
Measles: Four European nations lose eradication status - pseudolus
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-49507253
======
bla3
The four nations are Albania, the Czech Republic, Greece and the UK.

~~~
pjc50
Three failed states with endemic poverty problems, and the Czech Republic.

------
Covzire
"All regions of the world showed an increase in measles bar the Americas,
which saw a minor decline - although the US registered its highest number of
cases in 25 years."

This surprised me, I thought the US was the epicenter of the anti-vax
movement? Or is it just how things appear because of the constant news topics?

~~~
stevesimmons
"'The Americas' is lower, USA is higher" is perfectly consistent with the US
being the epicenter of the anti-vax movement, no?

~~~
Covzire
Ah that makes sense.

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s9w
Everyone knows the reason for this, but no one is allowed to say it. This is
quite a comedy.

~~~
Freak_NL
Not really. The reason (dropping vaccination rates caused by an increase in
disinformation) is both well-known and heavily debated and criticized.

In at least one of these four countries (the UK) there is absolutely no ban on
talking about this problem, and it has seen solid coverage in the media for
years.

~~~
s9w
Yeah that is not it

------
makomk
This isn't mentioned in the article, but the UK at least was only declared to
have eradicated measles in 2017 - it was a very short-lived "eradication" that
might just have been based on a temporary drop in the number of measles cases
(they went up again quite substantially in 2017-2018):
[https://publichealthmatters.blog.gov.uk/2019/08/19/measles-i...](https://publichealthmatters.blog.gov.uk/2019/08/19/measles-
in-england/) Also, measles didn't exactly return here, we had quite a few
outbreaks even during the period where it was supposedly eliminated, there
just wasn't evidence it was endemic to the UK during that time period.

------
kwhitefoot
What struck me about the map of Europe was not how many countries had lost the
eradicated status but the number who have never had it. That seems more
shocking to me than a possibly temporary loss of that status.

The map is actually on the Daily Mail!
[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-7403803/Four-
coun...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-7403803/Four-countries-
lost-measles-free-status-Europe-2018.html)

------
pjc50
Vaccines never used to be mandatory because mandatory medical treatment has a
very bad track record. Medical treatment requires informed consent to be
ethical.

Unfortunately, there is a new viral threat - or rather, a memetic one. A meme
that encourages people to immunocompromise themselves and their children.
We're not so good at vaccinating against lethal memes, but perhaps this is the
pandemic of the 21st century.

It's not just an internet phenomenon; the originator was Andrew Wakefield,
with the help of lots of traditional sensationalist poor quality news
publications.

Edit: this is more controversial than I was expecting .. I don't normally ask
for explanations of downvotes, and I know it's frowned upon, and normally when
I get downvoted I know exactly which audience I'm offending and why. But I
don't understand it here.

~~~
starvingbear
Andrew Wakefield was simply an expert in gut health he didnt even want into
the vaccine debate. He did very fair research that proved a link between
between what he found in the gut and autism at the request of parents bringing
their kids to him that was signed off as fully accurate by 12 scientists that
assisted the research. It scared a pharma sponsor and got pulled from
publication. That's all his story was and it turned into the all time anti
vaxxer conspiracy somehow.

~~~
pjc50
He spent years promoting the idea, and achieved a level of misconduct that got
him disqualified from practicing medicine. Relevant chunk of Wikipedia:

> After the publication of the paper, other researchers were unable to
> reproduce Wakefield's findings or confirm his hypothesis of an association
> between the MMR vaccine and autism,[8] or autism and gastrointestinal
> disease.[9] A 2004 investigation by Sunday Times reporter Brian Deer
> identified undisclosed financial conflicts of interest on Wakefield's
> part,[10] and most of his co-authors then withdrew their support for the
> study's interpretations.[11] The British General Medical Council (GMC)
> conducted an inquiry into allegations of misconduct against Wakefield and
> two former colleagues.[12] The investigation centred on Deer's findings,
> including that children with autism were subjected to unnecessary invasive
> medical procedures such as colonoscopies and lumbar punctures,[13] and that
> Wakefield acted without the required ethical approval from an institutional
> review board.

> On 28 January 2010, a five-member statutory tribunal of the GMC found three
> dozen charges proved, including four counts of dishonesty and twelve counts
> involving the abuse of developmentally delayed children.[14] The panel ruled
> that Wakefield had "failed in his duties as a responsible consultant", acted
> against the interests of his patients, and acted "dishonestly and
> irresponsibly" in his published research.[15][16][17] The Lancet fully
> retracted the 1998 publication on the basis of the GMC's findings, noting
> that elements of the manuscript had been falsified.[18] The Lancet's editor-
> in-chief Richard Horton said the paper was "utterly false" and that the
> journal had been "deceived".[19] Three months following The Lancet's
> retraction, Wakefield was struck off the UK medical register, with a
> statement identifying deliberate falsification in the research published in
> The Lancet,[20] and was thereby barred from practising medicine in the
> UK.[21] A British Administrative Court Justice noted in a related
> decision—"There is now no respectable body of opinion which supports (Dr.
> Wakefield's) hypothesis, that MMR vaccine and autism/enterocolitis are
> causally linked".[22]

