
Measles Cases Triple in U.S., Vaccine Refusal Here and Elsewhere to Blame - grannyg00se
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/12/measles-spike-us/
======
adventured
This kind of behavior needs to be publicly shamed and banished back to the
pre-industrial age. Immense social pressure should be brought to bear. Failure
to vaccinate your children against something like measles should be viewed as
one notch down from child abuse.

I'd also support eliminating all public welfare programs for people that
refuse core vaccinations. If you want to be a voluntary threat to society, you
shouldn't get to piggy back on it.

It's beyond an absurdity that America should be drifting backwards on
something like this, given the progress we've made in the last century toward
understanding why/how vaccines work. Gates will help eliminate polio in India,
just as we're reacquiring it here.

~~~
Retric
I support Murder charges for anyone failing to vaccinate there children
resulting in an infection and death even if it's indirect. Aka your kid
infects Sam who infects Bob who dies, your now up on Murder charges.

~~~
patrickg_zill
Extreme and stupidly ignorant of how vaccines actually work... no vaccine is
100% effective - the MMR vaccine is claimed 95% effective with 1 dose and near
100% with 2. But the MMR vaccine is one of the oldest and most effective.

Other vaccines have as low as 67% immunity (or even worse) - so, out of a
class of 30 kids, with 1 kid not vaccinated, there would still be 10 possible
"suspects".

And you would automatically charge the unvax'ed - turning many of the
foundational concepts of law upside down in your hysterical crusade.

~~~
Crito
> _Extreme and stupidly ignorant of how vaccines actually work... no vaccine
> is 100% effective - the MMR vaccine is claimed 95% effective with 1 dose and
> near 100% with 2. But the MMR vaccine is one of the oldest and most
> effective._

Your kid is unvaccinated, should have been, and transmits something to
somebody else who is then injured? You should have _some_ degree of liability.

Your kid is unvaccinated, could not be vaccinated *(too young, or had an
existing medical condition that made it impossible) , and transmits something
to somebody else who is then injured? Well, that's a shit situation, but there
is not much that should be done in that situation.

Your kid is vaccinated, catches something anyway, and transmits something to
somebody else who is then injured? Well, that's a shit situation, but there is
not much that should be done in that situation.

These complexities are not intractable.

~~~
patrickg_zill
How do you intend to "prove" in a court of law, on a murder charge (which of
course has a high degree of proof required), that a child in a room with 30
kids, in a school with say 600, that traveled on a bus with 60+ other kids,
only had contact with exactly _1_ kid?

Given that you cannot necessarily determine the exact day of exposure in many
cases, and that the kid who gets sick could have gone to e.g. McDonald's
(exposure to another 100-200 visitors during busy times) or the mall (how many
1000s)... what sane person could be convinced?

~~~
Crito
That is a problem for the lawyers and any expert witnesses they can find to
solve. If such a thing cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt (if we are
talking criminal charges) or beyond a preponderance of the evidence (if we are
just talking about a lawsuit), then the case would not go through. If it could
be proven, then such cases should be permitted.

We are actually quite good at tracing infections back to their source, but
that is not _my_ specialty.

------
christkv
The worst thing about people refusing to vaccinate their children is the fact
that they themselves probably had all the vaccines in their childhood and did
not suffer any consequences.

I support banning of unvaccinated children from kinder gardens and schools as
I think it's unacceptable to compromise herd immunity because of selfish non-
scientific beliefs that verge on ideology at this point.

~~~
kreek
My wife and I have given our children all the vaccines we had as children and
it was an enormous struggle to do so. Children now receive many more vaccines
than we did, and many of them are delivered in combination; up to four or more
at a time.

Autism aside there is a very real danger of a reaction when you combine so
many vaccines. Others are completely unnecessary, like Hep B at birth.

If the governing bodies went back to a sane vaccine schedule I think some of
the refusers would come back into the fold.

~~~
aestra
> there is a very real danger of a reaction when you combine so many vaccines

[citation needed]

I'd like to see the studies that say that combos are worse than individual.
I'm not trying to be a dick, but when you make claims, you gotta back it up
with data.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
I think kreek may be referring to the practice of administering several
vaccines at once.

If one fears additives, preservatives, or contamination then combined vaccines
may be safer by potentially reducing the number of injections, and possibly
the volume of preservatives.

------
spikels
Anyone else notice Yahoo's new Global News Anchor Katie Couric is one of those
helping spread doubts about vaccines, the HPV vaccine in this case[1]. HPV is
responsible for more than 25,000 cancers in the US each year[2] and around
6,000 deaths[3]. Worldwide figures are probably 15 times greater.

[1] [http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/showtracker/la-et-
st...](http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/showtracker/la-et-st-katie-
couric-hpv-vaccine-20131204,0,4561911.story#axzz2mjUnDlPF)

[2]
[http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/hpv/statistics/cases.htm](http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/hpv/statistics/cases.htm)

[3] [http://www.kegel.com/hpv/deaths/](http://www.kegel.com/hpv/deaths/)

~~~
aestra
I think we should also be vaccinating males for HPV, they spread it, and it
also causes cancer in men (though it is less likely) such as penile and anal
cancer.

