Anti-Vaxxers Are Bringing Back Measles -- And The Unnecessary Deaths Of Children
It is just sick that, years after the discovery of vaccines to prevent absolutely horrible diseases in children and others, parents are leaving their children unvaccinated. This puts not only their children at risk for terrible diseases like measles, polio, and smallpox, but the also most immunologically vulnerable, by destroying what's called "herd immunity."
From Brookings Institute's Kavita Patel and Rio I. Hart:
What is herd immunity?Measles is a highly transmissible disease; so transmissible in fact, that 90 to 95 percent of people must be vaccinated in order to protect the entire population, or achieve what is called "herd immunity." This effect is what helps eliminate disease entirely.
When enough people have a vaccine and cannot catch or spread a disease, the pathogen cannot form a functional chain of infection. This means that even if someone cannot receive a vaccine, say a newborn or a child undergoing chemotherapy, they are protected because everyone they come into contact with is immunized. This enables us to defeat strains of disease entirely by denying the strain the chance to spread to new victims. (The Washington Post provides a more exhaustive explanation of this concept here).
While most unvaccinated children have been protected from diseases by the herd immunity of their communities, the most recent outbreak of measles in a California county with a particularly high rate of unvaccinated children shows the potential harm of an anti-vaccine movement.
From The Economist:
In 2008 an unvaccinated boy from San Diego caught measles on a visit to Switzerland, infecting 11 others on his return. ... In December 2014 some 117 people caught measles in an outbreak traced back to two Disney theme parks in Orange County. None died, which was lucky, for measles is a horrible virus. Far more contagious than Ebola or the flu, it kills 146,000 people worldwide each year. It can be caught in a bus, a shop or doctor's surgery two hours after an infected person last sneezed there. Even in the rich world and with the best care, measles can cause brain-damage and deafness, and kills about one in 1,000 of those who catch it. Before vaccines, the disease killed roughly 450 Americans each year, most of them children....Dr Richard Pan remembers his first encounter with measles, as a medical student in Philadelphia in 1991. Nine children died, in part because many poor families could not afford vaccinations. After a medical career in California Dr Pan was elected to the state Assembly as a Democrat in 2010. That year California saw a whooping-cough outbreak that killed ten victims. The problem Dr Pan confronted centred not on the urban poor but on affluent, internet-surfing parents refusing to immunise children. In 2014 he was elected to the state Senate, representing Sacramento. Weeks later measles hit Disneyland. He helped write a law to make parents vaccinate children. Medical exemptions are allowed for children with weak immune systems. Parents who still refuse must homeschool their offspring. The law passed, but not before Dr Pan and allies had endured threats and meetings at which activists blamed vaccines for a "holocaust" of harm.
Now the paediatrician-turned-senator faces a recall campaign. If opponents can gather 36,000 signatures they can force a special election. The anti-Pan coalition is eclectic. One organiser, Aaron Mills, sounds like vaccine sceptics in Europe. A longtime Democrat who works for the state's fire service, he believes that pharmaceutical giants and doctors downplay the risks of vaccines and exaggerate their benefits, probably for profit. Another founder of the recall drive, Katherine Duran, denounces the vaccine law in distinctively American terms. She calls it a "theft of liberty". In her telling, Dr Pan has betrayed his primary duty as a legislator: to defend individuals from government "tyranny".
Reassuringly, most Californians side with the medical consensus. Support for the state's new vaccine laws has been measured at 67% and Dr Pan is likely to survive his recall. High-profile outbreaks have shaken a state slipping into complacency, showing the vaccinated majority that their collective immunity is threatened by the science-averse and the simply selfish.
via @picardonhealth
In theory, smallpox has been eliminated. Last recorded case was in Africa (Ethiopia?) in 1981 or so.
As the tweet put it (paraphrase) my kid can't bring a PB&J sandwich to school because someone might have a nut allergy, why should yours be allowed to bring a communicable disease?.
