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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."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by rleigh on Saturday January 19 2019, @05:17PM (9 children)
Thimerosal is a very effective preservative. The trace amounts used in vaccines are quite inconsequential, and post little risk to health. It was replaced only due to the huge amount of fuss made by nutters, and the replacements aren't as good or effective, and this both reduces the shelf life and makes it more likely that the vaccine can become contaminated, and hence a health risk. What are the risks of the replacements? It's all about the tradeoffs, but the nutters aren't too good at logical reasoning and carefully evaluating risk.
A parent who is worried about thimerosal is a parent who needs to get a bit of perspective. The protective effect of the vaccine far outweighs the risk. And it's been in use for decades without any problems. We have all had vaccinations with thimerosal, likely as not, and it didn't harm us in any notable way.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 19 2019, @06:12PM (7 children)
you don't know shit you goddamn suck ass. you're believing the scum at the cdc and the pharmaceutical companies. you don't know the rates of brain damage/autism that are being caused. you're just regurgitating what you've been told like a good little slave.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by rleigh on Saturday January 19 2019, @09:08PM (6 children)
Thanks for the polite and informative reply. I do hope you're trolling as opposed to being dangerously ill-informed.
I did my PhD in an immunology laboratory. So I do actually know a thing or two about vaccines, and thimerosal and its alternatives. Look at the full details here. https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/thimerosal [nih.gov] It's absolutely a very toxic compound. However, I hope you're properly aware that the amount of mercury used in a vaccination is tiny, on the order of micrograms. Also, most of that will ultimately get excreted. So the amount ultimately left in the body will be extremely small and insignificant.
The method used nowadays is to store the vaccine with thimerosal, and then remove it before usage. It can't be removed entirely, but the already small levels are now reduced much further.
There is not, and never has been, any connection between vaccines and autism or brain damage. Nor has there been any connection between vaccines containing thimerosal and autism or brain damage. Vaccines can on rare occasions have adverse reactions in specific individuals. However, this is unrelated to autism. Stop being so hysterical for a moment, and ponder this: even if vaccines *did* cause autism (which they don't), it would still be worth the risk because the risk of dying or suffering permanent disfiguration, paralysis or brain damage would be several orders of magnitude higher. As it is, the connection does not exist, and the chances of a child randomly getting autism vs suffering from any of the previous is many orders of magnitude. The hysteria over autism is a complete failure to evaluate the relative risks involved, and obsess over an insignificance versus some very real and very scary consequences should an unvaccinated child catch measles, polio, diptheria etc.
Get a clue. Your misinformed opinions are actively dangerous to the wellbeing of your family and others around you, and you should be ashamed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 19 2019, @09:53PM (4 children)
Different AC.
This isn't written with a scientific-level of care... Perhaps you want to clarify:
https://www.nvic.org/vaccines-and-diseases/measles/measles-vaccine-injury-death.aspx [nvic.org]
Then this:
The danger from measles is very low as well. I'm sure in 20 years people will fear monger about chicken pox the same way (My parents got me infected on purpose, just like their parents did for measles). It wasn't a big deal for the vast, vast majority of people:
The Clinical Significance of Measles: A Review. Robert T. Perry1 and Neal A. Halsey2. The Journal of Infectious Diseases 2004; 189(Suppl 1):S4–16. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/b7e0/c83a2232536a507ef061563000b59d97db66.pdf [semanticscholar.org]
Just saying, you aren't doing your cause any favors with these inaccuracies. People may be uninformed but that doesn't mean they are dumb.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by rleigh on Saturday January 19 2019, @11:22PM (3 children)
> This isn't written with a scientific-level of care
No. No, it isn't. That's because the post I replied to was so devoid of sensible thought, I assumed they would be incapable of grasping that level of nuance, so I stated it much more bluntly to be sure it couldn't be misinterpreted.
Regarding encephalitis and encephalopathy as a result of MMR vaccination. This is most likely nothing to do with thimerosal, and everything to do with it being symptomatic of a full-blown measles infection. Vaccines work by stimulating an immune response based upon an attenuated or inactivated form of the virus (inactivated for most measles vaccines). You're essentially having a low-grade but non-fatal infection and/or immune response to prime the immune system for a potential future infection with the real thing. In some rare individuals, the reaction can be more severe.
The danger from measles or chicken pox is high if you are unvaccinated. The overall mortality rate used to be up to 1/500 in the West. And that's not including the serious complications which aren't fatal, like brain damage or permanent hearing loss. In some parts of the world, mortality rates approached 50% when indigenous populations were first exposed to it. It's absolutely a serious infection. And that's not even adding in the other viral infections like chicken pox and polio. Puts the chance of autism properly into perspective, doesn't it? Yet the nutjobs still worry about vaccination.
We only treat these infections as inconsequential due to the pervasiveness of vaccination programmes. Measles epidemics were some of the primary causes of infant mortality and lifelong disability, but we haven't seen a serious measles epidemic in our lifetimes. That's why we have vaccination programmes in the first place. Measles can be fatal. It can cause brain damage, permanent loss of hearing, as well as other serious side effects. Polio can cripple for life. If you aren't vaccinated in childhood and you catch measles or chicken pox in adulthood, they are both extremely serious, much more serious than for childhood, and can be fatal. None of these are "not a big deal". That's complacency due to the effectiveness of our vaccination programmes.
