Good Job, Anti-Vaxers

The Measles vaccination is part of the MMR vaccine (measles, mumps, and rubella), which has been targeted by anti-vaxers.

2011 is on track to be the worst year for measles cases in more than a decade. Although the Centers for Disease Control declared the highly infectious and potentially fatal disease “eliminated” from the US in the early 2000s, it continues to spread, with the highest number of cases this early in the year since 1996, the CDC reported this week
…
In the first 19 weeks of this year, 118 cases in 23 states have been reported, compared to a median of 56 cases a year between 2001 and 2008, according to the CDC… 40 percent of patients required hospitalization, with babies and kids under age five the most severely affected. In Europe, there’s been a far larger outbreak, with 33 countries battling measles. France has been hit by an epidemic of nearly 10,000 cases in the first four months of 2011.
…
Before [the vaccine] was available, 3 to 4 million Americans came down with measles annually, of whom 400 to 500 died, 48,000 were hospitalized and 1,000 were chronically disabled from encephalitis. In countries where vaccine isn’t widely available, the disease killed 242,000 people, mainly kids, in 2006.

Source: http://health.yahoo.net/experts/dayinhealth/measles-outbreak-how-to-protect-yourself

One thing that is confusing about the article is that it says 40% of people with measles are hospitalized (which could put a significant cost on the health care system), but later, it says that before the vaccine, 3-4 million Americans got measles annually and 48,000 were hospitalized (which would be a rate just over 1%). Then again, maybe doctors are far more likely to recommend hospitalizing patients with measles in 2011 than they were pre-1970 – because they can watch for complications and prevent deaths.

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Vaccine Zombie Video

The forces of ignorance put together a video. The message of the video? Don’t vaccinate. You’ll just be another sheep following the dictates of “big pharma” and then you’ll be a vaccine zombie.

Two comments on the video:
jfabiani: “So, how many diseases did you cure today, mr. don’t trust doctors?”
“@jfabiani Healing power comes from within, not from an external source.” ~ NaturalNews Staff

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Anti-Vaxers on This American Life

The latest This American Life has an interesting little story on some anti-vaccination parents – and what happened when measles spread through the community. (It starts at 14 minutes into the episode and is 22 minutes long.)

I haven’t really delved much into the anti-vaccination movement, though I hear other skeptics talk about it.

It was interesting to hear them describe the anti-vaccination movement as being driven by people who don’t trust the system (well, that and a paranoid fear of vaccination and over-protective parenting). In one part of the story, an anti-vaccination mother describes how a doctor tried to pressure her into giving her child a vaccination (or at least that’s how she describes it). She felt uncomfortable with the whole situation, and gave in. Then drew this conclusion: “His agenda really – I could tell at that point – was he was going to get a DTaP into my child because he felt like he could force me to… Doing further research … the vaccination was completely unnecessary, so that just ruined my faith even more. It sort of hit me like – wow, is it really this bad – you know? So that was – yeah, it was a big moment for me.” I just couldn’t believe it. Why in the world did she think he wanted the child to get vaccinated? What was his motive – other than doing the most responsible thing for the child? Did she think the doctor loves sticking needles into children? Did she think he had some ulterior motive? I’m sure he would’ve had the same reaction if she was letting her children play with loaded guns, or using faith-healing instead of going to the hospital. Any responsible person should get angry when misguided parents put their children at risk. Somehow, she twisted around his pressure to get her child vaccinated into some kind of a “they’re the bad people who shouldn’t be trusted”. It’s horrendously bad logic at it’s finest.

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