I R A Darth Aggie at September 30, 2015 7:10 AM
Right on, I R A.
Amy Alkon at September 30, 2015 10:08 AM
No kidding, Darth Aggie. . . .
Actually, I'd suggest they keep their kids home and have to PAY for periodic screening and progress checks while they homeschool. . .
Keith Glass at September 30, 2015 10:14 AM
Switzerland has no measles herd immunity, and yet has a higher life expectancy than the US. Maybe measles isn't the biggest public health problem out there.
NicoleK at September 30, 2015 11:10 AM
Polio, smallpox and whooping cough I can understand, but when did measles become such a problem that we have to require vaccinations? When I was a kid in the 50's, everyone got measles at some point, and nobody worried about it. In fact, most parents wanted to make sure their kids did get it, so they'd have immunity later. We were told that if you caught it as an adult, it would be serious.
Rex Little at September 30, 2015 11:40 AM
Polio, smallpox and whooping cough I can understand, but when did measles become such a problem that we have to require vaccinations?
I wondered the same thing re: chickenpox (which is now vaccinated for, but wasn't when I was a kid). Both illnesses are dangerous for newborns and can cause complications in pregnant women (and serious, expensive effects to babies born to women who currently have the disease late in pregnancy).
Also: Shingles can strike later and is no fun, especially if you have another serious illness concurrently.
Also also: Eye damage.
So, if we can vaccinate against those things and eliminate them for a lot of people, why wouldn't we?
I had chickenpox as a kid, and I don't think I'm any stronger or better off for having it, and my parents were homebound for nearly 2 months straight, as I passed it on to my sister.
For kids with access to good health care and with parents who can stay home, measles/pox aren't a big deal. For those without, it's an absolute scourge.
I was talking with my dad, who is from a family of eight kids, all of which shared the measles one winter in the '50s. I asked him if he thought it was weird kids were getting vaccinated for a disease that was a fact of life when he was growing up, and he said, "No. It sucked. Two of my brothers had to get held back in school because they missed so much, and my mom had to miss a lot of work, so we didn't have enough food. We'd have taken the vaccine."
sofar at September 30, 2015 12:29 PM
NPR reported recently that Ukraine has a similar issue. They are pushing and pushing but people still don't vaccinate. Apparently they have a history of vaccines having all kinds of junk in them because of corruption and fraud so people don't trust them.
At least that is a better reason to not vaccinate than phony autism scares.
Ben at September 30, 2015 1:51 PM
Switzerland has no measles herd immunity, and yet has a higher life expectancy than the US. Maybe measles isn't the biggest public health problem out there. - NicoleK
Is Switzerland one of the European countries which counts live premies as still born if they dont survive longer than their original due date?
Cause that screws stat comparisons
lujlp at September 30, 2015 1:53 PM
"Both illnesses are dangerous for newborns and can cause complications in pregnant women (and serious, expensive effects to babies born to women who currently have the disease late in pregnancy). "
Yep, and this was known even back then. When I was 3 years old and my mom was three-minutes-to-midnight pregnant, I came down with mumps. I had to be quarantined for three weeks with a relative who lived in another city. My dad had to drive back and forth between taking care of my mom and coming to check on me.
The "childhood diseases" weren't just a matter of staying in bed for a couple of days. And there are a few things that are vaccinated against which are both debilitating and still fairly common in the Third World, e.g., polio, which kills or disables over half the people who contract it.
Cousin Dave at September 30, 2015 2:02 PM
My friend's mom caught measles in her third trimester in the early 1960's when she was pregnant with her first. He was born significantly hearing impaired and with mental disabilities. He's never been able to be fully self sufficient and lives in a group home. People nowadays just don't understand the damage done from these illnesses because they didn't live through the epidemics.
