Blaming Anti-vax Parents for Mickey Mouse Measles

The New American ^ | February 2, 2015 | Rebecca Terrell

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

California's measles outbreak has climbed to 91 confirmed cases, prompting a vicious attack from USA Today contributor Alex Berezow against "anti-vaxxers." He blames them for the epidemic that CDC officials say was introduced at the Disneyland theme park by a person infected with measles overseas. Berezow's knee-jerk reaction is to declare, "Parents who do not vaccinate their children should go to jail." He erroneously maintains that measles could not spread in a fully vaccinated society and discredits as "ludicrous" concerns regarding the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. Claiming there is a "mountain of data" proving otherwise, his one and only citation links to a page on the federal government's vaccination-promoting website, Vaccines.gov. It offers a short, unsubstantiated article that begins with the flippant pitch, "Vaccines work really well," and displays a single graph illustrating the decline in U.S. measles cases since the inoculation was introduction in 1962.

Berezow also illogically condemns religious objections as a violation of civil rights. "Your right to be sick ends where my right to be healthy begins," he quips. (But won't your inoculation protect your right to be healthy, Mr. Berezow?) He compares unvaccinated persons to drunk drivers who "pose an imminent danger to others" and says jail time for parents who turn "their children into little walking time bombs" is the only way to send a sufficiently strong message about the "deadly consequences of failing to vaccinate children."

The illegality of Berezow's proposal isn't its only problem, but it is easily the most troublesome, considering our current regulatory environment. Writing for The New American during last summer's Ebola scare, Alex Newman outlined state and federal measures already in place to strip personal liberties in the name of protecting public health. Roughly 80 percent of states across the nation have, since 2002, implemented in varying degrees the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act, developed by a collaboration of government entities including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the UN World Health Organization. The act grants tremendous powers to states at the expense of personal privacy and individual freedom, allowing forced involuntary quarantines and government-mandated vaccinations during officially declared "emergencies."

On the federal level, the Public Health Service Act (PHSA), along with executive orders signed by Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, established broad federal quarantine authority. In the event of public resistance to such draconian measures, Obama is prepared to deploy the military to enforce these unconstitutional policies. Newman explained the dangers involved:

In other words, a bureaucrat could deprive a U.S. citizen of his unalienable rights — for as long as said bureaucrat considers necessary — on the mere suspicion that the person being detained has been in contact with some disease. Contrast the purported federal authorities under the [PHSA] with the plain language in the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment, which outright prohibits the deprivation of liberty without due process of law — a timeless and essential principle enshrined in the Magna Carta almost 800 years ago. State constitutions across America recognize those fundamental rights as well.

But desperate times call for desperate measures, right? Shouldn't we be willing to part with personal liberties in the interest of public health? Aren't diseases such as measles far worse than the prospect of forfeiting the Fifth Amendment?

Before answering "yes" to any of these questions, let's consider a few points about vaccinations in general and measles in particular, notwithstanding Berezow's facetious warning of the "deadly consequences of failing to vaccinate children." First, measles is very rarely fatal, and most people recover completely. In an analysis of CDC data at VaxTruth.org, Dawn Papple notes that prior to the introduction of the measles vaccine in the 1960s, only 0.015 percent of measles cases resulted in death, and the percentage of people who die globally from measles today is very low at 0.00328 percent. These numbers are not meant to downplay the tragedy of individual deaths but to illustrate that we are not talking about a killer such as smallpox, so lethal that it has been used as a biological weapon of war since ancient times.

Moreover, between the early 1900s and the 1960s, numbers of both measles cases and deaths were already in steep decline because doctors discovered the efficacy of cod-liver oil, which is rich in vitamin A. The New England Journal of Medicine confirmed in 1990 that vitamin A is essential in measles treatment and declared that "all children with severe measles should be given vitamin A supplements, whether or not they are thought to have a nutritional deficiency." (Emphasis added.) And while vitamin A proves itself an effective therapy, the measles vaccine cannot promise the same. Quoting VaxTruth.org: "It is worth noting that in the 2011 measles outbreak in New York, when 88 people contracted measles, the 'ground zero' patient was a fully-vaccinated ... 22 year-old woman."

Which brings us to the question of vaccine safety and effectiveness in general. Researchers may call a vaccine "effective" simply because it causes the injected person to develop antibodies. However, "it is important to understand that effective and protective in vaccine research are not synonyms," explains Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, a medical doctor and outspoken critic of vaccines. (Emphasis added.) She cites the package insert of the HiBTiter® flu vaccine, which states that "the contribution [antibodies make] to clinical protection is unknown," and CDC literature about the pertussis vaccine, which admits, "The findings of efficacy studies have not demonstrated a direct correlation between antibody response and protection against pertussis disease." This effective-vs.-protective distinction explains how outbreaks can occur in fully immunized populations, such as the 1985 measles epidemic in a school in Corpus Christi, Texas. Similarly, a number of cases in the current California outbreak involve previously immunized patients.

