Slashdot Mirror
U.S. Measles Cases Triple In 2013
An anonymous reader writes "The U.S. Centers for Disease Control have announced that measles cases in the U.S. spiked this year, rising to three times their recent average rate. It's partly due to a greater number of people traveling to the U.S. when they're infectious, but also because a frustrating number of people are either failing to have their children vaccinated, or are failing to do so in a timely manner. Dr. Thomas Friedman said, 'Around 90 percent of the people who have had measles in this country were not vaccinated either because they refused, or were not vaccinated on time.' Phil Plait adds, 'In all three of these outbreaks, someone who had not been vaccinated traveled overseas and brought the disease back with them, which then spread due to low vaccination rates in their communities. It's unclear how much religious beliefs themselves were behind the outbreaks in Brooklyn and North Carolina; it may have been due to widespread secular anti-vax beliefs in those tight-knit groups. But either way, a large proportion of the people in those areas were unvaccinated.'"
It goes without saying that the moronic get what they deserve
Nobody deserves to suffer.
And the conduits for this nonsense are idiots like Dawkins and other "Reason is King" types who polarise science v. woowoo as a self-aggrandisement exercise, creating controversy where there was none, backing people into a corner and encouraging them to lash out irrationally.
How does Jenny McCarthy's vaccine hysteria in any way represent the pro-science, evidence-backed POV of the left, which is generally known for its acknowledgement of such "controversies" as climate change, evolution, a 5 billion year old Earth, skepticism of homeopathy, etc.
The religious right segment of the right in particular is associated with its characteristic belief in mysticism and magic, a frequent refusal to seek modern medical treatment (as in christian science and other sects), faith healings, the "power of prayer" to cure disease, the actual existence of mythological characters, a young earth less than 6000 years old, the global warming "myth" conspiracy theory, the belief that sexual identity is a moral "choice", that life begins at conception, that birth control which prevents contraception somehow causes abortions, and a general lack of critical thinking.
(note I'm talking about the religious right, which became a part of the "right" in the late 70s.)