Luj, I think you have that right, or close to it, on the life expectancy. If I recall correctly, the US is the only country that counts every single birth over 20 weeks gestation in stats for infant mortality, life expectancy, etc. Some countries don't count them if they are born below a certain gestation or until they have lived a specified amount of time after birth, up to several months in some cases. All the world stats would look significantly different from what they are now if all countries were required to report using the same metrics.
BunnyGirl at September 30, 2015 2:34 PM
Go to Amazon and look up Melanie's Marvelous Measles, a picture book by an anti-vaxx mom.
Kevin at September 30, 2015 3:59 PM
I'm coming off a long day at Austin State Hospital (anyone who thinks we need nationalized medicine really ought to be forced to spend 12 hours in a government-run hospital before being allowed to vote....) so I'm mentally and physically Just Done, right now....but NO, Measles and Chicken Pox are not No Big Deal. People died of them back then, and people die of them now. Just because it wasn't you or someone you knew, doesn't mean it didn't happen. Antivaccers are horrifically stupid, endanger us all, and quite frankly need to be sequestered away from rational society.
My twins were born before the rotovirus vaccine came out. They both got it. Didn't even come near killing them, but it was awful and if I could have spared us all that, I would have. The younger ones got the vaccine and never got roto.
momof4 at September 30, 2015 4:40 PM
And Nicole, does Switzerland have fatherless black and Mexican young men murdering each other by the thousands (tens of thousands?) every year? No? Let's not try to compare apples to zucchini on life expectancies, please.
momof4 at September 30, 2015 4:43 PM
IRA great point.
I wish I can find the story of the kid with Hib (there are even more now) of kids losing limbs because kids in his school didn't follow the vaccine schedule (we take them whenever we want not when you say scientist type parents) and exposed younger classmates to the disease. This beautiful boy, what's left of him is deeply scarred from all off the flesh in parts not amputated needed to be scoped out.
The schedule is there for a reason, but you have the second set of people who say, "I vaccinate, but I do it when I want". Now these kids too young for a vaccine are horribly disfigured if the live bc some asshole decided they were a Dr.? "Well it's only 100 kids a year..."
I my grandparents lost many siblings to illness. My grandmother was haunted by her sister Mary's death at 8 of whooping cough. Some kook with a popular site says "my kid had whooping cough. She coughed horribly for 6 weeks, so what? Idiot.
CatherineM at September 30, 2015 6:13 PM
Nicole - I hope your kid doesn't get measles. I though about the kids and adults in the hospital after the outbreak at Disneyland and thought, hospital bills, time lost at work... It adds up. My mother got mumps and measles together as a kid (1943) and wanted to die, but it's no big deal.
I almost lost an eye to chickenpox when I was 7. My brother was out 2 weeks and then me. My mother lost a month of work! The upsetting part was getting up in the morning to pee and losing my bearings in the bathroom and everything went black. I was screaming on the floor of the bathroom and no one heard me because I was so congested. I was terrified. Makes me sad to think of it. :(
Also a whole Easter break and a week quarantined for Scarlet Fever. My mom had to body check us a few times a day for swelling in our organs and daily check in with pediatrician. Miserable.
CatherineM at September 30, 2015 6:27 PM
The climate change industry/boondoggle uses phrases like the “science is settled” and “climate change deniers” to make people who question whether carbon emissions create global warming look like bumpkins.
The same is being used with terms like “anti-vaxxers” for those who question the current vaccine schedule given to children. MOST of the “anti-vaxxers” are not completely against vaccination. They are against the vaccine schedule that is the most aggressive in the world. The US also has higher rates of autism and certain immune problems.
Amy, there is REAL danger from vaccines. Currently, MORE people die from the measles vaccine than from measles. Parents should have the right to make informed decisions.
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/feb/03/bob-sears/what-cdc-statistics-say-about-vaccine-illnesses-in/
David H at September 30, 2015 7:15 PM
The climate change industry/boondoggle uses phrases like the “science is settled” and “climate change deniers” to make people who question whether carbon emissions create global warming look like bumpkins.
