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Texas lawmaker says he's not worried about measles outbreak because of ‘antibiotics'
Texas state representative Bill Zedler says a resurgence of measles across the U.S. isn't worrying him.
Zedler, R-Arlington, is promoting legislation that would allow Texans to opt out of childhood vaccinations.
“They want to say people are dying of measles. Yeah, in Third World countries they’re dying of measles,” Zedler said, the Texas Observer reports. “Today, with antibiotics and that kind of stuff, they’re not dying in America.”
There is no treatment for measles, a highly contagious virus that can be fatal. Antibiotics treat bacterial infections and can't kill viruses.
It could be funny if it weren't so tragic.
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Texas Lawmaker not Worried about Measles because of ‘Antibiotics'
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by stormreaver on Thursday February 28 2019, @03:08PM (3 children)
What the vaccination promoters also like to ignore:
1) In the generations before the Measles vaccine was introduced, just about everyone got Measles as kids, and no one died from it. It's a benign disease, in and of itself, in developed countries. Everyone whose only infection was Measles recovered in a reasonably short time period, and then gained a lifetime immunity to it. As you said, it was the secondary infections that caused the problems, and we have treatments for those (many of which involve the use of antibiotics). The death rate from Measles in developed countries has been unchanged from the period before the vaccine up to now. The entirety of reduction in Measles mortality rate was achieved long before the Measles vaccine was introduced.
2) The Measles vaccine is not designed to protect again Measles transmission. Those who have been vaccinated are equally likely to spread Measles as those who are not vaccinated. The Measles vaccine only affects the person who receives it.
3) The relatively weak immunity gained from vaccination wanes over time (that period varies from months to about 20 years at most). After that time, the vaccinated individual has no immunity to Measles. There is also increasing evidence that vaccinations increase the lifetime risk of secondary illnesses not related to the vaccine, and reduces the effectiveness of subsequent boosters.
4) Measles is a cyclical disease. Its spread has peaks and valleys. Vaccines have never changed that. The only thing that has ramped up is the pharmaceutical propaganda machine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 28 2019, @03:35PM (2 children)
Source? I have seen that the antibody response wanes, but not that extreme:
https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/189/Supplement_1/S123/821041 [oup.com]
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday February 28 2019, @05:21PM (1 child)
Also, the immunity wanes in everybody. Not just in those that were vaccinated. If you develop a stronger immunity to start with, of course, it takes longer to wane into ineffectiveness...but it still wanes.
FWIW, I've recently had a shingles vaccine, because the immunity to chicken pox wanes as you get older, but the secondary form is a lot worse than the original.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 28 2019, @05:45PM
The waning may also "speed up" (actually not be "boosted") if the person is never exposed to circulating measles:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22966129 [nih.gov]