Did Anti-Vaxxers Lead To New Measles Outbreak?

[Reub]

Did the fact that so many parents are now foregoing vaccinations for their children directly lead to the latest measles outbreak which has effected more than a thousand? Is vaccine hysteria a public health risk?

[dualstow]

Of course.

[WiseOne]

That's an easy one.  YES.

[MachineGhost]

I concur!

[Reub]

So then, vaccinations are advantageous and also necessary?

[barrett]

what kind of measles is having an outbreak?
my memory may be wrong since it was a long time ago, but i seem to remember measles being a miserable but mostly harmless childhood illness that lasted only a few days, and it was not particularly dangerous unless it was caught by adults and pregnant women. again unless memory fails me we all became immune by catching it.. if there was a measles vaccine back then it was only for one specific nastier version of the measles..

Hmm. I am wondering how measles compares to chicken pox when it occurs in adults. I got chicken pox for the first time when I was 33. It was terribly debilitating for at least a week and it also messed up my immune system which set off many years of trouble with my asthma. In other words, it was definitely NOT just a minor inconvenience.

i am going to let a doctor or medical expert answer that one..

i do vaguely remember both being common childhood illnesses that were potentially very dangerous and always miserable for adults to get, herd immunity for adults was built up when they went around every few years, and over the course of your childhood you caught them all (chicken pox, measles, mumps ) and became immune. the rare adult that made it through childhood without catching them had to be very careful about not getting exposed when their own or neighborhood kids caught them..

[madbean]

...my memory may be wrong since it was a long time ago, but i seem to remember measles being a miserable but mostly harmless childhood illness that lasted only a few days, and it was not particularly dangerous unless it was caught by adults and pregnant women...

I remember having both the measles and chicken pox when I was a kid and neither one was a big deal. The flu was a lot worse. I seem to also remember some people were having parties to intentionally expose kids and get it over with.

(Reminder to self: Don't forget the shingles vaccination).

i remember hearing about those party's too, i don't think i ever knew anyone who did it but i do know families that would expose their other kids when one caught a childhood illness to get them all over it at the same time.

[MachineGhost]

So then, vaccinations are advantageous and also necessary?

With a lot of caveats.  I'm sure the sensible, moderate position is followed by aware parents, neither outright rejection nor swallowing the CDC/Big Pharma's lies and bullshit.

I'm not talking about flu vaccines, though.  Don't conflate it!

[dualstow]

what kind of measles is having an outbreak?
my memory may be wrong since it was a long time ago, but i seem to remember measles being a miserable but mostly harmless childhood illness that lasted only a few days, and it was not particularly dangerous unless it was caught by adults and pregnant women.  again unless memory fails me we all became immune by catching it.. if there was a measles vaccine back then it was only for one specific nastier version of the measles..

Now that you menntion it, I haven't seen much about the disease, just its spread.
I found this:

Measles is not a virus that Americans typically spend time worrying about because for a long time it has not been prevalent. But it is a serious disease. It is a highly communicable respiratory disease caused by a virus and spread through the air.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/02/health/me ... can-it-be/
(Contains annoying video that will play without your permission).

[Libertarian666]

...my memory may be wrong since it was a long time ago, but i seem to remember measles being a miserable but mostly harmless childhood illness that lasted only a few days, and it was not particularly dangerous unless it was caught by adults and pregnant women...

I remember having both the measles and chicken pox when I was a kid and neither one was a big deal. The flu was a lot worse. I seem to also remember some people were having parties to intentionally expose kids and get it over with.

(Reminder to self: Don't forget the shingles vaccination).

Anecdotally, I personally know two people who have had the vaccine, and both of them got shingles. Those are the only people I know who have had shingles.

[MachineGhost]

Anecdotally, I personally know two people who have had the vaccine, and both of them got shingles. Those are the only people I know who have had shingles.

Were these your generation or older generation people?