The same is being used with terms like “anti-vaxxers” for those who question the current vaccine schedule given to children. MOST of the “anti-vaxxers” are not completely against vaccination. They are against the vaccine schedule that is the most aggressive in the world. The US also has higher rates of autism and certain immune problems.
Amy, there is REAL danger from vaccines. Currently, MORE people die from the measles vaccine than from measles. Parents should have the right to make informed decisions.
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/feb/03/bob-sears/what-cdc-statistics-say-about-vaccine-illnesses-in/
David H at September 30, 2015 7:15 PM
David H:
"The US also has higher rates of autism and certain immune problems."
As Mark Twain is reported to have said, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Statistics don't tell the whole story. Just like it was mentioned above that the US has a higher infant mortality rate then the rest of the developed world is because of the way infant mortality is counted. The US counts ALL lives births; many countries do not.
The same is true with autism. Autism is not something that can be diagnosed with a "blood test." It takes specialty trained physicians to diagnosis autism; does the rest of the world use the same exact methods for diagnosis?
Here's a hint; NO. The US leads the way in diagnosing autism. Other countries don't have a lower rate of actual autism cases; what they have is a lower rate of diagnosing autism.
Also, David H., you might want to read the whole article you linked to before using it to make an argument. You claim "Currently, MORE people die from the measles vaccine than from measles." Here's some text from the article you linked to while making that claim:
"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does maintain a database of reported cases of adverse reactions to vaccines . . . VAERS for short"
"The system allows almost anyone -- from a doctor to a nurse to a pharmacist to a patient or parent -- to enter in any information about illnesses or medical issues that follow someone receiving a vaccine."
"When evaluating data from VAERS, it is important to note that for any reported event, no cause-and-effect relationship has been established. Reports of all possible associations between vaccines and adverse events (possible side effects) are filed in VAERS. Therefore, VAERS collects data on any adverse event following vaccination, be it coincidental or truly caused by a vaccine. The report of an adverse event to VAERS is not documentation that a vaccine caused the event."
As an aside, I've worked with Big Pharma on such databases. Yes, it is correct that ANYONE can enter data into such systems. It is suppose to be that way. This gives the scientists who work on drugs and vaccines to monitor the effect such drug/vaccines are having. As is often the case they are investigating to make sure something is NOT causing problems.
Entering data into these databases is for ANY possible cause. Sort of a "better safe than sorry" in collecting data. While I don't have the numbers (percentages) of how many are NOT real causes, I do know that not all the numbers entered are causes.
Here's the key text again:
"it is important to note that for any reported event, no cause-and-effect relationship has been established."
In short, just because the "effects" numbers are there doesn't mean the "cause" is.
Lastly, David H., you claim: "Parents should have the right to make informed decisions"
I could not agree more; I just wish they would make "informed" choices instead of the crap they claim.
charles at September 30, 2015 8:02 PM
@David H
From your link:
"When evaluating data from VAERS, it is important to note that for any reported event, no cause-and-effect relationship has been established. Reports of all possible associations between vaccines and adverse events (possible side effects) are filed in VAERS. Therefore, VAERS collects data on any adverse event following vaccination, be it coincidental or truly caused by a vaccine. The report of an adverse event to VAERS is not documentation that a vaccine caused the event."
Thanks for the link. I'll be sure and share it to shut down any stupid anti-vaxxers I run into.
Got anything on crystal healing energy channeling?
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at September 30, 2015 8:03 PM
"Currently, MORE people die from the measles vaccine than from measles. Parents should have the right to make informed decisions."
1) cites, please. Real ones.
2)Ok.....how many people get the vaccine, vs get the measles? Let's say it's 80%: 80% of parents in the US vaccine against measles (WAY low number, but just for argument sake). Let's say 1% of kids GET the measles. All other issues aside: 80% of kids, by sheer force of number, will have more kids dying after the vaccine (note: this does not mean FROM the vaccine) than 1% will have die of a disease.
