Good read from the WSJ: The Anti-Vaccination Epidemic

[zappaman]

Almost 8,000 cases of pertussis, better known as whooping cough, have been reported to California's Public Health Department so far this year. More than 250 patients have been hospitalized, nearly all of them infants and young children, and 58 have required intensive care. Why is this preventable respiratory infection making a comeback? In no small part thanks to low vaccination rates, as a story earlier this month in the Hollywood Reporter pointed out.

The conversation about vaccination has changed. In the 1990s, when new vaccines were introduced, the news media were obsessed with the notion that vaccines might be doing more harm than good. The measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine might cause autism, we were told. Thimerosal, an ethyl-mercury containing preservative in some vaccines, might cause developmental delays. Too many vaccines given too soon, the stories went, might overwhelm a child's immune system.

Then those stories disappeared. One reason was that study after study showed that these concerns were ill-founded. Another was that the famous 1998 report claiming to show a link between vaccinations and autism was retracted by The Lancet, the medical journal that had published it. The study was not only spectacularly wrong, as more than a dozen studies have shown, but also fraudulent. The author, British surgeon Andrew Wakefield, has since been stripped of his medical license.

But the damage was done. Countless parents became afraid of vaccines. As a consequence, many parents now choose to delay, withhold, separate or space out vaccines. Some don't vaccinate their children at all. A 2006 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that between 1991 and 2004, the percentage of children whose parents had chosen to opt out of vaccines increased by 6% a year, resulting in a more than twofold increase.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/paul-a-offit-the-anti-vaccination-epidemic-1411598408

[xchrom]

1. du rec.

[zappaman]

2. People think they are getting smarter

when in reality, they are not.
Special thanks to asshats like Jenny McCarthy, Rob Schnieder, Alex Jones, RFK Jr, and Andrew Wakefield.

[Bragi]

3. I accept that children of anti-vax parents will die

It sad, but the death of unvaccinated children is probably the only thing that will stop the anti-vax movement. Logic and science won't do it, the antivax people are just too wrapped up in themselves.

Once people start seeing unvaccinated children contracting and dying from preventable diseases, I think vaccine use will quickly go back to levels where these diseases won't be so easily spread.

In the meantime, the public health focus should be on encouraging sensible parents to protect themselves and their children by getting vaccinated.

Also, parents of children with conditions that make them unable to tolerate vaccines need to sort out their best options while the re-emerging preventable diseases become more prevalent, at least temporarily.

I wish it weren't so, but that seems to be where our herd is headed.

[tclambert]

7. In addition, medical science will make progress determining the real cause(s) of autism.

And doctors will learn how to diagnose it earlier, so parents don't think their kids "caught" autism after birth.

[zappaman]

9. Sad but true.

[SidDithers]

4. DU rec...

don't anti-vax parents wonder why people don't get polio anymore?



Sind

[Arkansas Granny]

5. Parents who don't vaccinate their children (other than those few children who cannot receive vaccine

for medical reasons) should be charged with child neglect and endangerment if their child gets sick or dies from a preventable disease. They are as bad as the climate change deniers who will accept the word of a few kooks instead of believing fact-based science.

[zappaman]

10. Agreed.

At the very least!

[Heidi]

6. Kick, kick, kick!

[AllyCat]

8. Another shift in blame is men who don't vaccinate

I work in OB and we vaccinate mothers against Pertussis. We are not allowed to vax the dads because they aren't patients. We ask them to get a Tdap to protect their new babies. Most chuckle and say something to the effect of "I'm okay". My own husband is one of them.

We can place plenty of blame on anti-vaxers. But let's look at all the other groups who don't feel it's important.

[Bragi]

19. Agreed! nt

[zappaman]

20. Yup!

[kiva]

11. Apparently State Farm woke up:

State Farm drops Rob Schneider over anti-vaccine views

Phil Supple, State Farm’s director of public affairs, told PR Week that Mr. Schneider’s ad “has unintentionally been used as a platform for discussion unrelated to the products and services we provide.”

*********************

“State Farm provides health insurance, and nothing ensures public health more than getting vaccinated,” the video says. “It is time to end the anti-vaccination movement; with your help, we can elicit change.”

Mr. Schneider took to Twitter Tuesday night to suggest that his First Amendment rights have been violated. “‘If the Freedom of Speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter,’ George Washington,” he tweeted to his 203,000 followers.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/sep/24/state-farm-drops-rob-schneider-over-anti-vaccine-v/

[zappaman]

12. yeah right...his first amendment rights were violated.

[kiva]

13. Which just shows that Schneider not only doesn't understand science,

he also doesn't understand the Bill of Rights.

[zappaman]

14. The SchniederMan

doing the antivaxxer nuttery.
Being an asshat, no problemo.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

15. The golden rule: those with the gold make the rules

I disagree with Schneider, but I don't know that it was a good reason to fire him.

[zappaman]

16. Well, it is when those views are in direct opposition to the company that hired him. n/t

[Algernon Moncrieff]

17. You'd have thought they knew that when they signed him

due dilligence, and all that

[zappaman]

18. True, but it's not surprising that they didn't.

It amazes me what companies don't do when it comes to due diligence.

[Brickbat]

21. Heartbreaking.

[zappaman]

22. Yeah but

RFK JR is a Democrat and an Environmental Activist so it's ok.

[SidDithers]

23. Kick...nt

Sid