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Texas Lawmaker not Worried about Measles because of ‘Antibiotics'

posted by mrpg on Thursday February 28 2019, @04:11AM   Printer-friendly
from the Brawndo-Has-What-Plants-Crave dept.

DannyB writes:

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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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 28 2019, @03:04PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 28 2019, @03:04PM (#808133)

    Lets nominate him for darwin awards! he deserve it!!

    better yet, let then do that and let evolution fix the problem... it is slow, but it will fix the problem for sure, in a few centuries, texas will be lot smarter than it is today!!

  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 28 2019, @03:18PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 28 2019, @03:18PM (#808143)

    Actually, places that rely on constant vaccination are much more likely to get wiped out due to epidemics if ever the supply chain is broken due to war or natural disaster. Without the vaccines, something similar to what happened to the Americans when the Europeans arrived would occur.

    That is why the proper use of vaccination is:
    1) To eradicate the virus, and never need to care about it again
    2) To give to a minority of people specifically in danger of being exposed (travelling, healthcare workers, etc)

    The absolute worst thing you can do is what they have done regarding the measles vaccine, vaccinate a population to just below the eradication threshold:

    The second scenario represents the impact of a vaccination programme that reaches high levels of coverage (85% of all new-borns) which are, nevertheless, not high enough to lead to eradication of the agent. However, for the first 15 years after the introduction of vaccination, it appears as if eradication has been achieved, there are no infections. Then, suddenly, a new epidemic appears as if from nowhere. This is an illustration of a phenomenon known as the ‘honeymoon period’. This is the period of very low incidence that immediately follows the introduction of a non-eradicating mass vaccination policy. This happens because susceptible individuals accumulate much more slowly in a vaccinated community. Such patterns were predicted using mathematical models in the 1980s6 and have since been observed in communities in Asia, Africa and South America7. Honeymoon periods are only predicted to occur when the newly introduced vaccination programme has coverage close to the eradication threshold.

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12176860 [nih.gov]