Someone claimed they had not seen the anti-vaxxers blamed for the recent measles epidemic? Here ya go http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2015/02/01/anti-vaccine-movement-causes-worst-measles-epidemic-in-20-years/
I am not clear on the details of how this one has spread, but the above piece doesn’t blame anti-vaxxers for the start of the thing. At least as I am reading it he says that because there are larger pockets of unvaccinated people the infection spreads farther afield that it otherwise would have and is harder to contain. It used to be that an infection brought in from another country would be tamped down pretty quickly and stay more or less in one community more like the Amish case was initially. When more people who mix with the general community are unvaccinated it’s a completely different thing than an illness that is fairly contained within an identifiable cultural and geographic set of people.
No, the “start” was the case at Disneyland. But the spread, with over 600 cases in the US in 2014, is blamed squarely on the anti-vaxxers.
And the CDC says the first case was either an international tourist or an american returning from overseas who was exposed while out of the country http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/disney-measles-outbreak-came-overseas-cdc-says-n296441
@ucbalumnus, the way my pediatrician at the time explained it was that mothers who are IV drug abusers are more at risk for HIV and Hep B, and their babies are too especially if they are breastfed. Whether or not those mothers and babies already have HIV or Hep B, the government decided it would be better to immunize all babies than have to pay for liver transplants later. Since they were less likely to return for a well baby visit, the immunization was given while they were a “captive population” in the hospital after birth. That was her phrase.
She was particularly dismayed because this was before the legislation passed disallowing “drive through deliveries” and so you had babies just a few hours old getting a vaccine that the vast majority of them could have safely waited for.
She was fine with us holding off on that vaccine although we were in the strange position of having one child who was supposed to have it and two older children who weren’t supposed to have it.
" Whether or not those mothers and babies already have HIV or Hep B, the government decided it would be better to immunize all babies than have to pay for liver transplants later."
Interesting. And, a perfect example of the kind of thinking anti-vaxxers are against. Anyway, it’s round and round and right back at the same place again two days later. hmmm.
What’s the point of mischaracterizing the progression of the discussion?
Me? Well, yesterday I was chastised for talking about Disneyland and so this morning I come on and see the Disneyland story yet again. Perhaps, I missed something called progression somewhere, though. Sorry. Anyway until somebody comes up with some infected anti-vaxxers as opposed to travelers, tourists, undocumented immigrants, adults whose vaccines have worn off, babies, and people who are clueless I’m holding off on the whole blame thing.
I don’t really think it matters WHERE the epidemic started. If there were not pockets of unvaccinated people in the populace, the disease would not have spread so widely and quickly.
I don’t think anyone is blaming anti-vaxxers as being the SOURCE of the current measles outbreak. No one knows who Patient Zero is. What people are saying is that unvaccinated folks are the ones who are spreading the disease. I have absolutely no idea if those unvaccinated are “anti-vaxxers” or not. What I do know is there are people who made choices to NOT have their healthy kids vaccinated. I really don’t care what political / personal reason they give. You can call them anti-vaxxers if you want; I call them parents who didn’t vaccinate their children.
Now that measles from Disney has spread, well, parents who made the conscious decision to refuse to immunize their healthy children with the measles vaccine are to blame. Their decision to decline vaccination is now putting their healthy children at risk. Unfortunately, it is also putting many children who truly cannot get the vaccination at risk as well.
Oh good grief, this is stupid. No one is saying that an anti-vaxxer was necessarily Patient Zero. What we are saying is that because there are now a significant number of those who aren’t vaccinated - who CHOSE not to vaccinate – one Patient Zero has a lot more “spread.”
The Disneyland measles patients range in age from 7 months to 70 years old. It’s not a bunch of anti-vaxxers kids.
But the point is that now measles is a disease that it out there in the general population and has been more or less spread at large where it had been rare and contained. The chances of an intentionally unvaccinated person now coming into contact with the disease are much grater than they were and when those people are mixing with fragile populations regularly the chances of a tragic outcome is also increased.
The culture of not vaccinating can seem like a personal choice along the lines of wearing only organic cotton or using wooden toys until the diseases in question are actually “at large” in the population again in way that we thought was over.
RE: the Disney outbreak:
It would be interesting to know how many of the unvaccinated were over the age of 12 months. I couldn’t find that information anywhere.
Me, too. And the proper term for this isn’t stupidity; it’s treason. How’s that for name-calling? But I’m serious.
I think some people are making a rational decision not to get their kids vaccinated, because they are weighing the small risks from vaccination against the benefits to society as a whole. And if you don’t care about society as a whole, or anybody else but your own family, you will avoid small risks to yourself even if it creates bigger risks for everybody. This is especially rational if you believe that enough other people will accept those small risks to continue to protect your kids from the big risks. (This only gets worse, of course, if you are overestimating the risks of the vaccination in the first place.)
In other words, it’s your patriotic duty to have your kids vaccinated, just like it’s your duty to register for the military draft.
By the way, accommodating somebody’s disability or health needs is entirely different from accommodating somebody’s personal views, whether religious or not.
You weren’t chastised for talking about Disneyland marie, you were talking in illogical tangents and then trying to rationalize it. When people asked for clarification you called them wacko. Lovely. This isn’t about you. Let’s stay on topic.
Back to the Disney related outbreak:
The chart contained in this article regarding the Disney-linked California measles cases says that 4 infants under 12 months were infected.
http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2015/01/26/whats-really-behind-the-measles-outbreak
If we don’t vaccinate newborns against HepB, we WILL miss some maternal-fetal HebB transmission. That happened in Minnesota when I was practicing in Wisconsin. Very sad, because HepB is preventable and not a good disease to have. However— I would let parents defer it in the nursery if I knew them very well, and knew that the chances of HepB in that particular family were low to nil. In fact, in my community, I was the pediatrician known as being tolerant of parents who didn’t want to vaccinate; I worked with them to fashion a plan that would make them comfortable. The vast majority of those families ended up with fully vaxed kids. Indeed, studies in the peds literature have shown that the pediatrician’s attitude and educating of these families was paramount in getting nonvaxxers to vaccinate, and I agreed. I felt that building rapport with families and respecting their views was more important-- otherwise when you yell, “No vaccines? You’re outta my practice!”, you basically lose a family to probably NO medical care or good relationship with a doc.
However (again)-- with the recent issues with antivaxxers and the deaths in California of infants from pertussis, the measles outbreaks in Canada and now California, and the continuing issues with meningococcal meningitis (a case last week here at the university) and my horror of rubella, I too am changing my tune. This issue is morphing from personal autonomy into a true public health crisis.