Mrs. William Mizik, president of Butler County School Nurses Association, visits Dassa McKinney School on May 13, 1970, and teaches fifth grader Joel Byers, 10, and first grader Rochelle Kuzma, 6, about rubella, or German measles. The Butler County Medical Society and the local branch of the Pennsylvania State Education Association were sponsoring immunization clinics across the county to help wipe out the disease. The last major rubella epidemic in the United States was 1964-65, when about 12.5 million people got the disease and 20 million babies were born with congenital rubella syndrome, which can cause deafness, blindness, and heart and nervous system defects, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Because of the vaccination in the early 1970s, rubella has been nearly eradicated in the U.S., with fewer than 20 cases reported each year.