; and Wes Moore, author of The Other Wes Moore and The Work, who cofounded BridgeEdU to help at-risk youth in Baltimore graduate from college.

There's an enormous amount of work to be done -- slowing the course of climate change, feeding a growing population and resettling tens of millions of refugees, to name but a few challenges -- but dwelling on everything that's wrong and fretting about everything that could go wrong won't help. Let's spend less time lamenting the state of the world and more time supporting those who're making it better.

I spent the better part of February in the port city of Tamatave, Madagascar. It was there that I had the pleasure of meeting Florian and Ambre, two pediatric patients currently receiving free treatment on the Mercy Ships hospital, Africa Mercy, the world's largest civilian hospital ship.




From left to right: Ambre and her mother, Raso; Florentine and her son, Florian.

Florian is a friendly toddler who wears a constant smile and has never met a stranger. His mother, Florentine, brags that he is well-behaved and "sure to grow up to be wise and kind." While that may be true, he also has a mischievous smile that emerges when his mother isn't watching -- it's the kind of look that prompts you to move breakable objects to the highest shelf.




The crew onboard the Africa Mercy entertains Florian while he waits to see Mercy Ships' orthopedic team.

Ambre is the bashful one who takes her time to warm up to you. She is quiet and observant -- the type of peer you need to balance out a Florian. Her mother, Raso, is talkative and laughs in a way that makes you laugh along, even though she is speaking a language you can't understand.




Ambre, 20 months, and her mother, Raso, in Tamatave, Madagascar. February 2015.

The friendship and easy smiles these mothers share are recent. Florentine and Raso met in the waiting room the day their toddlers were scheduled to see Mercy Ships' orthopedic team. Their children suffer from the same congenital deformity called clubfoot, which causes the feet to twist at the ankle and curve inward. Both children are about 20 months old, but neither has taken a first step.




Raso and Ambre wait to be seen by Mercy Ships physiotherapist Kalinda Ramsaran.

"On the day Ambre was born, I was crying, my husband was crying -- my entire family was crying." Raso says. "This child was our dream, but they said she would never walk normally... we were determined to find help, but we were unable to do anything. We heard there are doctors in the world that can treat clubfoot, but there was no treatment for us here. It was so difficult that I could do nothing. That was the hardest part."


Even though they felt helpless, these two women never gave up hope.


"What a task for a mother to have a child who hurts," Florentine says.


When a hospital ship arrived with an orthopedic team capable of treating clubfoot, Florentine and Raso found treatment for their children, and a sisterhood in their struggles. "We are closer because our children had the same problem," Raso says. "We shared our pain."


Now they will also share their joy. With some casting, braces and time, Florian and Ambre will be able to take their first steps. They are the lucky ones. The World Health Organization estimates that there are 100,000 new cases of clubfoot annually, and 80 percent of untreated cases are in the developing world.




With casting, braces, and time, Florian and Ambre will be able to take their first steps.

Our waiting room isn't big enough for all of those untreated clubfoot patients, so Mercy Ships prioritizes training, mentorship and infrastructure support in every country it visits. Recently the crew onboard provided training and mentorship to 12 clubfoot therapists, 22 local health care professionals, and educated more than 235 in courses like the WHO's Safe Surgery Checklist.


While there remain many more surgeries to perform, watching patients like Florian and Ambre take their first steps reminds us that this wild idea -- this hospital on a ship -- is an efficient way to treat and teach in the developing world. Thanks to our volunteers, donors and partners like Johnson & Johnson, it's working.


Today Florentine and Raso are planning a party for their families to come together and celebrate healing. They are already the type of friends who laugh about the possibility of their children getting married one day -- but there will be no pressure, they insist. And then they exchange a sideways glance and break into laughter all over again.


In a few months, I suspect that Florian will be mobile and keeping up (read: getting into trouble) with other kids, while Ambre will be toddling in her mother's shadow. Wherever life leads them, these two will have a solid footing to take on the future.




Florentine and Florian, Raso and Ambre.

Photos by Katie Keegan and Justine Forrest for Mercy Ships.

Mickael Jou is a photographer. And Mickael Jou is a dancer. His project "365 Photos" succinctly captures these two passions, in a series of urban snapshots that showcase the Taiwanese-French-American flexing his ballet skills all over Berlin. What sets him apart from the herd of choreographically inclined photographers, the artist explained to HuffPost, is that he does it all himself.

You see, his images are self-portraits, styled and enacted by Jou around cafes, supermarkets, attics and anything else he can assemblé his way into.



Jou is a trained dancer. He recalls dancing, ballet and modern dance, in the streets of Paris, entertaining tourists who would film or photograph his precise movements. Inspired, he decided to buy a camera, learn the manual and embark on a self-portrait project. "My self-portraits help me express the emotions that I feel while dancing," he explained. "Dance is a very powerful art form, and I try to translate my emotions into my photography."

While the project is titled "365 Photos," Jou doesn't necessarily capture an image per day. He's been working on the series for three years now and predicts it will take him another three to finish. He's been archiving all of his shots on tumblr, so that fans outside of his home city, Berlin, can get a taste of his art. Check out a preview of the series below.

For many of us, the ever-present temptation to reach for the chocolate becomes nearly impossible to resist when we're feeling stressed. The combination of deadline pressure and easily available sweets can easily sink your weight-management plans for the day.

But newly published research suggests this dynamic can be circumvented with a bit of folk wisdom: If you sense your craving is about to be triggered, take a short, brisk walk.

A research team led by Larissa Ledochowski of the University of Innsbruck in Austria reports a 15-minute walk reduces the urge for a sugary snack even in people who are overweight, under pressure, and literally have candy available at the tips of their fingers.

