from the '0'-days-since-our-last-measles dept.
UK steps up fight after losing 'measles-free' status
The United Kingdom says it will take steps to halt the spread of misinformation about vaccines as a result of losing its "measles-free" status after the highly infectious disease was declared eliminated in the country three years ago.
Measles, which is almost entirely preventable with two doses of vaccine, is making a comeback globally. In the first half of the year, there have been almost three times as many cases as the same time last year. Cases globally are at the highest level since 2006, according to the World Health Organization.
"After a period of progress where we were once able to declare Britain measles free, we've now seen hundreds of cases of measles in the UK this year. One case of this horrible disease is too many, and I am determined to step up our efforts to tackle its spread," Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a statement.
UK's Johnson slams 'mumbo-jumbo' about vaccines after measles rates rise
"The UK generally has a great record on fighting measles, but for the first time we're suddenly going in the wrong direction," Johnson said on a visit to a hospital in Truro, south-west England. "I'm afraid people have just been listening to that superstitious mumbo-jumbo on the internet, all that anti-vax stuff, and thinking that the MMR vaccine is a bad idea. That's wrong, please get your kids vaccinated."
See also: UK to pressure social media companies to fight anti-vax info
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 19 2019, @11:43PM
This Berenstain 'verse just gets darker and darker.
Witnesses claim B.J. said, "I'm afraid people have just been listening to that superstitious mumbo-jumbo on the internet" with zero self-awareness.
I say we lobby the Shadow Proclamation to have this new splinter 'verse renamed The Malicious Idiot. Or just collapse this verse entirely to be used as "free" energy in another, something useful at least.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 19 2019, @11:43PM (6 children)
There is a huge group of adults in the west whose immunity has waned because they were vaccinated instead of getting a mild illness as a child. The problems these people have caused us is enormous. We need to eradicate measles worldwide before the honeymoon period ends or it is going to be bad. Imagine hundreds of millions of adults too sick to work at the same time bad.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday August 20 2019, @12:42PM (4 children)
There is a huge group of adults in the west who are alive today because they were vaccinated and never got the more severe complications of a "mild illness," and that number is far fewer than those who had complications from the immunizations that prevented it. We then learned that second immunizations are necessary but apparently a third is not. But the families and descendants go blissfully on never knowing that death or serious illness never happened to them or their loved ones because of the delusion that measles doesn't ever progress beyond mild illness or allow worse comorbidities to enter during the infection. We need to continue vaccinations and require visitors show proof of immunity from a physician before being allowed into the country or leaving it or it is going to be bad.
FTFY.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @02:26PM (3 children)
I've been over this on this site before. The data to support this claim does not exist, because it was never collected. The best we can say is rates of complication after MMR are similar to those after measles in 1950s UK and USA.
(Score: 3, Informative) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday August 20 2019, @03:21PM (2 children)
Yes, I think this road has been gone down before many times. About as many times as there are measles threads, because the same incorrect information keeps being posted and reposted. Granted, both sides think the other is the one posting the incorrect information. But no, the rates of complication are not anywhere near parallel especially the more serious the complication, unless one lives under the delusion that the nominally mild course of the disease means that it's a "harmless" disease. In the U.S., 1 in 5 persons with the Measles ends up being hospitalized (no, not interested in 'what used to be' although yes it was far lower). 1-3 of 1,000 will die from post-viral complications [cdc.gov]. For the vaccine, however, Less than 1 in 1,000 have convulsions, 1 in 10,000 have clotting issues (the source below says it is 1 in 30K to 40K in Europe, and less than 1 in 1,000,000 may have neurological problems [quebec.ca]. Death is hard to account for but extremely rare (as in not worth consideration and orders of magnitude below 1-3 in 1,000.)
But here's a nice source [cdc.gov] which details both the disease complications and the vaccination complications. Pretty well proves the point as far as I'm concerned.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @04:44PM (1 child)
Nice sources with no accountability for incorrect information or description of the methodology, etc.
Not gunna bother with you. The epidemic is coming. It is going to be very bad, count on it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday August 20 2019, @08:31PM
Good. Thanks for conceding the entire argument to me.