Tenpenny recalls that she was drawn into the debate years ago when she realized that "tens of thousands have been injured and have died as a result of vaccinations." Among associated health problems are autism, sudden infant death syndrome, allergies, juvenile diabetes, and childhood arthritis. Yet Vaccines.gov claims, "Vaccines are some of the safest medical products available." If this is the case, "why does our federal government protect vaccine manufacturers from product liability lawsuits?" MaryJo Perry, co-director of Mississippi Parents for Vaccine Rights, asks this question in USA Today. She notes that taxpayers have been funding the U.S. Health and Human Services Administration's Vaccine Injury Compensation Program since 1989 to the tune of $3 billion paid to victims of these "safest" of medical products. "When citizens can't hold corporations accountable in court for the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, it is very important to protect our legal right to vaccine exemptions," Perry states.

Barbara Loe Fisher of the National Vaccine Information Center agrees. "From now on — unless we stand up and draw the line on vaccine mandates — the government can legally use police powers to force every American to get hundreds of vaccinations or be punished," she writes, "while those who are hurt by vaccination can be more easily swept under the rug and left to fend for themselves."

[Bubba_Leroy]

I’ve had a long day of supporting the welfare state, but from what I see, the only one who mentioned Mexico, along with a derogatory name, is you.

Thank you. Not only did I not mention Mexico I also did not mention the measles.

Specifically, what I did say was "I wonder how many U.S. children will die in the next two years from diseases that had been eradicated in the U.S. before Obama’s illegal alien surge?"

Obama's refusal to enforce U.S. borders and immigration law has resulted in an endless stream of illegal aliens pouring across the U.S. Mexico border from all over Central and South America and who knows where else. They are not even being counted much less identified and tested for diseases, lice, vermin or anything else.

Every communicable disease known to man that exists in any third world country anywhere in the world will surge in the U.S. within the next two years.

[Holdem Or Foldem]

This is a map constructed by the world health organization. I used Mexico to get accurate information on vaccination rates to answer the "south of the border crowd" who are the people who are terrified of being called anti hispanic. You will notice that one has to go to Brazil to encounter a lot of measles. The countries "south of the border" have a lesser incidence of measles and almost certainly have a higher immunization rate than the pathetic 91.5% rate in the U.S. If I never hear the word gringo again then you will never hear other words. What comes around will certainly go around.

[Holdem Or Foldem]

http://www.who.int/immunization/monitoring_surveillance/burden/vpd/surveillance_type/active/big_measlesreportedcases6months_PDF.pdf?ua=1

The link should take any who are interested to a map with measles incidence.

[Borax Queen]

Obama's refusal to enforce U.S. borders and immigration law has resulted in an endless stream of illegal aliens pouring across the U.S. Mexico border from all over Central and South America and who knows where else. They are not even being counted much less identified and tested for diseases, lice, vermin or anything else.

Yes, exactly right! As we along the border states know all too well.

LOL, that photo is just awful! I think it's from "Z Nation"? I saw the movie and have periodic flashbacks.... especially when the trains were emptying tons of countries of the "children" (who mostly were not children, and funny how none of the soles of their shoes seemed to be even remotely worn down).

And BP was forced to release them to sex traffickers and whoever claimed to be relatives...

And Barry and the Communists strategically placed the others throughout the US, to continue sickening the native populations.

[redgolum]

Part if the issue (and why this has become such a huge public relations problem) is that the salesmen in who sold the idea of mass vaccinations in the late 50’s didn’t understand what a vaccine is. It is not going to be 100% effective.

A vaccine like the measles will give the majority of people exposed to the vaccine some immunity. It won’t always be 100%, and the virus can and does shift. That is why you need a new flu vaccine every year.

The other thing to remember is some people will not have the reaction to the vaccine that is desired. Some get sick, some don’t develop the immunity. Some do, but lose it over time (this is one thing under a lot of study).

Vaccines are not a magic bullet (for good or ill). They are a manage risk. We don’t have the pandemics that my grandfather dealt with. But the viruses shift, people’s immune system don’t react the same, and you will still have outbreaks.

Now, I am for vaccinations (on a modified schedule). There was an old graveyard where I grew up filled with people who had yellow fever, the 1918 flu, and other things that don’t spread like they used to. But the hyper reaction to this case is why I get really tired of people reacting with emotion, rather than reason.

[Bubba_Leroy]

I grew up in the 1960s. Like most children of the 1960s, I got to experience Geman measles, chicken pox, whooping cough and the mumps first hand.

I can’t complain since I have an older cousin who got to experience polio first hand during the polio epidemics of 1952.

Thanks to childhood vaccines, my children experienced none of the common childhood diseases of my youth. For the same reason, no one on Earth has experienced small pox in 25 years.

Vaccines have risks but they beat the bell out of epidemics of small pox, polio, measles, chicken pox, mumps and other diseases that have now been eradicated or are on the way there thanks to widespread vaccination programs.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Wayne07]

No, even a really effective disease vaccine, like for Measles, isn’t 100% effective. Even if it is 99% effective, imagine one high school with 2000 vaccinated students. One kid comes in with measles, you might end up with 20 cases of measles in vaccinated students. At least 5 of the Disney measles cases were in vaccinated people.

