Measles cases at 12 year high.

[SirNitram]

Link

Faced with the highest number of measles cases in a dozen years, officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are warning parents to vaccinate their children to ward off further outbreaks.

From January through July, 131 measles cases have been identified in 15 states and the District of Columbia - the most since 1996, the CDC announced yesterday. About half of the cases involve children whose parents refused to vaccinate them for religious or philosophical reasons.

No cases have been detected in Maryland. No deaths have been reported.

Nevertheless, local vaccine experts joined CDC officials yesterday in alerting parents that measles is still a threat and that vaccinations are vital to stopping the spread of the highly contagious disease.

"It is important we maintain high disease vaccination," said Dr. Neal Halsey, director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "Getting vaccinated is the safest thing we can do for children."

As a warning, CDC officials are using statistics from countries such as Switzerland, Italy and the United Kingdom that are reporting measles outbreaks caused by failure to vaccinate. Of the 131 U.S. cases this year, 17 were people who either traveled abroad and returned with the disease or were foreign visitors to the United States.

"At the national level, I am concerned about our situation," said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. "Every year, the U.S. experiences importation of measles. What is different this year is once it is imported, we are seeing it spread to more people, and most of that spread is to people under 20."

Since the availability of the measles vaccine in the 1960s, the United States has experienced occasional outbreaks. But in recent years, the number of cases has been held relatively low, with 55 cases reported in 2006 and 66 cases in 2005. Public health experts attribute those low figures to widespread vaccinations.

Although the rates of vaccine coverage remain high in the United States, countries with similar vaccination rates, such as the United Kingdom and Israel, are struggling with outbreaks.

"This highlights that even with extremely high vaccine levels, we could have sizable pockets of people contract measles," said Dr. Jane Seward, deputy director of the CDC's viral diseases division. "Similar to what's happening in Israel, it could result in much higher outbreaks than we have now."

The symptoms of measles include rash, high fever, cough, runny nose and red, watery eyes. The disease can lead to pneumonia, encephalitis - a brain inflammation that causes neurological defects - and death.

All states require school-age children to be vaccinated against measles, which involves two doses, the first typically given between 12 and 15 months and the second between 4 and 6 years. States offer exemptions for children with certain medical conditions that result in a weakened immune system. And most states allow exemptions for religious and philosophical reasons.

Halsey, the Hopkins vaccine expert, thinks parents are asking for more exemptions lately without understanding the dangers.

"One of the reasons that some parents have withheld measles vaccines is they believe that the risk is very low" of contracting measles, he said. "That is, unfortunately, a false belief."

Halsey also blamed news media reports questioning the safety of the vaccine and a possible connection to autism for fueling doubts. Both Halsey and the CDC say studies have shown no credible link between the vaccine and autism. "I think that publicity about concerns about the safety of vaccines has contributed to parents delaying or deferring the vaccine for their children," he said. "Unfortunately, parents are not considering the risks of the disease."

In addition, Halsey warned of the importance of both doses of the vaccine. One dose provides 95 percent protection. Of the 131 people who contracted measles this year, 11 had received some level of vaccination.

But remember, if you don't support this cockamemy 'prevention' method, you're one of those uppity fucking Aspies who wants the ranks to grow(Seriously, someone said this to me.).

[Mayabird]

A lot of kids will have to die before the idiot parent brigade stops its anti-vaccine crusade. In their heads, a few hundred kids getting sick isn't enough to counterbalance the ridiculously overblown (in their heads) chance of their kids not being normal. For goodness sakes, they're having measles parties again as I think Cairber pointed out. Until crippled and dead kids are paraded around on TV, it's just going to get worse.

[Invictus ChiKen]

But remember, if you don't support this cockamemy 'prevention' method, you're one of those uppity fucking Aspies who wants the ranks to grow(Seriously, someone said this to me.).

Okay that is sig worthy and I want a banner made for it ASAP!

Meantime why wont they run those fuckers in for child abuse!?

[SirNitram]

But remember, if you don't support this cockamemy 'prevention' method, you're one of those uppity fucking Aspies who wants the ranks to grow(Seriously, someone said this to me.).

Okay that is sig worthy and I want a banner made for it ASAP!

Meantime why wont they run those fuckers in for child abuse!?

YOU HATE BABIES! STOP HATING BABIES! That is why.

[Cairber]

Unfortunately you tend to get a lot of anti vaccination crowds when you work along side organizations like LLL. At times like this when the media is reporting a lot about the measles rise, it is almost impossible to deal with.

You have half the crowd spouting off about how stupid it is to want to protect against measles. (some even throw measles parties like Mayabird mentioned). Apparently we are just a bunch of cowards who are motivated by fear and uneducated about the horrible effects of the vaccine.