As is usually the case with pseudoscience, production of facts makes spurious claims go away. Yes, these are facts based on more complete an accurate counted phenomena than anything you could produce. (Because they are the ones who collect the primary data.) Normally I wouldn't bother either, but let's put some nails in this coffin...
As to accountability, I'll just refer you to the references list of the CDC Pinkbook.
Digest those for me, then you can pick an argument.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by Sourcery42 on Tuesday August 20 2019, @04:53PM
>Imagine hundreds of millions of adults too sick to work at the same time bad.
Oh shit! We'd realize how few people we actually need to run things the way we've devolved in the West. Don't let Accounting know they have huge groups of people that do the same redundant, mundane, easily automated things over and over again with far less accuracy than a proper subroutine could do it. This way they can be mad at measles for pointing this out instead of me.
I kid, of course. These accountants might actually care for children or elderly loved ones. In that case their illness might impact, if not endanger, vulnerable members of our society and not just unnecessary workflows.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday August 20 2019, @12:10AM (19 children)
We can be quite certain that immigration has had nothing to do with the problem. After all, we're already certain that the immigration of Euros had nothing to do with the repeated decimation of Native American populations, right?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @12:37AM (10 children)
People who aren't you don't deserve freedom.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday August 20 2019, @12:52AM (5 children)
Not even I deserve to wander the world while spreading disease. Want to try again, Sensitive Sally?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday August 21 2019, @01:48AM (4 children)
So piss off and quit spreading brainpox here then...? Nawww, who am I kidding, AC was right: "freedom" only means your freedom.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday August 21 2019, @03:31PM (3 children)
Your freedom too. You're perfectly free to make stupid posts, and to hate me, and to question my every motive. You've been doing all of that for years now, have you not? (Talking to self: Just a few more posts, and I should have her GPS coordinates, then I can drone her ass ala Hillary!)
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday August 22 2019, @01:00AM (2 children)
I don't make stupid posts, pity is not hatred, and your motives are beyond questioning (because they're as transparent as masterwork glass).
Speaking of stupid posts though, a veiled threat--'scuse me, you were "just joking"-- about finding me in meatspace to do physical harm qualifies. Please do keep saying things like that though! It's hilarious, *and* it builds a paper trail!
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday August 22 2019, @02:56PM (1 child)
There ya go with the stupid, again. There's no "paper trail" on the intartubez. Do you also shoot "footage" with your digital camera?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday August 22 2019, @10:57PM
> There's no "paper trail" on the intartubez.
You poor fool...you actually got an out-loud meatspace laugh out of me with that one. Even I didn't think you were THAT naive and/or stupid.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @03:42AM (3 children)
It was just a rhetorical point.
Despite lacking the concept of land ownership, Native Americans did go to war with each other. They were free until they were attacked by another tribe. In fact, they were happy to depopulate themselves after receiving weapons that they could not manufacture themselves, despite having the advantage of being native to the area.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday August 20 2019, @03:09PM (2 children)
Just to clarify, I'm not one of those who believe that the natives led a peaceful, idyllic life before white people showed up. Also, white people didn't actually kill off so very many natives as many seem to believe. It was the disease that the white man introduced that decimated the native population, then came back and decimated what was left, then again, and again, and again.
If the population of North America had not suffered such terrible losses to disease, there is no way that the English, French, Spanish and Dutch could have mustered enough force to defeat the various tribes and nations in such short order. More so, seeing as those four nations frequently were fighting each other, like in the Revolutionary War.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday August 20 2019, @03:55PM (1 child)
So basically, War Of The Worlds has it backwards. It is not the diseases of Earth that will kill the Martians. But vice versa.
If we ever find a convenient, Earthlike, habitable planet, and have technology to colonize it; it seems more likely to kill us (war of the worlds style) because we are not adapted to the microorganisms of that planet. But maybe we carry microorganisms that the native biology is similarly not adapted to.
I wonder why there weren't native diseases in the Americas that devastated the nice well meaning visitors from the East?