Antivaxxers are stupid, and endanger us all, and ought to be sequestered from rational society.
Unless, of course, that one truly believes that the millions (*PLUS*) of people who work in healthcare, pharmaceuticals, or statistics are all sociopaths who lie for a paycheck. If that's the case, you need to be locked up somewhere, for you own safety.
momof4 at September 30, 2015 8:45 PM
Anti-vaxxers scare the shit out of me.
And totally agree with first commenter. My child's snacks got confiscated the other day because I missed the "nut" memo (celery and peanut butter). But don't worry - it was replaced with a healthy alternative - "goldfish crackers".
Fucking nightmares. The lot of them.
Feebie at September 30, 2015 9:17 PM
And Nicole, does Switzerland have fatherless black and Mexican young men murdering each other by the thousands (tens of thousands?) every year? No? Let's not try to compare apples to zucchini on life expectancies, please.
***
That was kind of my point, Momof4, the US has way bigger public health problems than the measles, that it should be focusing on.
My kid will get the vaccine when she's 10 or so, per our doctor's recommendation.
I don't know about the preemie thing.
The nut thing is ridiculous. My kid has a peanut allergy and they don't ban peanuts from school, banning peanuts is correlated to a rise in peanut allergies. In fact I have to keep peanut butter in the house to give to the baby to reduce her risk of getting the allergy.
NicoleK at September 30, 2015 10:16 PM
The US also has higher rates of autism and certain immune problems.
The US also has a higher rate of 40 yr old women so despertate to have a child of their own they use their expired eggs
Also a bunch of shit parents who dont let their kids play outside or without kids and they grow up in a bubble with an immune system so desperate for work it invents problems.
As for you 'more kids die from vaccines than the actual illness' argument?
Thats a good thing you fucking moron.
Here is my response a from a few months ago to another moron who tried that line of thinking regarding the MMR vaccine
----------------------------------------
False correlation. Even if the measles vaccine kills more people than measles itself there are two factors not considered in that blurb.
Measles is not the only component of that vaccine, mumps and rubella are in there as well.
So one must consider the death rate of those diseases in conjunction with measles.
On top of that unknown figure is the average death rate per year BEFORE the vaccines existed.
Even anti vaxx sites will admit a baseline of around 500 deaths per year from measles before the advent of the vaccine
Ironically the anti vaxxers invariably steal their numbers from vaccination information sites. Then lie about what the numbers mean
Mumps caused close to 100 deaths a year and Rubella is reported to have directy caused 24 deaths.
However this does not even begin to cover the crippling effects theses diseases had, such as blindness, deafness, mental retardation.
According to this site
http://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/articles/rubella
One epidemic in 1964 caused 11,000 babies to be born deaf, 3,500 to be born blind, and 1,800 cases of mental retardation. It also caused 21,000 neonatal deaths.
TWENTY ONE THOUSAND babies dead because their mother caught a virus
Using even the most conservative figures from people who have an admitted ax to grind the MMR vaccine prevents at a MINIMUM six hundred deaths.
It also prevents hundreds of thousands of life altering crippling effects. And prevents thousands of stillborns.
One last thought
"while at least 108 deaths reported in VAERS during the same time frame [10 years] have been linked to measles vaccines"
They were REPORTED. It doesnt say they were CONFIRMED.
That is 10.8 suspected deaths per year, vs hundreds of statistically proven deaths, thousands of stillborn babies, and hundreds of thousands of maimings.
------------------------------------------
As for your link. That is 2200 reports, 122 deaths.
Which is a bigger number dipshit.
122 or 22,000?
2,200 or 300,000?
Fucking moron
lujlp at September 30, 2015 11:33 PM
I had measles as a kid and was very, very ill for several weeks. Nearly 40 years later and I still remember how miserable I was when I got better enough to be miserable.
My case was more extreme than a lot of kid's, sure, but no way in Hell would I risk my children going through that. It's easier to be anti-vaxx when you haven't seen or experienced what happens without the immunizations.