~~~
starvingbear
Fair enough. His conduct afterward could be looked at (though going beyond
wikipedia may be necessary). But the original hysteria definitely painted a
huge target on his back with a lot of misinformation. I don't think that's
deniable

------
ralusek
On a population scale, anti-vax movement is self-regulating. People are anti-
vax now because they have the privilege to be. When disease becomes a real
threat to the survival of you and your family, watch how quickly this movement
dies.

The problem is, on the path to this equilibrium, people die unnecessarily.

------
wjsetzer
I can't understand why vaccinations aren't mandatory for non-allergic, non-
immunocompromised children at this point. You shouldn't have the option to
kill your kid, and especially others' kids.

~~~
DC-3
Given how recently democratic western governments have conducted eugenics
programs, I would be uncomfortable with any law that enforces mandatory
injections for children - even for vaccines.

~~~
realusername
Your comment does not make any sense, what's the link between Nazi eugenics
programs and vaccination campaigns?

~~~
lxwang
One reason people refuse vaccination is that they are worried the vaccines are
secretly an attempt to sterilize undesirable segments of the population. For
example, see what happened with the tetanus vaccine in Kenya in 2014.

[https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tetanus-vaccine-
sterilizat...](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tetanus-vaccine-
sterilization/)

------
csuld
Seems like another topic that has a suspiciously polarising effect on people -
i.e. people on both sides refuse to listen to each or are intrinsically are
upset by the opposing view. Both sides have a point in my opinion, definitely
more nuanced than this article portrays.

~~~
lolc
What is the point of not vaccinating?

~~~
csuld
the real question is why do people 'take a side'? I mean in all polarising
debates not just this one.

~~~
lolc
Because people care about the welfare of the group but disagree about how to
achieve it. It is a matter of safety versus personal liberty and you're not
going to get easy answers.

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k__
Anti-vax, flat earth, alt right... I often ask myself, are these the same kind
of movements that brought down the civilizations before us?

~~~
Freak_NL
What makes the current situation unique is the ubiquitous presence of the
internet as a very robust and very efficient infection vector for
disinformation.

We've just never had something quite like it.

~~~
colmvp
It's funny, having been part of the generation that was educated as a
youngster midway through the rise of the Internet, I can't help but feel
envious of young people now who have access to a wealth of resources I never
had growing up.

Nowadays, one can go online and find PDFs of textbooks, online lectures from
prestigious professors teaching useful subjects, videos from conferences to
learn latest findings, tutorials on practically every subject matter, Discord
groups / subreddits from other enthusiasts, YouTube videos explaining
practically every esoteric subject matter... I could've used so many of these
resources when I was struggling in high school with classes taught by smart
but bad teachers.

I guess I've felt like it hasn't been that hard to separate the 'good'
information from the misinformation.

~~~
mistermann
I wonder if we'll see to some degree much wider variance in intelligence in
kids growing up with access to these resources. I was a fairly nerdy kid, but
all I had access to was a crappy library, I was starving for interesting
information.

But then again, if I was growing up now I very well may have become addicted
to iPad games.

------
spraak
Could it be - in part - due to the virus changing? Other vaccines with high
coverage are known to have lost effect due to mutation, such as pertussis.
There is also the example of the best-guess flu vaccine of the season. The
article mentions it is in highly vaccinated populations, which contradicts the
heard immunity idea, as well as would equate to a high selective pressure on
the virus to change. Also looking into this I've learned about how prior to
the vaccine, mothers would pass on a temporary immunity to their children but
that this is lost with the vaccine - could that also be at play here?