[dragoncar]

it was not particularly dangerous unless it was caught by adults and pregnant women

Well eventually some of those unvaccinated little girls are going to become pregnant women.

[Libertarian666]

Anecdotally, I personally know two people who have had the vaccine, and both of them got shingles. Those are the only people I know who have had shingles.

Were these your generation or older generation people?

One was I, and the other was a woman about 8 years older than I.

[madbean]

Anecdotally, I personally know two people who have had the vaccine, and both of them got shingles. Those are the only people I know who have had shingles.

Were these your generation or older generation people?

One was I, and the other was a woman about 8 years older than I.

Do you think you got the shingles as a result of the vaccine?

[WiseOne]

It's simply not the case that measles is harmless.  It's just that the really bad outcomes are rare enough that you personally might not have experienced it.

For most people, it's two very miserable but self-limited weeks.  The problem is that the virus can also invade the central nervous system.  For a small percentage (<1%), it causes a fulminant brain infection that is virtually always fatal ("SSPE", subacute sclerosing pan-encephalitis).  Other bad outcomes include permanent hearing or vision loss.  There are non-neurologic complications as well, most commonly pneumonia, and this also can be fatal.

The other problem with measles is how incredibly easily the virus spreads.  It's airborne, meaning someone can cough and then you can wander through the area afterwards, take a breath, and boom you have measles.  Similarly, one of the Brooklyn cases was attributed to somebody pressing an elevator button two hours after an infected person had taken that same elevator and pressed the same button.  This is why it's so important to vaccinate, as there are people who can't be vaccinated for various reasons (too young, allergic etc) and who rely on the herd immunity effect for protection.  So it's not just you, it's the baby down the block who could die from the bug that you might not have much of a problem with.

[MachineGhost]

This is interesting.  Among other things, its about a child of an an anti-vacciner who came down with autism.

[quote=http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2015/02 ... d-her-mind]She also began to worry about Vivian. At 16 months old, her daughter still wasn't walking and her speech was odd.

Over the next year or so, Russo allowed the pediatrician to give her daughter a few shots — though not the vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella.

Then, when Vivian was nearly 3, Russo decided her daughter should get all her vaccines. By that time, Russo says, it was pretty clear that Vivian had autism, caused by something other than a vaccination.

Russo's story reveals a lot about why people fear vaccines, says David Ropeik, the author of How Risky Is It, Really? Why Our Fears Don't Always Match the Facts. For one thing, science often has little influence on what we are afraid of, Ropeik says.

"Fear, or the perception of risk, is subjective," Ropeik says. "It's a matter of how we feel about the facts we have, not just what the facts say.

"Also, our perceptions are often shaped by the communities we choose to join," Ropeik says. In Russo's case, that community was self-described "crunchy moms" who distrust mainstream medicine. But there are plenty of other communities with subgroups that reject vaccination for other reasons, he says.

"There's conservatism: I don't like government butting in. There's libertarianism: Leave me alone, I want to decide for myself. There's environmentalism, there's religion," Ropeik says.

And for a long time, Ropeik says, these subgroups didn't have to confront a downside to rejecting vaccines. "There is the sense that the diseases are largely gone, so why take even a small risk for no benefit?" he says.

Now that sort of thinking is getting harder to justify because "the diseases are back," Ropeik says. Equally important, the current measles outbreak involves Disneyland — "an iconic, happy, associated-with-nothing-bad-happening kind of place," he says.[/quote]

[craigr]

It's simply not the case that measles is harmless.  It's just that the really bad outcomes are rare enough that you personally might not have experienced it.

For most people, it's two very miserable but self-limited weeks.  The problem is that the virus can also invade the central nervous system.  For a small percentage (<1%), it causes a fulminant brain infection that is virtually always fatal ("SSPE", subacute sclerosing pan-encephalitis).  Other bad outcomes include permanent hearing or vision loss.  There are non-neurologic complications as well, most commonly pneumonia, and this also can be fatal.

