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posted by martyb on Friday January 18 2019, @07:52PM   Printer-friendly
from the how-many-more-will-suffer dept.

Anti-vaccine nonsense spurred NY's largest outbreak in decades

Health officials in New York are cautiously optimistic that they have a large measles outbreak under control after tackling the noxious anti-vaccine myths and unfounded fears that fueled the disease's spread.

Since last fall, New York has tallied 177 confirmed cases of measles, the largest outbreak the state has seen in decades. It began with infected travelers, arriving from parts of Israel and Europe where the highly contagious disease was spreading. In New York, that spread has largely been confined to ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities. As measles rippled through those insular religious communities, health officials ran into members who were wary of outsiders as well as those who harbor harmful myths and fears about vaccines. This included the completely false-yet-pernicious belief that the measles vaccine causes autism.

To quash the outbreak, health officials met with rabbis and pediatricians in the community, who in turned urged community members to be vigilant and, above all, get vaccinated, according to The New York Times. "Good people, great parents were terrified," Rabbi Yakov Horowitz, founder of Darchei Noam yeshiva in Monsey in Rockland County, told the Times. Despite the fears, he insisted parents vaccinate their children. "They felt that I was asking to give their children something that would harm them."


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  • (Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday January 20 2019, @01:04PM

    by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Sunday January 20 2019, @01:04PM (#789018) Homepage Journal

    "In New York, that spread has largely been confined to ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities." The Article.

    Look, I'm from New York. We have more Jews than anyplace. And a lot of our wonderful Jews are Orthodox. But if all the Orthodox folks got sick, that's not an epidemic. Because it's not that many people. The Article doesn't call it an epidemic. And even the Fake News New York Times doesn't call it an epidemic. You're trying to scare folks over a nothing.

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