~~~
starvingbear
This may be valid. After both the last 2 measles outbreaks that hit the news
in the US it was discovered in many of the kids tested that the strain of
measles was actually from the vaccine itself. Not sure if that's classified as
a mutation but I don't think thats supposed to be able to happen and spread
that way. Will follow up with sources after I'm off mobile

Edit: Here are a couple of sources. The first claims to have proven that
someone on the vaccine schedule spread measles in 2011. However I will correct
that I thought the disney case was similar but I think that one may have been
wild measles and only a few vaccinated were infected. These are just food for
thoughts

[https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/58/9/1205/2895266](https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/58/9/1205/2895266)

This one is more scientific and dry but is from the CDC I believe and showed
among other things an increase in sporadic measles outbreaks among vaccinated

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC228449/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC228449/)

The whooping cough is more interesting. You can find multiple cases of
outbreaks among highly vaccinated people but the symptoms are allegedly milder
so the vaccine is possibly doing something positive about it. The CDC is
warning the vaccine is losing effectiveness.

[https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/allthemoms/2019/03/14/wh...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/allthemoms/2019/03/14/whooping-
cough-vaccine-less-effective-cdc-warns-as-outbreaks-hit-schools/3161859002/)
[https://www.livescience.com/53359-whooping-cough-outbreak-
ra...](https://www.livescience.com/53359-whooping-cough-outbreak-raises-
questions-vaccine-effectiveness.html)

Anyway interested in any takes on that. I'm not wildly anti-vax but even these
mild questions on it were immediately downvoted. I think its a complicated and
fascinating thing to talk about when people aren't crybabies about it

~~~
spraak
That's very interesting, I didn't know that. Looking forward to the sources,
thank you

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
I'm interested as well, as I did some searching and found nothing like those
claims.

~~~
rscho
Yes, because it's wrong. The measles is a live attenuated vaccine, meaning
that in some extremely rare cases it could be transmitted and can cause minor
symptoms. This is _of course_ tested for and monitored, and current vaccine
technology allows vaccines with a good safety profile.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
That's my understanding as well, but as someone who tries their best to be a
rational skeptic, I'm more than willing to reconsider my understanding given
sufficient evidence (the key there being "sufficient"), so if such evidence
exists I'd like to see it.

------
StavrosK
It's interesting how few unvaccinated people are required for the virus to
come back. Here in Greece, I only know one person who doesn't vaccinate their
child, but apparently such low densities are enough for viruses to propagate.

~~~
moviuro
According to the French ministry of health, "the elimination of measles
requires a 95 per cent immunization coverage level for young children." [0]

I've tried finding some good resource about mathematical modelling of
infectious disease, but they're rather dry[1] or clearly biased.

[0] [https://solidarites-sante.gouv.fr/prevention-en-
sante/preser...](https://solidarites-sante.gouv.fr/prevention-en-
sante/preserver-sa-sante/vaccination/vaccins-obligatoires/article/11-vaccins-
obligatoires-en-2018)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_modelling_of_infe...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_modelling_of_infectious_disease)

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wtdata
The article tries to have us believe it's the anti vax movement doing this.

Although that's probably true in the UK, are we really going to pretend the
problem in Greece is also some non vaccination movement? This is absolutely
Orwellian.

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ophsj
Why is it legal not to vaccinate your child? Seems stupid.

~~~
mieseratte
> Why is it legal not to vaccinate your child? Seems stupid.

Why do you feel you have the right to tell me what to do with my body? My
body, my choice!

~~~
saiya-jin
Your rights and freedom end where my begin, and with such an approach you are
attempting to kill me and my family by your negligence.

~~~
joey_bob
Is you/your family immuno-compromised?

~~~
rscho
Not relevant. Measles represents a substantial risk of death even in
immunologically normal individuals.

~~~
joey_bob
Well if you have a normal immune system, you can get the MMR vaccine. Which if
it is effective, should significantly reduce your risk of contracting measles
as a disease, no? If the vaccine is effective, there are two casez in which
ggp commenter's life is threatened by gggp commenter's rights: a) they have a
immunologically normal, but have refused the vaccine for whatever reason,
which is puts the risk on their shoulders, b) they have a compromised immune
system, and cannot get the MMR vaccine, in which case gggp may actually
represent a threat to their life not preventable by normal action.