Then you have the other half who just jumped on board the anti vaccination train and are yelling the same old lines:

"who would inject their kids with toxins?!"

"Vaccines are spreading measles via shedding!"

"6 of the 131 people who got measles were vaccinated so that proves it doesn't work!"


etc.


I take off from volunteering on weeks like this.

[Guardsman Bass]

The fuckers tend to be unrepentant about it, too.

More people had measles infections in the first seven months of this year than during any comparable period since 1996, and public health officials blamed growing numbers of parents who refuse to vaccinate their children.

Many of these parents say they believe vaccines cause autism, even though multiple studies have found no reputable evidence to support such a claim. In Britain, Switzerland, Israel and Italy, measles outbreaks have soared, sickening thousands and causing at least two deaths.

From January through July, 131 measles cases were reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 15 states and the District of Columbia. Fifteen people, including four infants, were hospitalized. There were no deaths. Nearly all the cases resulted when people traveling abroad or visiting from a foreign country spread the illness to others. In Illinois, 30 people were sickened in one outbreak.

Most of those who were sickened were unvaccinated or had an unknown vaccination status. Sixteen were younger than a year old, too young to have been vaccinated. But two-thirds of the rest — or 63 people — were unvaccinated because of their or their parents’ philosophical or religious beliefs.

Public health advocates have become alarmed in recent years over a growing number of people who contend that vaccines cause illnesses, particularly autism. The number of parents who claim a philosophical exemption to mandatory vaccine laws has grown.

Nonetheless, vaccination rates have remained relatively high in the United States. In 2006, 95 percent of school-age children received at least one shot of the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, according to the C.D.C. But such surveys are often years behind vaccination trends, and government officials say the growing number of measles outbreaks suggests that overall vaccination rates may be on the decline.

Because it is virulently contagious, measles is often the first vaccine-preventable disease to reappear when vaccination rates decline. In the decade before the measles vaccination program began, each year nearly 4 million people in the United States were infected, 48,000 were hospitalized, 1,000 were chronically disabled and nearly 500 died.

Autism and antivaccines advocates are unapologetic about the return of measles.

“Most parents I know will take measles over autism,” said J. B. Handley, co-founder of Generation Rescue, a parent-led organization that contends that autism is a treatable condition caused by vaccines.

It is an attitude that pediatricians say they are increasingly having to confront.

“All pediatricians are spending more time speaking with parents about the rationale for vaccines,” said Dr. Andrew D. Racine, director of the division of general pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore in the Bronx.

Responding to parents’ concerns, manufacturers in 2001 almost entirely removed a preservative containing mercury from all routinely administered childhood vaccines. The incidence of autism has shown no drop.

I wonder if they feel the same way about, say, Diptheria, or Smallpox.

[Guardsman Bass]

The sickening thing, too, is that they tend to concentrate as well; I'm trying to find an article that pointed out how there are now pockets of unvaccinated in Florida.

[SirNitram]

Autism and antivaccines advocates are unapologetic about the return of measles.

I eternally loathe people who call themselves 'Autism advocates', but who support antivaccination, ABA(Hint: 5 percent success rate via a PC-version of Aversion Therapy is not a Cure), and other stupidity.

[fnord]

One thing that I'm curious about - for those people who got vaccinated and ended up with a symptomatic infection, how many of those copped the full blown course of the disease, against something that was much milder and shorter-lasting thanks to the vaccine priming their immune system?

[Eulogy]

Aren't the claims about vaccines causing autism bullshit anyway?

[SirNitram]

Aren't the claims about vaccines causing autism bullshit anyway?

Correct. Neither strict scientific tests nor lax legal methods support the claim.

[Uraniun235]

Why isn't polio an instant shutdown argument for these fuckers?

"Hey, whatever happened to polio? How'd we get rid of that one?"

[SirNitram]

Why isn't polio an instant shutdown argument for these fuckers?

"Hey, whatever happened to polio? How'd we get rid of that one?"

One told me that it was proof that the diseases could be eliminated, but the gubmmint wants autistic fodder for some nefarious purpose, so they keep re-infecting populations to scare 'sheeple' into vaccinating.

I retreated before they started talking about the CIA listening via their fillings, which I'm certain would come soon after.

[Darth Yoshi]

Offhand, I'd say it's because the polio vaccine was so successful at eradicating it, that these idiots can't appreciate just how shitty the disease made your life.

[Uraniun235]

Why isn't polio an instant shutdown argument for these fuckers?

"Hey, whatever happened to polio? How'd we get rid of that one?"

One told me that it was proof that the diseases could be eliminated, but the gubmmint wants autistic fodder for some nefarious purpose, so they keep re-infecting populations to scare 'sheeple' into vaccinating.

