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Measles Cases Top Last Year's Total
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Wall Street Journal: So far this year there have been 387 confirmed U.S. measles cases, more than 2018's full-year total and the second-largest number since the disease was declared eliminated in 2000 (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source), according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The disease has spread to 15 states in 2019, with six continuing outbreaks of three or more cases each in Washington, New York, New Jersey and California. The development has sparked new policies aimed at boosting inoculation and curbing misinformation about the measles vaccine.
Measles cases have has risen since 2000 as infected travelers bring the disease to the U.S. Those travelers -- unvaccinated foreign nationals or Americans who become infected abroad -- have spread the highly contagious disease to others in the U.S. who aren't vaccinated or hadn't previously had measles. These cases have fueled outbreaks in communities where large numbers of people haven't been inoculated because of personal or religious exemptions to the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. The largest growth in infections since measles was eliminated totaled 23 outbreaks and 667 cases in 2014. Last year there were 17 outbreaks and 372 confirmed cases. The number of cases in 2019 could increase in the coming months. Measles is a seasonal disease, with cases rising in late winter and early spring in temperate climates, according to the World Health Organization.
Measles cases have has risen since 2000 as infected travelers bring the disease to the U.S. Those travelers -- unvaccinated foreign nationals or Americans who become infected abroad -- have spread the highly contagious disease to others in the U.S. who aren't vaccinated or hadn't previously had measles. These cases have fueled outbreaks in communities where large numbers of people haven't been inoculated because of personal or religious exemptions to the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. The largest growth in infections since measles was eliminated totaled 23 outbreaks and 667 cases in 2014. Last year there were 17 outbreaks and 372 confirmed cases. The number of cases in 2019 could increase in the coming months. Measles is a seasonal disease, with cases rising in late winter and early spring in temperate climates, according to the World Health Organization.
Most cases are spread by returning unvaccinated travellers, sorry to ruin your dog whistle.
Not true, stop repeating this. It's not a partisan issue. I have run across strong conservatives who are opposed to vaccination, and will justify it by saying the government has no right to tell them what to do. It's a stupid stance but definitely a common conservative view.
It's because the experts keep discrediting themselves. You might not think they are, but to an increasingly large number of people, science and government institutions are not trustworthy, for what they consider good reasons. The decades of constant spittle-flying extremism from those advocating the positions of these experts, from climate to vax, does absolutely nothing to help instill faith in anyone.
I consider myself a scientifically-minded person and I no longer have any faith in the scientific institutions reaching the right conclusions, let alone sane policy plans. I have seen too much horribly wrong to continue to hold those beliefs.
Some Aussies looked into the reasons last year.
In order of magnitude, antivaccination attitudes were highest among those who
(a) were high in conspiratorial thinking
(b) were high in reactance
(c) reported high levels of disgust toward blood and needles
(d) had strong individualistic/hierarchical worldviews.
In contrast, demographic variables (including education) accounted for nonsignificant or trivial levels of variance.
The Psychological Roots of Anti-Vaccination Attitudes: A 24-Nation Investigation, Hornsey, M. J., Harris, E. A., & Fielding, K. S. Health Psychology (2018)
I don't know what you can do with that, but that's what's wrong with them: Conspriacy theorists who are bolshie, but not from any particular education level or demographic group.
Not true, stop repeating this. It's not a partisan issue.
Indeed. Anti-vaccination beliefs don't follow the usual political polarization.
Right-wing kooks see vaccinations as a government conspiracy. Left-wing kooks see vaccinations as a corporate conspiracy. Moderates vaccinate their kids.
First of all new borns basically have no immune system. Vaccination before about 6 weeks is completely pointless
Nonsense. Newborns have a poorly developed immune system, but that's a far cry from "no immune system".
If you'd bothered looking at the list, the only vaccination given prior to 6 weeks is the Hep-B vaccine, and that's due to the high risk of developing chronic Hep-B. And despite your protestations, plenty of European countries also give the Hep-B vaccine at birth:
https://vaccine-schedule.ecdc....
Factually what you reflect is the media stupid vault face on everything or jumping on any press release not understanding what is written. The reality is that science in general, no matter what a few tells you about reproducibility or significance criticism, is very very reliable. But the media don't like what they don't understand so you are very likely to read article spreading distrust on expert, or media taking a random idiot and pretending that person is an expert. The end game is people like you distrusting the expert, when in reality without expert you have NOTHING. Same shitty situation as with brexit really, where expert are distrusted "project fear".
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I had the same conviction as you until I saw "Behind the Curve" on Netflix and now I'm unfortunately 100% convinced that there actually do exist people that believe in the flat earth conspiracy.
