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from the '0'-days-since-our-last-measles dept.
UK steps up fight after losing 'measles-free' status
The United Kingdom says it will take steps to halt the spread of misinformation about vaccines as a result of losing its "measles-free" status after the highly infectious disease was declared eliminated in the country three years ago.
Measles, which is almost entirely preventable with two doses of vaccine, is making a comeback globally. In the first half of the year, there have been almost three times as many cases as the same time last year. Cases globally are at the highest level since 2006, according to the World Health Organization.
"After a period of progress where we were once able to declare Britain measles free, we've now seen hundreds of cases of measles in the UK this year. One case of this horrible disease is too many, and I am determined to step up our efforts to tackle its spread," Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a statement.
UK's Johnson slams 'mumbo-jumbo' about vaccines after measles rates rise
"The UK generally has a great record on fighting measles, but for the first time we're suddenly going in the wrong direction," Johnson said on a visit to a hospital in Truro, south-west England. "I'm afraid people have just been listening to that superstitious mumbo-jumbo on the internet, all that anti-vax stuff, and thinking that the MMR vaccine is a bad idea. That's wrong, please get your kids vaccinated."
See also: UK to pressure social media companies to fight anti-vax info
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 19 2019, @11:43PM (6 children)
There is a huge group of adults in the west whose immunity has waned because they were vaccinated instead of getting a mild illness as a child. The problems these people have caused us is enormous. We need to eradicate measles worldwide before the honeymoon period ends or it is going to be bad. Imagine hundreds of millions of adults too sick to work at the same time bad.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday August 20 2019, @12:42PM (4 children)
There is a huge group of adults in the west who are alive today because they were vaccinated and never got the more severe complications of a "mild illness," and that number is far fewer than those who had complications from the immunizations that prevented it. We then learned that second immunizations are necessary but apparently a third is not. But the families and descendants go blissfully on never knowing that death or serious illness never happened to them or their loved ones because of the delusion that measles doesn't ever progress beyond mild illness or allow worse comorbidities to enter during the infection. We need to continue vaccinations and require visitors show proof of immunity from a physician before being allowed into the country or leaving it or it is going to be bad.
FTFY.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @02:26PM (3 children)
I've been over this on this site before. The data to support this claim does not exist, because it was never collected. The best we can say is rates of complication after MMR are similar to those after measles in 1950s UK and USA.
(Score: 3, Informative) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday August 20 2019, @03:21PM (2 children)
Yes, I think this road has been gone down before many times. About as many times as there are measles threads, because the same incorrect information keeps being posted and reposted. Granted, both sides think the other is the one posting the incorrect information. But no, the rates of complication are not anywhere near parallel especially the more serious the complication, unless one lives under the delusion that the nominally mild course of the disease means that it's a "harmless" disease. In the U.S., 1 in 5 persons with the Measles ends up being hospitalized (no, not interested in 'what used to be' although yes it was far lower). 1-3 of 1,000 will die from post-viral complications [cdc.gov]. For the vaccine, however, Less than 1 in 1,000 have convulsions, 1 in 10,000 have clotting issues (the source below says it is 1 in 30K to 40K in Europe, and less than 1 in 1,000,000 may have neurological problems [quebec.ca]. Death is hard to account for but extremely rare (as in not worth consideration and orders of magnitude below 1-3 in 1,000.)
But here's a nice source [cdc.gov] which details both the disease complications and the vaccination complications. Pretty well proves the point as far as I'm concerned.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @04:44PM (1 child)
Nice sources with no accountability for incorrect information or description of the methodology, etc.
Not gunna bother with you. The epidemic is coming. It is going to be very bad, count on it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday August 20 2019, @08:31PM
Good. Thanks for conceding the entire argument to me.
As is usually the case with pseudoscience, production of facts makes spurious claims go away. Yes, these are facts based on more complete an accurate counted phenomena than anything you could produce. (Because they are the ones who collect the primary data.) Normally I wouldn't bother either, but let's put some nails in this coffin...
As to accountability, I'll just refer you to the references list of the CDC Pinkbook.
Digest those for me, then you can pick an argument.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by Sourcery42 on Tuesday August 20 2019, @04:53PM
>Imagine hundreds of millions of adults too sick to work at the same time bad.
Oh shit! We'd realize how few people we actually need to run things the way we've devolved in the West. Don't let Accounting know they have huge groups of people that do the same redundant, mundane, easily automated things over and over again with far less accuracy than a proper subroutine could do it. This way they can be mad at measles for pointing this out instead of me.
I kid, of course. These accountants might actually care for children or elderly loved ones. In that case their illness might impact, if not endanger, vulnerable members of our society and not just unnecessary workflows.