Measles Case Reported at Google's Silicon Valley Campus

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The platform many anti-vaxxers got their (mis)information from has its first in-house case of measles.

Employees at Google’s Silicon Valley headquarters have been warned that a co-worker who recently visited the Mountain View, California campus has been diagnosed with measles.

David Kaye, an occupational medicine physician at Google, advised employees of the diagnosis last week in an email obtained by BuzzFeed News.

According to the email, the worker had visited Google’s 1295 Charleston Road campus on April 4.

“This note is just a precaution,” Kaye wrote in the April 13 email. “We have been working with the Santa Clara County Public Health Department and they would like us to share this measles advisory, which contains information on measles, exposure risks and actions to be taken.”

A spokesperson for the county’s public health agency confirmed to BuzzFeed News on Wednesday that a case of measles had been diagnosed in an unnamed adult resident of San Mateo County “who visited Google.”

The new case adds to the growing nation-wide resurgence of the formerly eradicated virus. According to the Centers for Disease Control and prevention, there are now 555 cases of measles across the United States, including four confirmed in Google’s native Santa Clara County.

This isn’t Google’s first brush with controversy related to the anti-vaccine movement. Back in 2015, Wired reported that a daycare at Google had “sickeningly low vaccination rates,” although Google contested the claims.

Google is among various media platforms that have been blamed for contributing to the rise of the measles resurgence by allowing anti-vaccine content to spread.

According to BuzzFeed News, not all employees at the Charleston office received the email, with at least five telling the outlet they had received no notice of the potential exposure. However, the source who sent the email said they believed the email had been universally circulated.