Job Corps center of mumps outbreak

EPHRATA — The epicenter of the mumps emergence in Grant County is the Columbia Basin Job Corps site, with 21 of the county’s 22 reported cases, according to Grant County Health Officer Alexander Brzezny.

And an additional 30 individuals have displayed symptoms, Brzezny said.

“This is the largest outbreak by far [in Grant County], and it creates consternation,” Brzezny told the Grant County Health District Board on Thursday. “The outbreak has created a significant burden on the health district.”

Brzezny said the district has been working closely with health staff at Columbia Basin Job Corps as well as any other place where a lot of people live and work in close proximity – such as the Ephrata School District, which reported a single case recently – where mumps is found.

In fact, Brzezny said around 10 percent of the population at Columbia Basin Job Corps is affected by the mumps.

“We will continue seeing cases at Job Corps,” Brzezny said. “We’ve not had an outbreak in the schools, but that could change very quickly. I have good confidence in school nurses, however.”

Brzezny attributed the spread of mumps at Job Corps to the sharing of drink bottles and cigarettes, and said that the MMR vaccine – mumps, measles, and rubella – is the best way to limit both the spread and the effects of the disease.

However, Rick Cancilla, a Job Corps employee, questioned the health board’s jurisdiction over a federal facility – particularly its ability to exclude federal employees from the workplace for refusing to get a vaccine for religious reasons.

“I am extremely offended by the action of the Grant County health officer,” Cancilla told board members. “The health officer threatened us from our participation in the workplace. That’s very upsetting.”

Cancilla said that both he and his wife were required to “voluntarily exclude” themselves from work because they both refused to get the MMR vaccine. Cancilla added that the vaccine isn’t particularly effective, noting that a number of people who have gotten ill have been vaccinated.

He also doesn’t understand why, if it takes two weeks to build up immunity after being vaccinated, employees are allowed to return to work immediately after receiving the vaccine.

“If the vaccine is protection, why are vaccinated people getting the mumps?” he told the Columbia Basin Herald later. “It seems like an agenda for full compliance to me.”

Walt Johnston, with the American Federation of Government Employees, told the health board he was not sure a county committee had the ability to dictate actions on federal property to federal employees or violate the religious freedom of those employees.

“Why is it okay to violate federal regulations?” Johnston asked.

While neither the board nor the health district officials responded to Cancilla’s or Johnston’s concerns directly, Brzezny later said that for those who receive it, the vaccine limits the worst effects of the disease, such as the swelling to the brain and the reproductive organs.

Brzezny also said that “voluntary exclusion” isn’t really voluntary. The county health officer will ask someone who is sick with a communicable disease to withdraw from work, but is prepared to force them to stay home if they don’t.

“If you don’t comply, we will go to court. It’s not our first choice, but we’ve done it before with tuberculosis,” Brzezny said. “We’ve never had to do it with mumps before.”

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com.