Kimberly at October 1, 2015 12:16 AM
One thing I don't quite get: While I understand that even infants too young for vaccination have to be taken into public time and again (as well as chemo patients), how are OTHER children from pro-vaccination families getting infected? If they're old enough for preschool, wouldn't they have been vaccinated?
lenona at October 1, 2015 7:49 AM
Vaccination does not prevent individuals from contracting a disease, it buffs the immune system to better fight the disease. Meaning they might fight it off entirely or suffer from a far less severe case.
Vaccinations of general populations prevents an infection from moving rapidly thru the population. By these idiot not vaccinating they create clusters of infection that allow such illnesses to spread more rapidy, which also increases the chance for a mutation into a variation that the vaccine does not account for
lujlp at October 1, 2015 10:05 AM
lujlp thank you for the comment "Vaccination does not prevent individuals from contracting a disease." That has to be the most concise and informative explanation I've seen so far.
philbert at October 1, 2015 2:24 PM
What Lujlp said. Also there are people who are vaccine immune. In that although they get the vaccine they don't get the benefit of being vaccinated. Thankfully this is not common and a percentage of the vaccine immune are also immune to the disease it vaccinates against. But there are still a few percent who cannot be effectively vaccinated.
Ben at October 1, 2015 4:09 PM
I grew up when vaccines were not available against measles, mumps, rubella, and chickenpox. Almost every kid got each of these diseases. I can't think of anyone I knew that died or experienced lasting effects from them, but in the best case, you averaged a week of hell plus at least a week stuck at home recovering for each disease. That in itself was a very good reason to get my kids vaccinated.
And expectant mothers were (justifiably) terrified of exposure to rubella - if that didn't kill your baby, it deformed him. There were other dangers to adults from all the kids shedding viruses. I don't know if my father somehow avoided catching the mumps as a kid, or if his immunity had faded, but when he caught it from me or my sisters as an adult, it was much more serious. He was bedridden for at least a month, and we were quite lucky that he had a salaried job that continued paying until he was able to go back to work. The worst danger for an antivaxxer's children isn't that they might catch one of these diseases in elementary school and die or suffer lasting complications; it's that they might grow up with no immunity, and then catch one of them when the _normal_ course of the disease is longer and more serious, and death and severe complications are much more likely.
These weren't all of the dangerous childhood diseases that modern medicine has nearly eliminated. One of my elementary school classmates had a damaged heart from scarlet fever that developed into rheumatic fever. (There still is no vaccine for that, but the quick application of antibiotics plus quarantine has made this a quite rare disease.) She could not play with the other kids at recess, and we knew that she was likely to die before she got much older. If she survived long enough, maybe she eventually benefited from the development of open heart surgery to replace her heart valves; otherwise, she would have had a terribly restricted life both as a child and as an adult.
I suspect most kids with that condition would have suffered even more as a target of bullies, but she was fortunate to go to a school where most of the kids would protect her. There were mean kids that would tease her, but that (and other bullying) was unpopular and limited in that school. We'd cut a bully off socially, and if someone didn't learn from that we might arrange for him to be caught in violence or theft by school staff. This largely continued through junior high and high school. From everything I hear about public schools in general, this anti-bullying social dynamic seems to have been quite unusual.
markm at October 1, 2015 5:42 PM
Vaccination does not prevent individuals from contracting a disease, it buffs the immune system to better fight the disease. lujlp
___________________________________
So why don't pro-vaccination parents say that more often, in so many words? I wonder.
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And expectant mothers were (justifiably) terrified of exposure to rubella - if that didn't kill your baby, it deformed him. markm
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This was a plot point in a well-known whodunit from more than 50 years ago. It was based on the tragic, true case of actress Gene Tierney, in 1943. Her daughter was institutionalized and died in 2010.
lenona at October 2, 2015 6:56 AM
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