The other problem with measles is how incredibly easily the virus spreads.  It's airborne, meaning someone can cough and then you can wander through the area afterwards, take a breath, and boom you have measles.  Similarly, one of the Brooklyn cases was attributed to somebody pressing an elevator button two hours after an infected person had taken that same elevator and pressed the same button.  This is why it's so important to vaccinate, as there are people who can't be vaccinated for various reasons (too young, allergic etc) and who rely on the herd immunity effect for protection.  So it's not just you, it's the baby down the block who could die from the bug that you might not have much of a problem with.

Roald Dahl, author of books like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, wrote a letter in the late 80's describing how his daughter died from measles encephalitis. It's been circulating again in light of the recent outbreaks:

http://io9.com/read-roald-dahls-heart-r ... 1682995322

[dualstow]

Roald Dahl, author of books like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, wrote a letter in the late 80's describing how his daughter died from measles encephalitis. It's been circulating again in light of the recent outbreaks:

http://io9.com/read-roald-dahls-heart-r ... 1682995322

And snopes asserts that the Dahl essay is genuine. http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/roalddahl.asp

[WiseOne]

Clip from the Daily Show on the measles vaccination issue...hilarious and spot on as always!

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/5t2dw ... slesrables

[dualstow]

Clip from the Daily Show on the measles vaccination issue...hilarious and spot on as always!

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/5t2dw ... slesrables

off the chain! 

[MachineGhost]

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/5t2dw ... slesrables

That really puts it in perspective!  Is he always funny like this in every show or just now and then?

[WiseOne]

Maybe not every show, but most of the time yes!  And FWIW Harry Browne said he watched the Daily Show regularly.

The show has been described as predominantly liberal, but I don't think that's accurate - they skewer anything/anyone who deserves it, and liberal politicians & causes have certainly gotten their share of abuse.

[MachineGhost]

Looks like the so-called herd immunity may be B.S. in regards to vaccination:

[quote=http://www.ageofautism.com/2010/09/obse ... ates-.html]The validity of herd immunity undergirds all compulsory vaccination policies.  The theory of herd immunity posits that when a sufficiently high threshold of people in a community is immune to a specific disease, it creates a protective effect, a barrier of sorts.  Society achieves herd immunity when this protective cordon prevents a resurgence of the disease and, as a result, protects vulnerable individuals who cannot receive vaccines (or whose vaccines failed).

After the conference, I approached James Colgrove, PhD, an expert in the history and ethics of public health from Columbia University.  I complimented him on his 2006 book State of Immunity and asked for clarification.  His book reveals that the term “herd immunity”? first appeared in 1923.  He describes data limitations and the difficulty in validating the theory empirically.  He quotes one official saying, in 1932, that herd immunity was “a mere hypothesis.”?  I asked Colgrove for subsequent evidence-based research upholding the soundness of herd immunity.  He mentioned epidemiological studies on measles in the 1960s and 1970s that provided corroboration.  I challenged him. 

As explained to me by pediatrician Larry Palevsky, the original basis for herd immunity had nothing to do with vaccines.  When sufficiently high numbers of people contracted the wild form of the disease and secured lifelong natural immunity, statisticians observed a protective effect in the community as described above.  Policymakers eager to promote vaccines sought ammunition to increase vaccine uptake.  Researchers assumed that vaccine-induced immunity would operate in the same manner as natural immunity and presumed that vaccines therefore would also create herd immunity.  I am not a scientist but I know that vaccine-induced immunity is not remotely the same thing as natural immunity.  Natural immunity is the gold standard.  Vaccine-induced immunity is qualitatively different; for starters, vaccines do not always work and their protection wanes over time.  Colgrove admitted as much, and I just stood there for a moment, stunned.  We clearly need more inquiry into this critically important subject.  However, it does not take scientific brilliance to understand this key point: discredit herd immunity and the house of cards supporting vaccine mandates comes tumbling down.[/quote]

