<p>^^^ that theory works both ways. In a recent outbreak, an unvaccinated child picked up measles in Somalia and brought it back to his daycare center where other children were infected. Most of them were too young to be vaccinated or hadn’t been vaccinated for medical reasons. They were the most vulnerable population and will continue to be since they are not school age yet and it is easy to find cheap, unlicensed, day care that won’t ask any questions as long as the parents pay in cash. </p>
<p>Vitamin K injections in newborns seems to be the latest casualty of the anti-vaccine movement…</p>
<p>Anti-Vaccination Movement Could Be Prompting Parents to Skip Other Important Shot</p>
<p>Ryan Wallace
July 29, 2014
Anti-Vaccination Movement Could Be Prompting Parents to Skip Other Important Shot</p>
<p>The anti-vaccination movement might be behind a new disturbing trend of parents refusing a lifesaving vitamin injection for their newborns.</p>
<p>Late last year, doctors at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., began diagnosing several infants with a rare bleeding disorder caused by a vitamin K deficiency that affects 1 in 100,000 babies. By May, they had seen seven cases in eight months, as reported by The Tennessean. The relative spike in occurrences, they soon discovered, was related to the parents’ refusal of a simple shot given right after birth.</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>Wow. I’d be all in favor of social services moving to terminate parental rights in those cases.</p>
<p>^^Agree.</p>
New measles outbreak linked to anti-vax people at Disneyland…
http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/21/health/disneyland-measles/index.html
There was quite an upsurge in 2014. This chart is pretty scary:
Yes, that outbreak has been going on for a while, and has now spread to Northern CA. http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Unvaccinated-children-clusters-pop-up-all-over-6024263.php
So adults are catching it? Should we all get boosters?
I think the people getting it are those who have not been vaccinated. Many employees are college aged.
I had the measles when I was a child, and have also had the vaccine for employment because it was cheaper than getting tested for immunity. Hopefully I’m good. I know both Ds have had boosters, but I doubt DH has.
My mother said that when I was in the throes of the measles, I cried NONSTOP for over 24 hours. She said that she finally understood how people lose it and hurt their children. She certainly didn’t hurt me, but my Dad said after about 16 hours, he had two sobbing females on his hands.
I also had meningitis as a baby.
I don’t care if this is an unpopular opinion but I firmly believe that if you choose not to vaccinate your child and your child gets sick, makes another person sick, and/or that leads to death- you should be held accountable for child neglect and other appropriate charges as though you had gone into a crowded train station and released a smallpox virus or something because, personally, I don’t see the difference.
(Of course, this is not applicable to those who can’t get vaccinated for medical reasons)
There is already a precedent for this. We prosecute individuals who knowingly expose others to HIV. I’m sure there are laws on the books regarding bioterrorist attacks, etc.
At the very, VERY least those who do not vaccinate their children and who then get a disease ** which was supposed to be eradicated ** should be punished for child abuse/neglect. The state already intervenes in cases where the parents believe in “faith” healing and other similar nonsense. Ignorance and paranoia should not be a reason to expose your children and others to deadly diseases.
ETA: There was recently a great NOVA segment on vaccines featuring one of my favorite profs: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/vaccines-calling-shots.html
They follow (among others) the case of a young boy in Australia with Whooping Cough who was too young to get vaccinated. It is very hard to watch this very tiny baby struggling to breath and it’s even harder when you know that it’s because of someone else’s ignorance.
Five of the cases so far have been in vaccinated people. There is a certain age group that didn’t get two doses (don’t know the exact year they started giving 2, but they have been giving 2 for quite some time now – our college students all got two if they got their routine vaccinations). Immunity in people who got only one may be lower… but clearly it is the unvaccinated population that is getting hit harder. Romani, if my baby died from measles (too young to be vaccinated), caught from some vaccine denier, I’d want to sue the pants off them. I hope someone does if it happens.
(From the sfgate link jym posted…that is crazy.)
intparent, it’s already happened- to thousands in the US, Europe, and Australia. I’m not sure if anyone’s been sued yet.
ETA: Oops I slightly misread your post. I’m not sure if it’s hit thousands of babies, but thousands have died in the last few years from preventable diseases that we thought were wiped out of the first world. Almost all unvaccinated- not sure if that is because of denial, too young, etc.
People born between 1957 and 1971 may not have immunity from their vaccinations.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/measles-vaccination-leaves-a-possible-exposure-gap-for-some/
^Great, I was born during the “unreliable vaccine” era. I bet a lot of us here were.
I would want to as well. But if you were in one of those areas of CA, for instance, where so many people aren’t vaccinating, who would you sue?
I was born during the unreliable period (was vaccinated) and I GOT THE MEASLES as a teenager. Miserable. 
Horrible. My doc says I am immune now, though!
If I could figure out who my kid had been exposed to, them (or their denying parents).
sally, generally you can trace the outbreak back to one person. The diseases are reportable and there are epidemiologists whose job it is to track the outbreak pattern back to “patient 0”
Maybe the ones who have suffered the disease should sue the ones who have caused the outbreak. Nothing like a lawsuit to encourage safer behavior.