SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Submitted via IRC for Bytram
'It will take off like a wildfire': The unique dangers of the Washington state measles outbreak
[...] "You know what keeps me up at night?" said Clark County Public Health Director Alan Melnick. "Measles is exquisitely contagious. If you have an under-vaccinated population, and you introduce a measles case into that population, it will take off like a wildfire."
[...] Anti-vaccination activists, for their part, contend that state officials are twisting facts to stoke public fear.
"It shouldn't be called an outbreak," Seattle-area mother Bernadette Pajer, a co-founder of the state's main anti-vaccine group, Informed Choice Washington, said of the measles cases, arguing that the illness has spread only within a small, self-contained group. "I would refer to it as an in-break, within a community."
[...] Clements eventually changed her mind, deciding to give her kids the shots after a doctor at a vaccine workshop answered her questions for more than two hours, at one point drawing diagrams on a whiteboard to explain cell interaction. He was thoughtful, factual and also "still very warm," she said.
[...] In Washington, state lawmakers supporting tougher vaccine requirements are mounting their second effort in the past three years to make it harder for parents to opt out of vaccinations.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 08 2019, @08:56PM (2 children)
If medical advice does harm for good reason, is that ethical?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 08 2019, @10:03PM
Citations please
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 09 2019, @04:23PM
It's not the advice that's the problem, it's the fact that there are willfully ignorant people engaged in paranoid rants about the alleged issues with vaccinations. Vaccines aren't perfect, but for most people the issues are minimal or non-existent.
Allowing the ignorant to make money spreading the lies isn't helping anybody and can hurt those who couldn't get the vaccinations.
This isn't like the flu vaccination that can lead to what looks identical to the flu. Lying about that is unethical, if you wind up sick with flu-like symptoms for a week, it's foolish to try and convince the sufferer that they didn't get the flu. I won't ever get another flu shot unless they come up with a permanent shot as it's not worth the reaction.