Right now we are only vaccinating women.

~~~
shirro
It is now available to all boys aged 12-13 through a school based vaccination
program in Australia. Same as girls.

~~~
aestra
In the United States it is FDA approved for use in men however it still isn't
widely used in boys.

------
doktrin
25k cases in Europe every year? Can anyone provide any context around what
appears to be a shockingly high number?

~~~
adventured
It's almost exclusively due to the lack of vaccination.

"In 2007, 3,104 (87%) measles cases in Europe were unvaccinated"

"However, this controversy [autism claims] resulted in the proportion of
children in the United Kingdom who received their first vaccine dose by 2
years of age decreasing from a high of 92.5% during April–June 1995 to a low
of 78.9% during the same period in 2003."

[http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/204/suppl_1/S353.long](http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/204/suppl_1/S353.long)

And

"In the year ending April 30, 2012, a total of 17,448 measles cases were
repoted in the European Union and Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway"

"Vaccination status was known for 84 percent of the cases, of which 82 percent
had never received the vaccine, 13 percent had received one dose, and 4
percent had received two or more doses"

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/gerganakoleva/2012/07/02/what-
re...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/gerganakoleva/2012/07/02/what-recent-
measles-and-rubella-outbreaks-in-europe-can-teach-the-u-s/)

------
DrJokepu
A friend of mine works for the New York City Department of Health and closely
follows the current measles outbreak. According to him, the outbreak (and the
rejection of vaccination) can be tied very strongly to certain religious
group.

[http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6236a5.htm?mobile...](http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6236a5.htm?mobile=nocontent)

~~~
grannyg00se
Wait....this is the largest outbreak since 1996 and all that happened was one
kid got pneumonia and one woman had a miscarriage? These things happen every
day. Seems like a lot of money, work, and debate over a relatively minute
issue.

Even in that larger 1996 outbreak nobody died.

And we've got people comparing vaccine refusal to child abuse! If that's child
abuse, you're going to have to take a serious look at every parent of an
illiterate grade schooler. And while you're at it, your child abuse radar
should be going crazy whenever you see an obese toddler.

~~~
mikeash
"And while you're at it, your child abuse radar should be going crazy whenever
you see an obese toddler."

What makes you think it doesn't?

------
raphinou
Whn says that more than 95% of measles mortality was in low income areas. Is
the low mortality rate in higher income areas due to a higher rate of
vaccination, or does better medical infrastructure itself lower the
moratality? Genuinely interested to hear what knowledgeable people think.

~~~
raphinou
I am disappointed that no one answered my question. With the number of
comments i read expressing very strong opinions, i had hoped someone would
have investigated that point.

------
ChrisAntaki
From my understanding, fear of vaccines is closely tied to Thimerosal content,
which is a derivative of Ethyl Mercury. The idea is, "there's Mercury in the
vaccine, and Mercury causes Autism" \- which is scary thought for a parent. If
there was empirical data showing zero correlation between Autism rates, and
Thimerosal, I think we'd see more people accepting vaccines.

~~~
pekk
That isn't how science works. You have to demonstrate a link between measles
vaccines and autism. You can't just wait for someone to disprove it forever,
because that is not possible.

~~~
windsurfer
And _that_ isn't how the irrational public works, it seems.

~~~
ChrisAntaki
Well said!

I should have wrote originally: "To alleviate irrational fears, we'd need a
study showing zero correlation."

------
bananacurve
>Western Europe has had 25,000 cases of measles every year for the last three
years… in great part due to vaccine hesitancy.

Apparently Europe needs to get its act together. They have already caused 175
cases in the US, I hope we don't have to start screening Europeans.

------
bananacurve
I find it amusing to see articles like this that are up voted because the
title paints the US in a bad light, but upon reading casts Europe in a bad
light and therefore gets flagged.

~~~
mikeash
Where's the option to display the thoughts of voters and flaggers? I can't
seem to find it in my settings.