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @05:37PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEYh5WACqEk [youtube.com]
CGP Grey covers this, and long story short, the answer is: the Americas lacked livestock (except llamas).
Germs live in livestock. Livestock live in cities. Germs spread to people in cities. People die by the thousands. People develop immunities to germs.
Thing is, when it happens slowly over thousands of years, it is bearable by a population. When it happens with all the diseases at once (when Europeans went to America), it is... less bearable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @01:27AM
Hmmm, while this is stupid runaway with his totally-not-racism it is a valid point that immigrants aren't terribly likelt to be fully vaccinated. Still, due to low numbers it is also very unlikely they are the source. And the colonization of N.A bringing disease is not really comparable.
Soooo runaway is just always looking for reasons to hate on brown people.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday August 20 2019, @01:37AM (2 children)
Highly likely so. Coming from countries with low level of vaccination, they highly likely had measles during childhood.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday August 20 2019, @01:48AM
Where I come from, immigrants are immunised if they haven't already been.
It is just part of the process.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday August 20 2019, @03:19PM
So, uhhhhmmmm, are you making a self-contradictory statement here? Immigrants coming from areas where a disease is prevalent, aren't bringing that disease with them, because - what, exactly? They've already had the disease, so they can't be carriers? Or, their children can't be carriers?
I'll stick with the idea that people coming from an area where a disease is prevalent are likely to carry that disease with them. If those people aren't individually tested, and potential carriers turned back, and/or cured, then you are importing the disease with the people coming into your area.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @03:33AM (1 child)
If the local population were vaccinated as they should be, then immigrants bringing deseases with them would be irrelevant.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday August 20 2019, @03:58PM
Not if some of those immigrant population become ill due to the diseases they brought with them.
And not if the local population is not fully vaccinated. Once a disease is ancient history, largely forgotten about, people might be less inclined to vaccinate. Some of those people might decide it would be fun to create and spread misinformation.
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(Score: 4, Interesting) by quietus on Tuesday August 20 2019, @08:11AM (1 child)
Your point is fair, but you might have the wrong disease: not measles, but tuberculosis [nih.gov]. Western Europe has seen an increase in tuberculosis cases since about 2006, and it has to do with immigration.
In contrast to what one would expect though, it's not immigration from Sub Saharan Africa or Asia, but from Europe itself: after the collapse of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe, local governments decided to cut drastically in vaccination programs. The increase in tuberculosis was first noted in Italy before it spread to the rest of Europe -- and traced back to immigrants from Romania, Bulgaria (I think) and former Yugoslavia.
It could be that the increase in measles occurrence has also to do with immigration, but I can't recall anything about that.
That new diseases should be introduced by immigration is not unexpected. It is, as yet, not a large worry -- as subtropical diseases are mainly associated with parasites with very specific lifecycle requirements, and not bacteria and viruses. Diseases passed by ticks, and the reintroduction of mosquitoes and associated diseases though, are a worry: but they are associated with climate change.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday August 20 2019, @03:21PM
TB is also pretty common among our southern neighbors here. They carry several other "exotic" diseases, but TB is common.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @12:21AM (12 children)
I don't know what the deal is with this Borris guy ("borris", is he a ruskie?). All's I know is that he was the mayor of london, that perfidious city. And that he pushed for the brexit.
Anyhow, why you making such ruckus about this dude? Surely, he's no Thatcher, Churchill, or Chambelin.
(Score: 4, Touché) by c0lo on Tuesday August 20 2019, @01:41AM
Well, maybe not. But he may be Britain's Trump [theguardian.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday August 20 2019, @01:46AM (9 children)
Despite his failings, he has somehow ended up in charge (of Brexit, the UK, etc)
He is threfore the focus of much hope, and more antagonism or even hate.
And none of that stops him saying things that are correct, sometimes
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday August 20 2019, @02:06AM (7 children)
Or lying through his teeth if he thinks it might help him.
The guy is a complete piece of shit, and has already started breaking his promises.