[exDemMom]

This entire article is extremely irresponsible and misinformative.

He erroneously maintains that measles could not spread in a fully vaccinated society and discredits as "ludicrous" concerns regarding the safety and effectiveness of vaccines.

Of course measles does not spread in a fully vaccinated society. How else does the author think we had actually controlled one of the most contagious diseases in existence, to the point where we declared the US measles-free in 2000? Anti-vaccine kookery has been spreading, and now we have measles outbreaks.

A good sign is that parents who had originally fallen for anti-vaxxers' lies are now rushing to get their children vaccinated. I guess, when they see that their children are actually in danger and that vaccination rates are too low to provide herd immunity, they decide that protecting their children is important, after all.

Until only a few decades ago, people had large families because most kids would die of infectious diseases. They counted themselves fortunate if one or two kids reached adulthood. Thanks to vaccines, we now have the luxury of having small families because most kids will actually grow up. Anti-vaxxers would change all that. Anti-vaxxers want to go back to the past, when people could have 15 children and not a single one would survive past the age of 10. Make no mistake about it--the anti-vaccination movement is another offshoot of the anti-humanity movement. They are no different from the radical "environmentalists" who want to eradicate all technology and send us back to a stone-age lifestyle. They hate humanity. They pretend to care about your kids' health, but they really don't--they want as many kids as possible to die.

[who knows what evil?]

Bears repeating...

When I see FReepers saying that unvaccinated people should be put on an island or carry papers so they can be excluded from society, I see liberals suggesting the same for home schoolers, gun owners and any number of far left issues.

[Codeflier]

Exactly what I always say. That is why you can have a NAZI regime come to power. Too far to the left or right meets at the bottom of the circle. GMO threads on Free Republic are exactly like those at Democratic Underground.

[who knows what evil?]

‘Anti-vaxxers’...what a cute little label; kind of like ‘anti-choice’. Here we have someone using a label to demonize a particular group of people...sounds familiar. Wonder who came up with it?

[Redbob]

Oh goody, more moronic defense of propagating measles by refusing to vaccinate...

[trebb]

Wrong. Because measles is so extremely contagious, the anti-vaxxers are also risking neighboring children under one year of age (who are too young be vaccinated), they are risking pregnant women and their children “in utero” (the unborn), and they are risking immuno-compromised individuals of every age.

I saw similar info after I made my post. I guess the question is how to define the risk/benefit and whether folks should have a say - if we allow the "authorities" to make decisions for any case of "for the common good", we end up in a totalitarian environment. Double-edged sword with sugar sprinkles on one of the edges. I had German measles when i was 4. They kept me in a darkened room to ease strain on my eyes because it was supposedly possible for it to cause blindness. I guess I was one of the fortunate who didn't have a hard go of it.

[Black Agnes]

“Of course measles does not spread in a fully vaccinated society.”

Wrong:

http://business.financialpost.com/2014/05/01/lawrence-solomon-vaccines-cant-prevent-measles-outbreaks/

Even China, with no vaccine exemptions, has seen outbreaks.

BTW, have you had your adult MMR booster lately? I suggest you get it right away, if not.

[HLPhat]

>>most kids would die of infectious diseases.

Most?

LOL. I’ll have to remember that next time I’m at a reunion of family farmers... whose multiple generations of large families enabled them to clear and farm the land.

Vaccines, and the diseases they prevent, seem to have a symbiotic relationship with Citys and the hive-worshipers who infest them.

Got Romans 1:25+?

[Morpheus2009]

Inflict expenses, sure but having single digit deaths out of hundreds of millions before 2003, afterwards zero measles deaths for almost 12 years and counting, was pretty insignificant compared to MRSA and the flu, and even others, the real problem is that the anti-vaccine people are narcissists who dodge accepting responsibility for the fact that their kid had to get hospitalized or that their kid had to stay out of school while sick. What’s worse is that the government has a vaccine court that pays parents claiming injury from vaccines money, I would like to know if the courts have any solid proof to pay off the parents, or like Kaci Hickox and ebola quarantines, one can just whine to the government, followed by the government caving in?

In the end, the big problem is that people in our government and mediam and most wealthy, are a bunch of narcissists who behave worse than a lot of kindergarteners out there.

[Morpheus2009]

Measles is not smallpox, and the numbers of hundreds of measles cases out of hundreds of millions in the United States prove that the measles vaccination is 90 to 95 percent effective at prevention like the experts say it is. Lack of any measles death since 2003 shows that the milder sickness from the vaccines, and the effective medical care in the United States work. I would think though, that people should just use the sensible approach and reduce the chances down to 5 to 10 percent that they will get sick from exposure though.

[Morpheus2009]

The disease isn’t contagious when you aren’t coughing or showing outward symptoms, so common sense would easily take care of an outwardly sick individual regardless. Unfortunately, with the doctor who went bowling despite ebola symptoms, I am not so sure America has much of that anymore.