‘Complete failure of leadership’: Alberta’s former CMOH on current measles outbreak

Dr. Mark Joffe, the former chief medical officer of health in Alberta, says the province could have avoided the current measles outbreak with better leadership.

Alberta’s former chief medical officer of health (CMOH) is echoing calls for better messaging and access to the MMR vaccine as measles cases across the province rise.

Alberta Health reported 22 new cases over the weekend, bringing the total to 159 since the outbreak began.

“We knew this was going to happen,” Dr. Mark Joffe said Friday during a presentation for the University of Alberta’s Department of Medicine. “This was not a surprise.”

In Joffe’s talk titled “Who let the measles in?” he concedes “we all did.”

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“I think there has been a complete failure of leadership at all levels and there’s public complacency,” said Joffe.

“I am aware of instances of individuals being hospitalized with measles where the family was completely unaware that this was preventable.”

“We are failing these people.”

The U of A professor in medicine quit as Alberta’s CMOH a couple of weeks ago after spending two-and-a-half years in the role.

He said there were “warning shots” about a potential outbreak in Alberta, pointing to several one-off cases over the past year.

With cases rising around the globe and low vaccination rates in certain regions he said it was only a matter of time before measles started to spread.

“If you look at specific counties where we now have significant circulation, these are the rates of MMR immunization,” Joffe said, referencing a map highlighting areas with vaccination rates as low as 10 per cent.

“It’s not good enough.”

Facts about measles

Joffe’s presentation comes just a day after he penned an op-ed in Postmedia newspapers explaining the severity of measles and the effectiveness of the MMR vaccine.

In it he called measles “a highly infectious and serious disease” that is “entirely preventable”.

He said the current outbreak, affecting mostly children, “should concern us all”.

Of infected people, he said 10 to 20 per cent require hospitalization and about 1 in 1,000 develop a brain infection that’s often fatal.

He said the measles vaccine has a “well-established safety record” and receiving two doses provides nearly 100 per cent protection.

He also addressed a debunked study linking the vaccine to autism, pointing out there’s been many high-quality studies since then that show no such link.

Official opposition accuses UCP of ‘gagging’ CMOH

Health Minister Adriana LaGrange ignored a CTV News Edmonton request for an interview at the legislature Monday but the official opposition questioned her during the legislative session.

Edmonton MLA Rakhi Pancholi accused LaGrange of putting a gag order on Joffe while he was Alberta’s top doctor.

“Why was Dr. Joffe not allowed to implement these public health measures while he was chief medical officer of health? Why did he have to quit to advocate for them?” she asked.

LaGrange called her comment “incorrect” stating that Joffe discussed his intention to share public information with them and released a statement on measles while he was CMOH.

“We are continuing to work with local MOHs and the CMOH,” she said. “They are in constant conversation and consultation with Alberta Health Services as well and we are making sure that the right information gets to the right people at the right time.”