Kearny mom speaks out about measles

For days, Jannae Yslas-Roach nursed herself and three of her children through the scourge of measles. Nausea, high fever and rash deposited their insidious calling cards throughout her Kearny household.

When the illness finally lifted, Yslas-Roach began questioning her long-held conviction against vaccinations.

At her computer, she printed out page after page about the disease and its vaccine, collecting the documents into a pile on her coffee table.

The 32-year-old, whose family history led her to fear that vaccinations might do more harm than good, started to wonder: Was I wrong all these years?

It was mid-January. Before the end of the month, Yslas-Roach would face a new battle: scorn from some residents of her tiny community and beyond for having exposed hundreds of people to the highly contagious virus.

In Kearny, with a population of about 2,000, some soon guessed who the "measles family" was, even though warnings from school and health officials about the outbreak did not disclose their identity.

Social-media posts exploded, accusing the family of being reckless in where they went and who they saw while infected, and speculating wildly about their reasons for shunning vaccination.

So much about those accounts were one-sided and misleading, Yslas-Roach says.

The backlash stung. But it matters little to her self-examination about the stance her own mother had taken against vaccinations, which Yslas-Roach followed when she became a mom.

If she now changes her mind, she says, it is because she does not want to see her children suffer again through an illness that could be prevented.

She knows telling her story — how family members warned officials they might have measles, how long it took to get the proper diagnosis, how exposure could have been greatly limited much sooner — might not change anyone's opinion.

"But people think we were willy-nilly exposing people," she says. "That's not the case; that's not what happened. That is something that is really important to me and that I want people to understand."

The diagnosis

Yslas-Roach's private choice against vaccination became a matter of public debate when she and her husband, Aaron Roach, took their family to Disneyland for five days in mid-December.

"It was to be the big Christmas present for the kids," she says of the children in her home: sons Christian Day, 13, Isaiah Biano-Yslas, 9, and Gabriel Biano-Yslas, 5; daughter Serenity Biano-Yslas, 7; and niece Neveah Yslas, 7.

Aaron and Neveah are the only members of the household who have been vaccinated. And Disneyland in December was the staging ground for a measles outbreak that swept across the country, infecting at least 140 people and exposing as many as 1,000 in Arizona.

Of the seven confirmed measles cases in Arizona, six are tied to Yslas-Roach and her family. The seventh was identified as a Maricopa County woman in her 50s who had traveled to Disneyland in mid-December.

Four members of the Yslas-Roach household got sick with cough, high fever and rash in early January. During the next two weeks, Yslas-Roach says, family members visited medical professionals on three occasions — Jan. 2, 11 and 14 — without getting a firm diagnosis.

Gabriel was the first to get sick, with a fever and rash on his forehead, on Jan. 2. Yslas-Roach brought Gabriel to Dr. Jeff Crawford in Kearny, who said he could not determine if Gabriel had measles or scarlet fever, a strep infection, she said.

The doctor said it was too late in the day for a blood test for measles because the lab companies had already made their rounds to collect samples, Yslas-Roach says. He prescribed an antibiotic.

In a telephone interview, Crawford confirmed Yslas-Roach's account of the visit.

He also said that he knew Gabriel was not immunized against measles but that his visit did not expose anyone else in the office.

Crawford's treatment seemed to work, Yslas-Roach says. After three doses of the antibiotic, Gabriel's fever and rash disappeared and he began to feel better. Crawford gave Yslas-Roach permission to send Gabriel back to school.

But by Jan. 7, Yslas-Roach, Christian and Isaiah had come down with 103-degree fevers, cough, rash and nausea. Serenity had a high fever but no rash.

Yslas-Roach thought they had caught scarlet fever from Gabriel. She quarantined the family, staying home from her job at the Carlota Copper Mine in Miami and keeping the sick kids out of school.

By Jan. 11, Christian's condition had worsened and his father, Danny Day, decided to take him to a doctor. But it was a Sunday and no clinic was open in Kearny, so Day and Christian made the 60-mile trip to the Phoenix Children's Specialty and Urgent Care East Valley Center in Mesa.

The family knew by now of the measles outbreak, and Day said he alerted the center that his son had been to Disneyland. Day further said he told attending physician Dr. Emiliano Higuera that Christian had not been vaccinated and inquired whether he should be tested for measles.

Day said Higuera decided against the test and diagnosed Christian with a viral infection.

Pinal County Public Health officials later determined that Christian had measles and that his visit exposed 18 people, one of whom, a woman, became infected. The woman later returned to the East Valley Center and exposed at least 195 others.

Higuera declined to be interviewed. In an e-mail to The Arizona Republic, Debra Stevens, a spokeswoman for the center, confirmed that the family told Higuera about the Disneyland trip and asked him to test Christian for measles. She said, though, that Christian's medical record showed he was up to date on his vaccines.

She wrote: "Based on the exposure time frames provided by Christian's dad, the signs and symptoms Christian had on presentation to Urgent Care, the patient's vaccine history given by dad as 'Up To Date,' and review of CDC guidance, Dr. Higuera did not believe that a measles test was medically indicated."

