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posted by mrpg on Thursday January 24 2019, @10:20AM   Printer-friendly
from the smart-phones-but-no-smart-people dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Emergency declared near Portland for measles outbreak in anti-vaccine hotspot

Health officials in Clark County, Washington have declared a public health emergency for a measles outbreak in an area with a high rate of unvaccinated children.

[...] Nearly eight percent of children in Clark County were exempt from standard vaccination for the 2017-2018 school year, according to state records reported by the Washington Post. Breaking down that eight percent, about seven percent of kids had personal or religious exemptions and the remaining one percent or so had medical exemptions. Factoring in the rest of the population, the county is below the 92 percent to 94 percent range some experts consider required to prevent the spread of highly contagious diseases such as measles.

[...] “It’s really awful and really tragic and totally preventable,” Peter J. Hotez told the Post. Hotez is a professor of pediatrics and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. “Portland is a total train wreck when it comes to vaccine rates,” he added.

[...] Correction: This article has been updated to correct the state in which Clark County resides. It is in Washington State, not Oregon. 


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  • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by eravnrekaree on Thursday January 24 2019, @01:49PM (4 children)

    by eravnrekaree (555) on Thursday January 24 2019, @01:49PM (#791214)

    Much of the fear about vaccines came from the mercury preservative additive to vaccines, and the oblivious attitude of the industry to these concerns, rather than the vaccine itself. The fact is, I can't blame them for being suspicious, mercury is a toxin and it really is rather suspicious injecting it into children. If vaccines did not contain mercury, the vaccine skeptic movement wouldn't be significant. Rather than being anti-vaccine, for many people, its more vaccine skeptic.

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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday January 24 2019, @03:44PM (1 child)

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Thursday January 24 2019, @03:44PM (#791255) Journal

    Much of the fear about vaccines came from the mercury preservative additive to vaccines, and the oblivious attitude of the industry to these concerns, rather than the vaccine itself.

    Uh, you mean the fact that the industry has removed the mercury preservative from basically all vaccines given to children? There are a couple vaccines that are still processed with it, but it is removed later and the final vaccines contain only a very tiny amount. The only common vaccine still containing it as a preservative is multi-dose containers of flu vaccine (because they are subject to more potential contamination when used for multiple doses).

    The industry used this preservative in vaccines from the 1930s through the 1990s. There is absolutely no empirical evidence of any bad effects of this chemical at the dosages in vaccines, despite this widespread use and a huge number of studies. In 1999, some organizations recommended removing it where possible as a precautionary measure, given increasing concern about mercury exposure to children in general in the 1990s. And the industry has complied.

    The fact is, I can't blame them for being suspicious

    I can. Or rather, I can't blame them for concern. I can blame them for ignorance and stupidity.

    mercury is a toxin and it really is rather suspicious injecting it into children.

    You know what's suspicious? Feeding tuna to children. It's really suspicious that so many parents feed fish to children, knowing that it contains known toxins.

    You know what's suspicious? Using fluorescent light bulbs in homes and schools. It's really suspicious for so many people to put these devices around kids, knowing that they contain known toxins and a broken bulb could send up a dangerous cloud of mercury vapor.

    Do you think I'm joking? A single can of tuna contains approximately as much mercury as the typical dose of the compound in these vaccines. (And note that fish tends to contain methylmercury compounds which are absorbed faster and are more of a concern than the ethylmercury form in vaccines. So a can of tuna is clearly a greater health concern.) Fluorescent bulbs also contain very little mercury, but when they break, studies have shown they often produce a cloud of mercury vapor in the short term that is more exposure than these vaccines. (There have been cases of kids getting ill from mercury poisoning around broken fluorescent bulbs -- though they are rare; I believe the case I read about was a shed that had a bunch of large old bulbs broken, but still.)

    Dosage is everything. Yes, I agree it's better to produce vaccines without any mercury exposure to kids, but we're also talking about pretty miniscule amounts, introduced for good safety reasons.

    If vaccines did not contain mercury, the vaccine skeptic movement wouldn't be significant. Rather than being anti-vaccine, for many people, its more vaccine skeptic.

    The mark of a true "skeptic" is to question and evaluate ALL evidence presented from ALL sources. A true skeptical attitude would question not only the vaccine industry but whether the mercury dosage is significant, what it compares to, and whether it was introduced for reasonable reasons. Here's [cdc.gov] what the CDC has to say (also signed on by such groups as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Family Physicians).

    • (Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday January 26 2019, @02:47PM

      by Bot (3902) on Saturday January 26 2019, @02:47PM (#792305) Journal

      > Uh, you mean the fact that the industry has removed the mercury preservative from basically all vaccines given to children?

      has removed or has never put?

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  • (Score: 2) by Whoever on Thursday January 24 2019, @04:28PM

    by Whoever (4524) on Thursday January 24 2019, @04:28PM (#791277) Journal

    Much of the fear about vaccines came from the mercury preservative additive to vaccines, and the oblivious attitude of the industry to these concerns, rather than the vaccine itself.

    Uh, not really. Much of the fear came from lies told by a then-doctor who wanted to make money selling his own vaccine. Mercury was just one of the bullshit reasons to not-vaccinate.

    Actually, that's perhaps the biggest irony: Andrew Wakefield was not trying to stop people from vaccinating their kids: instead, he wanted people to use the vaccines he planned to patent and profit from.

  • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday January 24 2019, @05:06PM

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Thursday January 24 2019, @05:06PM (#791297) Journal

    No. The mercury was present, but it wasn't the cause of the fear. That was started by a fraudulent paper published in a British medical journal.

    OTOH, the readiness with which that thin straw was seized upon indicates that it merely stimulated an already present desire to believe...but what? Probably that the corporations were attacking their children. This was&is true, but why they seized on a fake result rather than one of the many true ones is to me a mystery. They didn't notice the Barbie dolls that were reporting all nearby conversation to headquarters. They didn't notice the baby monitors that broadcast what was going on in the nursery to any interested passer-by. (P.S.: It's not clear that anyone did anything with the information being broadcast by the Barbie, but they *could* have, and eventually would have...unless it's been cleaned up [HAH!] they will, and perhaps are. But IOT and Amazon Echo has made this almost obsolete.)

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