Word: rubella
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Taiwan has the unenviable distinction of getting epidemics ahead of the U.S. It was so with an epidemic of rubella ("German" or "three day" measles) that swept the western Pacific island eleven years ago; the next major U.S. epidemic did not come until 1964. Then it left at least 20,000 and perhaps 30,000 U.S. babies crippled or blinded from viral damage early in gestation. Taiwan is now experiencing another rubella out break and a threatened epidemic; the next is predicted for the U.S. in 1971. But this time, Taiwan is enjoying pre-epidemic benefits: thousands of doses...
More complicated objections to limited legislation are now being raised by Catholic clerics, who regard Colorado-style laws as a blatant c^se of state-approved eugenics, never before established in U.S. law. To abort a rubella (German measles) victim, they say, is to rely on the purely statistical chance (average odds: 50-50) that her child may be defective-and to doom a possibly perfect baby in the process. To abort a fetus produced by rape or incest, they say, is to execute the most innocent partv in the trianele purely for the mother's social convenience. Even...
...bill of rights for every newborn child: the right 1) to be legitimate; 2) to inherit from both parents a genetic endowment of reasonably good mental and physical health; 3) to be nourished in the uterus by a mother who has not had a damaging illness such as rubella in early pregnancy or taken damaging drugs; 4) to be fed, clothed and protected from birth through adolescence; 5) to be wanted by two parents able and eager to cherish and to give the love and guidance every child needs...
...sure exactly how the rubella does its disabling work, but one result is the stunted growth of thousands of microscopic hair cells on the acoustic nerve in the recesses of the inner ear (see diagram). Doctors recently proved, by passing a wire under the hair cells and stimulating the nerve, that there is no nerve damage. But Dr. Edgar Lowell of the John Tracy Clinic* points out that "we still haven't cracked the neural code that transmits messages from the hair cells to the hearing nerve below." The ear conceals other mysteries as well, and there...
Early Aid. But if cure is not possible, adjustment to partial hearing is-and "early diagnosis is crucial," says Johns Hopkins' Dr. John Bordley. Sadly, rubella makes that difficult. The disease can also cause mental retardation and slight brain damage. In a child's first year or two, the symptoms of both ailments are similar to those of deafness: the child fails to associate sounds with their sources and respond directly to external stimuli. He will also not learn to talk on schedule. But simple tests by doctors can usually discover whether the cause of such symptoms...