The statement continued to say that Higuera provided information on measles and reviewed it with Day, adding, "Mutual consensus was reached between the two that measles testing did not need to be done at that time."

In a second statement, Stevens wrote: "If our doctor had known that the child was not vaccinated, it certainly would have changed his decisions regarding diagnostics and treatment."

Day disputes the hospital's account. He said the doctor merely attached material about measles to the discharge papers, without review or discussion.

"I boldly stated to him that he was not vaccinated for measles, and I asked him how to go about getting him vaccinated," Day said. "There was no mutual consensus that he didn't need to be tested."

Yslas-Roach was the next family member to seek medical help. On Jan. 14, Yslas-Roach recalls, she sat up in bed around midnight, barely able to breathe.

"Something's wrong," she whispered to her husband. "I've got to get to the hospital."

With no medical clinic open in Kearny, they made the one-hour trip to Cobre Valley Regional Medical Center in Globe. First, Roach called with a warning: My wife may have the measles.

Roach says the hospital told him to have her put on a face mask when they entered.

Yslas-Roach says that after several minutes in the intake area, she was taken to a room, examined and sent for a chest X-ray.

"We can hear the doctors and nurses standing outside the door, asking each other who has had the measles," Yslas-Roach says.

The hospital staff tested her blood and took a throat culture. Yslas-Roach says she was told she might have a viral infection.

Evelyn Vargas, a spokeswoman for the hospital, said the staff did its best to minimize exposure to others in the hospital. She said the test given to Yslas-Roach was inconclusive for measles.

Yslas-Roach says the family learned definitively they had measles on Jan. 22, after testing by a team from the Pinal County Public Health Services District. The county got involved because Tiffany Boyd, the school nurse, knew the family was not vaccinated and had traveled to Disneyland. She worried the children's absences were tied to the measles outbreak.

Pinal County determined Yslas-Roach's visit to the Globe medical center had exposed 17 people to the virus. All but one have either had the measles or had been vaccinated. The one who was not protected self-quarantined himself and did not develop the measles.

Day, too, had become sick and after testing, the county team determined he likely caught the measles from Christian. Although Day had been vaccinated, he had received only one of the recommended two doses.

But before he was told he had measles, Day had made several trips around Kearny doing errands, thinking he had been immunized but in reality exposing an undetermined number of people.

"I never in a million years thought this would go as far as it has," Yslas-Roach says. "I'm a believer that if you do not vaccinate your children, you have a responsibility to keep your kids out and away from others, if they're sick."

On Jan. 23, the Pinal County Public Health Services District issued a news release that a family of four in Kearny and an adult male in the community had come down with the measles.

The news release helped fuel the backlash, Yslas-Roach says, but Christian's trip to the clinic in Mesa led to some of the harshest comments.

The woman who Christian exposed on Jan. 11 was contagious with the measles when she returned to the center between Jan. 20 and 21. During that period, the woman exposed 3-year-old Maggie Jacks, the daughter of Gilbert pediatrician Tim Jacks.

Jacks said his daughter is being treated for leukemia and cannot be vaccinated because of her weakened immune system. He and his wife, Anna, also have an infant, Eli, who at 11 months is too young to be vaccinated.

When Jacks learned that Maggie had been exposed, he shared his feelings in a blog in late January, which went viral on social media and led to appearances on national news programs.

In part, he wrote: "I have a number of strong feelings surging through my body right now. Toward my family, I am feeling extra protective like a papa bear. Toward you, unvaccinating parent, I feel anger and frustration at your choices."

Yslas-Roach says she "feels horrible" that his daughter was exposed to the measles, adding, "it completely broke my heart. We didn't do this intentionally." If Christian had been tested Jan. 11, Yslas-Roach says, the results would have been back in time to prevent the exposure to Maggie and others. "Our family has gone through hell, dealing with the commentary on social media and from the regular media over the fact that people think we were running around exposing people."

Jacks said in an interview with The Republic that he doesn't "have any hard feelings" toward Yslas-Roach and her family. His children did not get measles.

He said his blog was written not to bash the family "but to really educate them. I hope that's how it came across. I know my wording was fairly emotional but my kids are at risk."

A change in perspective

A spokesman for the Arizona Department of Health Services says the statewide measles outbreak concern will be over by the end of next week as long as no new cases emerge, but the agency is asking doctors to stay on alert for possible new measles cases.

Most people are either vaccinated or immune to the disease; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says measles has been virtually eliminated in the United States since 2000.

Yslas-Roach recognizes that many medical professionals today have never seen a case of measles, and she does not blame the doctors whom they visited. She explains that she was not immunized in childhood because her uncle had a severe reaction to a vaccine and her mother "worried I might have a genetic problem."

When Yslas-Roach had her first child at 19, she also chose not to immunize "because I was worried about a one-size-fits-all vaccine."

But now that her children have recovered from measles and their immune systems are strong enough, she's considering having them vaccinated against mumps and rubella.

She may even get the vaccine herself.

"All the research is on my table," she said.