[quote=http://www.westonaprice.org/press/studi ... d-disease/]Both unvaccinated and vaccinated individuals are at risk from exposure to those recently vaccinated. Vaccine failure is widespread; vaccine-induced immunity is not permanent and recent outbreaks of diseases such as whooping cough, mumps and measles have occurred in fully vaccinated populations.14,15 Flu vaccine recipients become more susceptible to future infection after repeated vaccination.16, 17[/quote]

I agree with this but we all know politics and career opportunism gets in the way of facts:

[quote=http://www.ageofautism.com/2010/09/obse ... ates-.html]I said it is dangerous to say that the science is clear; that as physicians and PhDs, they know what evidence-based medicine means and in the absence of randomized controlled studies of the vaccinated versus the unvaccinated, there are strict limits as to what they can and should say about the state of the science. I stressed that they failed to even acknowledge how devastating vaccine injuries can be, bringing their attention to Susan Kreider.  Offit was cued to cut me off at that point, so I quickly asked why children are expected to uphold the entire burden of herd immunity for all of society.  Not surprisingly, they did not answer my question, but to my surprise, my comments received applause.  Offit came up to me after the Panel and shook my hand.[/quote]

But wouldn't this suggest it may work?  You don't go from 432 deaths to 0 in just one year without a huge seachange.

[quote=http://www.westonaprice.org/press/studi ... d-disease/]The number of measles deaths declined from 7575 in 1920 (10,000 per year in many years in the 1910s) to an average of 432 each year from 1958-1962.18 The vaccine was introduced in 1963. Between 2005 and 2014, there have been no deaths from measles in the U.S. and 108 deaths from the MMR vaccine.19[/quote]

So if the issue isn't as settled as the propaganda would have us all believe, why should I actively support non-parental choice?

[quote=http://www.ageofautism.com/2010/09/obse ... ates-.html]While they were comfortable discussing the negative role that our activism plays in decreasing vaccine uptake rates, their silence on the specifics of our issues was both deafening and telling.  They did not discuss society’s collective responsibility to people who are injured and killed while upholding their duty to protect society.  There was not one word uttered about any of the existing and emerging science critical of vaccines and vaccine ingredients.  With the exception of Dr. Diane Harper’s comments during the HPV Panel, there were no remarks about the merits of slowing things down a bit.  Moreover, no one breathed a word about the United States’ precipitous decline among the world’s nations in infant mortality rankings (we lag behind every developed country except Poland) or the mind-numbing increases in the incidence of chronically ill children.  At the conference, what mattered most was compliance with vaccine mandates.[/quote]

[MachineGhost]

the Italian court system has just recently settled a case in favor of a plaintiff saying a vaccine caused autism.  it was a bit tough to get the details out of a translated article, but it is an interesting precedent..  http://www.repubblica.it/salute/medicina/2014/11/25/news/il_tribunale_bimbo_autistico_per_colpa_del_vaccino-101357013/?ref=fbpr

Fascinating!  But this is the country that railroaded Amanda Knox twice or three times.  Exactly how much confidence can we have in the Italian justice system?

i am not sure about the justice system in Italy i would guess ..not the best...

i do wish my translator was less glitchy today, it appeared like the article (court case?) was referring to testing done by the vaccine producer that had data dropped or left out regarding autism, but that is only a impression based on a quick skim in a faulty popup window ENG version of the article so..... ?

[WiseOne]

Looks like the so-called herd immunity may be B.S. in regards to vaccination:

This is exactly why there are measles outbreaks happening right now.  You get enough people thinking this way and then not vaccinating, and then you'll find out what happens when herd immunity breaks down.

And please...enough with the autism thing!!  It's based on a Lancet study that had to be retracted because of falsified data.  Also, it's based on parental perception.  Autism becomes clinically obvious right around the time when kids are getting vaccines, so of course there will be temporal coincidences in some cases.