Not that anyone is surprised by that. [businessinsider.com.au]
(Score: 2) by Coward, Anonymous on Tuesday August 20 2019, @05:06AM (6 children)
Random things somebody says, especially a politician, are not really "promises". They have to say it's a promise, otherwise it can just be argued away. People do have a right to change their minds, unless they really committed to a certain course of action.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 20 2019, @05:32AM (1 child)
Even then, I've heard some remarkable dissembling, such as claiming it's a "position" not a "promise".
(Score: 3, Informative) by kazzie on Tuesday August 20 2019, @03:16PM
Especially when it's positioned on the side of a bus [metro.co.uk].
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday August 20 2019, @04:00PM (3 children)
Politicians should not say things on a whim. They should say what they mean and mean what they say. They are supposed to represent the people, and therefore, the people have a right to know what they really think.
They should be held to things they say.
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(Score: 2, Disagree) by Coward, Anonymous on Tuesday August 20 2019, @08:41PM (2 children)
Sure, you can try to hold them to it. But to call everything a politician says they will do a promise is also dishonest. A promise is a special level of commitment, and unless someone says it's a promise, it's not a promise.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday August 20 2019, @09:13PM (1 child)
If they don't know what they stand for, or against, can't clearly articulate their position, can't mean what they say and be honest to voters, then they shouldn't be running.
But of course, they're not running for the benefit of voters. Or the public. They aren't "public" servants. They are self serving.
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(Score: 3, Funny) by Coward, Anonymous on Wednesday August 21 2019, @03:57AM
That's what the job's salary pays for. Other types of people might run for office if the pay was better. But the system wants politicians who can be bought.
(Score: 3, Touché) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Tuesday August 20 2019, @03:44AM
Twice a day, in fact.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by isostatic on Tuesday August 20 2019, @08:19AM
He’s a typical Etonian fag from New York, with family wealth and contacts to push him into his current posistion. He made a few funny appearances on a TV panel show which pushed him into a position to be mayor of London, which he didn’t completely cock up, and benefited from the Olympics (which he didn’t win and didn’t organise). Foreign dignitaries likes him as the funny man, so that worked well
He then flipped a coin in 2016 and decided to endorse “leave” (he wrote an endorsement for remain too), because he felt that would give him more power.
He was then lucky in 2016 to have Gove stab him in the back when it came to the leadership election so he didn’t stand. This let the impossibility of delivering the contradictory brexit that were promised to May, who failed.
He can now come in and will likely get 5 clear years to rule over a ruined UK while his friends and contacts asset strip the country.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @12:49AM (4 children)
Shut the fsck up already. How are we supposed to decrease the human population drastically so global warming doesn't happen if you keep telling people to vaccinate and live longer?
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @03:58AM (3 children)
The homeless defecating in the streets of California mixed with unvaccinated 3rd world people who skipped the medical checks at the border will bring different strains of old plagues back to large population centers.
You know why you get a new flu shot every year? That is because the flu is constantly evolving. Who says measles that evolved in a different region of the earth, brought to the UK, is the same strain that the UK's vaccine protects against?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @08:38AM (2 children)
I hope you washed your hands, because your keyboard is COVERED IN GERMS! And, I just sneezed over the TCP/IP at you. You probably will be dead inside a week. Longer, if you are unlucky and suffer more.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @01:55PM
Actually, with advent of indoor plumbing, including indoor toilets with sanitary waste removal, daily showers, and frequent hand washing, these have probably done more to reduce epidemics than vaccines have. Since I do all of these things, I should be good.
But seriously: Human feces + rats + contagious diseases = epidemics. European history proves this quite clearly.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Tuesday August 20 2019, @03:19PM
Don't worry, the TCP [wikipedia.org] bit will take care of that!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @01:43AM
Take me back.
We are allowing the savages to undo the white man's achievements.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @06:30AM
I look forward to the day when 3rd world countries give advisory and reject visa of british citizens.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @05:01PM
So the UK government lets in diseased desert rats and monkey hybrids, and then tells the UK citizens to take more soft kill weapons. Fuck you. We are learning what you are doing and we will give you the justice you deserve.