The State - News from April 7, 1985

A massive vaccination campaign has turned mumps from a common childhood occurrence into a rarity over the last 15 years, according to a state Health Department report. “In the 1960s, before the introduction of the vaccine, we had 18,000 to 26,000 mumps cases reported each year,” Dr. Loring Dales, chief of the department’s infectious disease unit, said. “Now it hovers around 400 a year.” The state’s record low for mumps came in 1983 with 176 cases. Last year, 415 mumps cases were reported in California. Mumps, a viral disease, is uncomfortable but not dangerous.