Latin Americans are generally vaccinated (MMR) at a higher rate than people in the USA.
I can tell you that when I looked it up online (google search) I found that Latin American countries had higher reported rates of MMR vaccination of their people than the USA does, by and large.
I don't know who brought measles to the USA (illegals or unvaccinated travellers, or vaccinated travellers who got sick anyway), but looking at the stats, it's more justified for Latin America to bar immigration from the USA to them than vice versa.
Kind of took the wind out of any ideas I may have had about illegal immigrants from Latin America bringing disease to USA. Either exaggerated or not true, more likely driven by racist bigotry than fact, at least when it comes to measles/mumps/rubella.
In fact, given that I have heaps of evidence of racist bigotry, (black people get criminal convictions and far harsher punishments in USA for the *exact same crime* and with the *exact same criminal record* (look it up!)) and no real information about immigrants bringing disease, I'm just going to assume claims of immigrants bringing disease in at larger rates than native spread are more likely racist bigotry than fact. Occam's razor--not guaranteed to be correct, but a good heuristic.
--PeterM
Is that really true? Country kids are much more likely to be vaccinated than city kids?
I can't speak for the US, but in Canada it's around 93% rural vaccinated vs 61% urban. Got a bit different a few years ago when the laws got changed that if you have a kid in public school they must be vaccinated here in Ontario. There was a huge outbreak of measles and chickenpox in the Ottawa/Hull area a few years ago, basically one year after the other. Only 13% of the kids were vaccinated, all of their parents worked in government, or education, or were in various specialty areas relating to government work(NGO's and such). And all of those kids attended private schools. You can dig up the articles on it from the globe and mail, or ottawa times if you're really interested in it.
Personally having had chickenpox during the big outbreak back in the 1980's, I sure as hell wished that the vaccine was covered by OHIP at the time instead of being $400/pop(about $850 today). Something my parents couldn't afford. Seeing the reactivation of it in shingles with my grandparents was pretty bad, my one grandmothers reaction was bad enough it put her into the hospital.
Om, nomnomnom...
Replying to myself.
A quick check of Clark County, WA, indicates that of 73 cases reported at the time of the article, 63 were NOT vaccinated, three had had only one vaccination (as opposed to the two that are standard), and the remaining seven were "vaccination status unknown".
So, I repeat, where is the evidence that "EVERYONE who got the measles had been vaccinated"? Evidence seems to support at least 90% NOT vaccinated....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
The vaccination rate in Central and South American countries exceed the vaccination rate of the US.
So no, it's not "illegal aliens". They get their shots. We don't.
In the USA vaccine makers have blanket immunity from lawsuit.
You misunderstand the law. It's not that they are immune to lawsuits. The government has assumed the liability.
So you can indeed sue due to vaccine injury. You'll just be suing the government instead of a corporation.
And you don't actually have to sue. The government set up a vaccine injury program where you can file a claim and get paid without a lawsuit. You are still free to sue if you'd like.
Also, the FDA stops a whole lot more vaccines than lawsuits ever could. It's not like there's nothing between the corporation coming up with something and the free market, as you imply. And if you want to claim regulatory capture, you'd have to show some vaccines that would not pass trials yet got released.
use the old familiar trick of adding mercury to boost the vaccine production in some batches?
:faceplam:
Thiomersal is a preservative. It has nothing do do with boosting production rates. It was introduced into vaccines in order to let doctors use one vial to treat multiple patients. Pull out a new, empty syringe, fill it with a dose of vaccine from a vial, give the patient the shot, toss the syringe. The alternative is syringes pre-loaded with vaccine, which cost you a lot more money.
Thiomersal is also ethyl-mercury, which you pee out. Not methyl-mercury that stays in your system. If you want to say something stupid like "it's got mercury so it's all the same!!!" consider ethanol vs methanol. One will get you drunk. One will kill you very quickly. They're almost identical. Ethyl-mercury vs methyl-mercury is similar.
So, congrats on making vaccines cost more. Also at a higher profit to "big pharma". Also, Thiomersal was removed from childhood vaccines in 2000, with no reduction in autism rates, so you did all this for nothing.
Before you go off half cocked, don't forget, migrants carry disease
Only if the vaccination rate in their country is lower than the vaccination rate in the US.
And since you're making a very obvious dogwhistle, the vaccination rate in Central and South American countries is higher than the US.
migrants expose themselves and their new host community to new strains of pathogens
This doesn't matter for the MMR vaccine. The different strains on the planet are still covered by the vaccine. You need a high-mutation-rate disease like influenza for strains to be relevant.