I retreated before they started talking about the CIA listening via their fillings, which I'm certain would come soon after.

So... in order to thwart the gubmint, we should... reject the only means available to eliminate these diseases...

That's not "CIA is listening in on your fillings", that's "NASA's out to kill me".

[Uraniun235]

(addendum: I realize it might seem ambiguous so I wanted to clarify, I know that wasn't you saying that Nitram, it was the other person you were talking to that's crazy.)

[Guardsman Bass]

Offhand, I'd say it's because the polio vaccine was so successful at eradicating it, that these idiots can't appreciate just how shitty the disease made your life.

I presume that that's it, too. Most of the parents of these kids came of age in the 1980s or 90s, when Smallpox was effectively dead and most of these diseases were nothing but memory for everyone except pockets of people in the Third World. For most of them, this kind of disease almost doesn't really seem to exist, so they get indulgent and reckless, and willing to follow the various wackjob activists who are willing to spin them into a lobbying group.

[Rogue 9]

Aren't the claims about vaccines causing autism bullshit anyway?

Correct. Neither strict scientific tests nor lax legal methods support the claim.

What I want to know is where in the fucking hell this idea came from. There's not even a significant correlation, so why would people buy it in significant numbers?

[Mayabird]

Aren't the claims about vaccines causing autism bullshit anyway?

Correct. Neither strict scientific tests nor lax legal methods support the claim.

What I want to know is where in the fucking hell this idea came from. There's not even a significant correlation, so why would people buy it in significant numbers?

It was probably some badly worded email that had been forwarded to them (and nine hundred other people) by some idiot co-worker from their cousin's in-law's upstairs neighbor's brother that, once you got past the ten pages of Re:RE:fWD:Re:fwd told them that vaccines are EVIL! Just like how my stupid aunt (who is no longer allowed to know my email address) would send all those stupid Christian chain letters to everybody and apparently believed the stories about the mean professor and the piece of chalk.

[Akhlut]

Aren't the claims about vaccines causing autism bullshit anyway?

Correct. Neither strict scientific tests nor lax legal methods support the claim.

What I want to know is where in the fucking hell this idea came from. There's not even a significant correlation, so why would people buy it in significant numbers?

If I had to guess, I imagine somebody saw the similarities between heavy metal poisoning and autism, and saw that a lot of vaccines had thimerosal as a preservative, and that thimerosal had mercury in it. Ergo, vaccines cause autism.

[Guardsman Bass]

Aren't the claims about vaccines causing autism bullshit anyway?

Correct. Neither strict scientific tests nor lax legal methods support the claim.

What I want to know is where in the fucking hell this idea came from. There's not even a significant correlation, so why would people buy it in significant numbers?

There's always been a (thankfully) small crowd of people who were frightened of vaccination and avoided it for their children. With the advent of the Internet and other means of quick communication and organization, they've mobilized, and have taken advantage of a spurious claim about autism to build a movement against vaccination.

[Rogue 9]

Autism and heavy metal poisoning aren't more than superficially similar; the treatments for heavy metal poisoning don't even begin to work on autistics (though people insist on trying them anyway).

At the end of the day, I just don't get it. The doctor has the medical training and expertise to know what's medically best for the patient. The parents in the vast majority of cases do not. I mean, you'd think they'd know they didn't go to medical school and have no fucking clue how vaccines and medications work.

[Darth Yoshi]

Well, that would be getting back into the anti-intellectual mentality and the self-righteous indignation when confronted about their own ignorance that seems to pervade in the US.

[Coyote]

A lot of kids will have to die before the idiot parent brigade stops its anti-vaccine crusade. In their heads, a few hundred kids getting sick isn't enough to counterbalance the ridiculously overblown (in their heads) chance of their kids not being normal. For goodness sakes, they're having measles parties again as I think Cairber pointed out. Until crippled and dead kids are paraded around on TV, it's just going to get worse.

It's okay, because all the dead babies just go to Jesus, anyway, right? They get born, baptized, and anything after that is just express ticket to Salvation, isn't it?

After all, they only care about the kids before they're born.

[Akhlut]

Autism and heavy metal poisoning aren't more than superficially similar; the treatments for heavy metal poisoning don't even begin to work on autistics (though people insist on trying them anyway).

Oh, I know, I was just speculating on a train of thought that would lead to such a conclusion; I certainly don't subscribe to that nonsense.

At the end of the day, I just don't get it. The doctor has the medical training and expertise to know what's medically best for the patient. The parents in the vast majority of cases do not. I mean, you'd think they'd know they didn't go to medical school and have no fucking clue how vaccines and medications work.

But, the internet told them otherwise! Why should I believe the person with years of training over some anonymous source on the internet? [/sarcasm]