then it's five cases and it's eight cases, and every couple days, the numbers are bigger and bigger.
"And it was kind of close to home, you know? It's in Southfield. It's in Oak Park, and then the next thing I know, it's in West Bloomfield at a party store. That's a mile a way from where my brother lives."
Knowing he was bringing his family back to Oakland County for Easter, Zoladz and his wife talked about how they could best protect their baby.
"It was like, we've got two options: We could see if our pediatrician would be willing to vaccinate Ari early or we could just not go home, and that's not a viable option," he said. "We haven't been home since Christmas, and we have a close-knit family. I would definitely hear about it from my extended family if I didn't bring the kids home for Easter."
Adding to the weight of their decision is knowing that one of his relatives doesn't vaccinate her children, he said.
"So it was sort of like that layered on top of the outbreak numbers getting higher and higher and it is pretty close to home — within a mile of where my brother lives and where we will be. ... It was a combination of those three things that made us call the pediatrician's office."
Baby Ari was vaccinated Thursday afternoon — about six weeks before his first birthday.
"The doctor spoke with my wife, and she said, 'These are valid concerns.' She said, 'I completely agree. ... This is within the the CDC's recommendations. The recommendations are that if a baby under 1 is traveling internationally or if they're going to an area where there are confirmed cases of measles, the baby can get the vaccine early.' "
Zoladz said he and his wife aren't alarmists or extreme when it comes to guarding the health of their children, but this outbreak hit too close to home.
"It feels different than the others — especially the proximity to West Bloomfield, and Southfield and Oak Park. I've got family members in those communities and we're going to be there," he said. "And you know what? I can't change the behavior of my family member who chooses not to vaccinate, but I also don't want to cut this person out of our lives or make this an ultimatum, and say it's either us or them. Yes, this is an inconvenience, but it's an extra precaution that will give us peace of mind and we can go about our holiday. Hopefully in the next two weeks, these (measles infection) numbers will start to fall, but at least we'll know we're protected."
Taking firm stance on vaccines
Thinking about those vulnerable children — infants and children who are too sick to get vaccines, Hornik said, is what led him and the other doctors in his practice, Pediatric Care Corner, to decline to treat families who refuse to vaccinate their children according to the CDC's recommended schedule for philosophical or religious reasons.
"Our goal is not to kick people out of the practice," said Hornik, who is president-elect of the Michigan Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. "Our goal is to take a firm stance on a lot of these families out there who are being wishy-washy and thinking let’s see what we can get away with, how long we can draw things out."
The policy went into effect nearly three years ago, he said.
"We had a patient pass away from complications from influenza," Hornik said. "And we had discussed it, and we thought to ourselves, this could have been completely preventable. The breaking point for us was that in my practice.
"There’s that small percentage of the population of people who you can talk to until the sun comes up, and you are not going to change their mind," he said. "I think it was more for the people that were hesitant. ... The hesitant people you can give facts and they can look at things logically and have an ongoing discussion.
"That’s really what we were trying to do. We are trying to have a thoughtful discussion, hear your needs, hear your concerns and then discuss those concerns and reassure them that things were going to be OK by sticking to the normal vaccine schedule."
The policy requires families to give their children all of the sc