The paper you linked to is fine. But note the dates of the data collection for the complication statistics. It's in a society with established herd immunity, and that absolutely affects the results even for unvaccinated people. Were herd immunity to be lost, those numbers would be very likely to change.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 20 2019, @07:19AM (2 children)
You didnt say due to thimerosal, you said "There is not, and never has been, any connection between vaccines and autism or brain damage."
You mispoke, I'd recommend being more careful in the future (keep in mind that on a site like this the audience is primarily other people who read your conversation). Your claims about the danger of measles are also inappropriate, since they refer to a time well before the vaccination campaigns were introduced. When vaccinations were introduced it was closer to 1/10k cases:
There are other issues but really whatever, my point is your posts aren't convincing to the audience when they are sloppy like that. That's all, I'll just stop there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 20 2019, @07:22AM
Ref: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20789272 [nih.gov]
(Score: 2) by rleigh on Sunday January 20 2019, @08:42AM
You're right, I did miss speak about that. It would have more appropriate to say that the chance of that happening is extremely remote, and compared with the risk of complications or death without vaccination, is a minor consideration at best. The reason I stated it in such black and white terms is that there are far too many people who are incapable of understanding or assessing risk, and end up obsessing over unimportant risks whilst ignoring the big ones. Like worrying about autism, when death and brain damage and deafness are far bigger problems to be concerned about.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday January 20 2019, @05:14PM
It's a money thing -- like so much in life. They still use Thimerosal for the Multi Dose. But, not for the Single Dose. Single Dose costs more money. Because, more glass for the Singles. Like if you bought a big bottle of Vodka. Versus, buying the same amount in little airline bottles. Much cheaper in the big bottle, because it's less glass. But if you're sharing it with somebody, you better be careful about Germs. You better take some precautions there. The little airline bottles, you just give somebody the whole bottle. And she has it all to herself. And by the way, Thimerosal doesn't always work. Doesn't always kill the Germs. And then what you have is the Doctor giving a shot of Germs. Directly into the Blood Stream of, sadly, a tiny child. Not great! infowars.com/dispelling-myths-regarding-the-use-of-thimerosal-in-vaccines [infowars.com]
(Score: 2) by edIII on Saturday January 19 2019, @10:09PM
My issue with the substance is that it contains Mercury. I have my own experiences with toxic levels in my body just from eating some goddamn fucking Tuna. Levels in the ocean doubled in the last 50-100 years, and corruption prevented California from outright warning citizens about said levels (Federal government sued California to stop them). The EPA and FDA can't agree on safe levels, and it was the FDA corruptly influenced by fishing lobbyists to increase their levels from the EPA's levels. Most fish like tuna, if you tested it, have unsafe levels according to the EPA, and yet are still sold on market. Absent the corruption, there would be very strong warning labels about limiting consumption. However, last time I went to the store the cans of tuna contain zero warnings. Hence why anything the FDA says I treat with huge asteroid sized grains of salt, and I always believe they're influenced by lobbyists and their money. I want the FDA to be corroborated with European institutions.
I really don't give a shit that it's in an organic form, and I understand the differences. I don't believe it justifies the use, and that's it more appropriate to choose something else. Removing it before injection through some other process is acceptable though, as long as that process is well understood and vetted of course.
Responding to your other post at the same time here,
All the more reason for them to cut corners to increase profits. Avarice as a disease makes corporate America constantly search for greater and more profits. They cannot accept something that cannot continually increase in profit somehow.
The difference would be in quality control, and the selection of preservatives and other compounds necessary for the vaccine to be stored, shipped, etc. While I don't have specific evidence of malfeasance, there is plenty of evidence for malfeasance in general WRT Big Pharma. I don't trust them, and they've roundly earned my distrust. The corporations in Europe I see differently, and are much more likely to be populated by less sociopathic people that would cut corners and produce inferior and/or dangerous medicines. Vaccines are really only one small part of the bigger issue.
My original point was that the average public has no way, or justification, to trust the scientific and medical community and unfortunately, high profile reasons to distrust them. The FDA is supposed to dissolve a pharma company when they are caught knowingly hurting people, but this hasn't happened in several instances. The excuse has always been a Too-Big-To-Fail excuse, and the executives involved faced no justice. Fines are NOT justice when people have died, and executives have zero accountability to the public.
It's not wrong for them to be suspicious when we are treated like cattle with an acceptable loss rate, statistically speaking. So when I hear fucking assholes like ikanreed unfairly denigrate families that are frightened for their children, I just remind everyone that the scientific and medical community are most certainly responsible for their share of the distrust. Sitting back and smugly calling them uninformed idiots only sticks their heads in the sand, and ignores the glaring problems in how we perform science, and how we regulate the medical community (which Big Pharma is a part of) to protect our citizens.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.