The findings of this study support the idea that a single bout of exercise can reduce cue- or stress-related cravings.

"When snacking has become habitual and poorly regulated by overweight people, the promotion of short bouts of physical activity could be valuable for reducing the urge to consume at times when the person may be particularly vulnerable," the researchers write in the online journal PLoS One.

Their study featured 47 overweight people (with a mean age of 28) who reported consuming "highly caloric sugary snacks, such as chocolate" on a daily basis. They were instructed to refrain from eating such foods for three days prior to the experiment.

Once they arrived at the laboratory, they were assigned to one of two groups. Half took a 15-minute brisk walk on a treadmill (they were told to walk briskly but not breathlessly), while the others sat quietly for that same period of time. All returned to the lab on another day within a week of their first visit and were assigned to the other group.

After sitting quietly for five minutes (or five more minutes, for those in the passive group), participants completed a Stroop test, in which a series of letters that spell out one color (say, blue) are presented in a different color (say, red). Participants had to distinguish between the color of the letters and the color the word spells out—a task that has been shown to elicit high levels of stress.

"Then the participants were offered a selection of high caloric sugary snacks," the researchers add. "They were asked to unwrap one sugary snack of their choice and handle it for about 30 seconds, without eating it." Their level of craving and emotional arousal were measured at each point in the process, along with their heart rate and blood pressure.

The researchers found that while the Stroop test did indeed increase stress, which in turn increased food cravings, this effect was lessened for those who had just taken a short walk. Similarly, "opening and handling sugary snacks" increased cravings (as well as participants' pulse rates), "but exercise attenuated these responses."

"The findings of this study support the idea that a single bout of exercise can reduce cue- or stress-related cravings," they conclude.

Obesity is a complex problem, of course, but reducing cravings is clearly a part of the solution, and this study shows it can be done, even with a vulnerable population under stressful circumstances.

So if you sense your stress is building, get up and take a quick walk. And if you stroll by any vending machines or convenience stores, you might want to pick up the pace.

Many of us have a great idea or a new solution to an everyday challenge lingering in the back of our minds but don't act on it. Having a good idea is great. Acting on it is even better. It takes a leap of faith combined with plenty of legwork.

The reason many us don't move forward is not because of roadblocks that stand in your way. Often it is the emotional barriers we create. Here are five mental hurdles you may have and how to scale them to make your leap:

1. I don't have the time. If not now, when? If you can make time for a weekly mani-pedi, spin class, laundry or posting endlessly on Facebook, why can't you take the same amount of time to work on your new idea? Flexing your mind is as important as flexing your body. Tip: Put the "Do not disturb" sign up and add just one hour in your week for "project development."

2. I can't afford to do it. Hey! You can't afford not to. Taking action costs relatively nothing compared to living with the price of regret for not trying. If money is tight, take baby steps to get started. Start saving in other areas or trading off to give yourself more spending power to spark your idea. I traded dining out for eating in and stopped buying stuff that was simply filling up my drawers and counters, often rarely used.

3. I don't have the skills. Well, you probably do and just don't know it. First, look at what talents you have and think about using them in other ways. I host two radio shows and never took a class called "How to be a radio host." I knew I loved to write, had a gift for gab and an inquisitive mind and just repackaged my communications skills to use them in a fresh new way.Want to learn new skills? Volunteer your time and talent with organization which aligns with your goals to gain hands on experience.

4. I lack the proper education or degree. That didn't seem to stop Bill Gates. You are smarter than you think. Our bodies are designed to give birth which is pretty amazing! But our minds are equally able to give birth to ideas, which is awesome!

Tip: If you feel you need to deposit to your brain trust, there are many online courses and Apps you can download. Just jump in with that extra hour a week you just gave yourself. I am a big fan of free webinars and tele-seminars. Usually there's a no-obligation sales pitch at the end. But you can learn plenty just by listening for one hour free. For some jobs like teaching, an advanced degree is necessary. Many programs offer payment plans for slightly more money or provide professional discounts to certain groups.

5. It seems like everyone is already doing what I want to do. Sometimes I wonder if any idea is truly original anymore. Here's the reality: There is a market for everything if you identify your niche and audience, understand their needs and figure out how to reach them and with a compelling message. Just give your idea a new twist.

Some of the best ideas are better solutions to everyday problems. Do your homework by drawing on your own experiences and by talking to others. There were a ton of breast cancer books written by survivors on the market when I was pitching "Getting Things Off My Chest." I read many of them and knew how I wanted my book to stand apart. I was able to sell this message and my plan to promote it to a publisher who listened and took me on. If I had not done the research and pitched how my book filled a niche for a specific audience and would be different from the other books, my manuscript would still be sitting in my computer.

If you want to pursue something for pure joy (dancing, painting, singing, jewelry making), there are many courses and apps to help you get started without making a huge commitment. I like www.craftsy.com

If your idea is a business, start with a simple outline. Ask yourself these ten questions:

1. What is my idea and what is its purpose?


2. How does it work?


3. What is the need and how will my idea fill it?


4. Who is my target audience and what do they like?


5. How can I reach them?


6. What am I offering them to engage their interest?


7. What am I selling to make money and how am I doing it?


8. How much money do I need to get started?


9. What other services/products like mine exist and how is my concept both similar and different?


10. What resources can I draw on (tech support, financial, friends, family, etc) to help me?

Taking the first step with a new project, enterprise or direction requires a leap of faith. You have to believe in yourself, your potential and your possibilities. Do it with an open mind and a willingness to listen to your gut, to advice from people you respect and to the people you want to reach. But ignore the naysayers who discourage rather than encourage you.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather act on my dreams rather than sleepwalk through life. Is it time to schedule your wake up call?