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Anti-vaccination stronghold in N.C. hit with state’s worst chickenpox outbreak in 2 decades
WaPo ^ | 11-19-2018 | Isaac Stanley-Becker

Posted on 11/19/2018 12:36:26 PM PST by NRx

Chickenpox has taken hold of a school in North Carolina where many families claim religious exemption from vaccines.

Cases of chickenpox have been multiplying at the Asheville Waldorf School, which serves children from nursery school to sixth grade in Asheville, N.C. About a dozen infections grew to 28 at the beginning of the month. By Friday, there were 36, the Asheville Citizen-Times reported.

The outbreak ranks as the state’s worst since the chickenpox vaccine became available more than 20 years ago. Since then, the two-dose course has succeeded in limiting the highly contagious disease that once affected 90 percent of Americans — a public health breakthrough.

The school is a symbol of the small but strong movement against the most effective means of preventing the spread of infectious diseases. The percentage of children under 2 years old who haven’t received any vaccinations has quadrupled since 2001, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Like the Disneyland measles outbreak in 2015, the flare-up demonstrates the real-life consequences of a shadowy debate fueled by junk science and fomented by the same sort of Twitter bots and trolls that spread misinformation during the 2016 presidential election. And it shows how a seemingly fringe view can gain currency in a place like Asheville, a funky, year-round resort town nestled between the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains.

“The school follows immunization requirements put in place by the state board of education, but also recognizes that a parent’s decision to immunize their children happens before they enter school,” the school explained in a statement to Blue Ridge Public Radio.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; US: North Carolina
KEYWORDS: chickenpox; outbreak
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To: Vermont Lt
I do think it is a community’s right to require that children in a community school are vaccinated.

Why? If your child is vaccinated and “protected”, what does it matter if anyone else’s child is vaccinated?

61 posted on 11/19/2018 9:42:29 PM PST by Shethink13 (there are 0 electoral votes in the state of denial)
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To: Shethink13

Because, as has been pointed out, these vaccines are not 100% effective. You might still get sick, albeit, less sick.


62 posted on 11/20/2018 2:41:05 AM PST by Vermont Lt
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To: NRx

It is stupid to be against vaccines.
Medicine has made our lives better and extended our lives.


63 posted on 11/20/2018 8:18:14 AM PST by minnesota_bound
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To: Vermont Lt
Communities do not have rights; that is the underpinning of every sort of authoritarian regime, from absolute monarchy to Maoism. Rights are God given and apply to individuals only. If vaccines are so wonderful, why would a school have to prevent unvaccinated students from entering? Those who are vaccinated should be immunized from the diseases from which the unvaccinated may suffer.


Are we really the land of the free when parents are compelled to accept this decade’s “settled science” that may be refuted 20 or 30 years from now?

64 posted on 11/20/2018 8:30:33 AM PST by Wallace T.
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To: PAR35

Both the virus and the vaccine are ‘live’. Both give you a lifelong risk of shingles.


65 posted on 11/20/2018 8:53:29 AM PST by Black Agnes
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To: DoodleBob

Both the chickenpox vaccine and having the virus itself convey a risk of shingles.

The vaccine is a ‘live’ vaccine.


66 posted on 11/20/2018 8:54:39 AM PST by Black Agnes
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To: Wallace T.

If you feel okay with your kids getting diseases, that’s cool.

I guess the sales of baby funerals will start to climb.

My kids are grown and healthy. I guess it’s your turn. Have a ball with it.


67 posted on 11/20/2018 2:45:51 PM PST by Vermont Lt
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To: DoodleBob; Lazamataz

Who is collecting this info?

In Georgia it is GRITS Georgia Registry of Immunization Transactions and Services, a program of the Department of Public Health created by the State Legislature.

Check it out.


68 posted on 11/20/2018 3:05:52 PM PST by spintreebob
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To: DoodleBob

I ended up in the hosptial with shingles this year...two days of antiviral and antibiotic IV’s did the trick! It didn’t hurt all that much. By the time the rash showed up (it started as cellulitis on my face), I was on the pain meds. I’ve still got a lesion on my cornea and the feeling is not completely back on the places where the rash was. This was back in early August.


69 posted on 11/20/2018 3:43:54 PM PST by Overtaxed (Very sporting of the little black duck.)
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To: Vermont Lt
Because, as has been pointed out, these vaccines are not 100% effective. You might still get sick, albeit, less sick

So the vaccines are not 100% effective. Therefore the “community” should be able to force vaccinations on all against their will? Not much logic to your argument. How is it a non vaccinated individual’s fault if someone else’s vaccine is ineffective?

70 posted on 11/20/2018 5:58:49 PM PST by Shethink13 (there are 0 electoral votes in the state of denial)
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To: minnesota_bound
It is stupid to be against vaccines.

What’s stupid is being blindly for vaccines when you haven’t a clue how the human immunological response really works. Most people who are anti-vax have done serious research, have asked the tough questions and have failed to get straight answers that sufficiently resolve their doubts.

Have you ever requested to read the package insert from a vaccine? I’m not talking about the propaganda-type fact sheets the doctor hands out. I’m talking about that folded sheet with the tiny print that’s included with the drug.

71 posted on 11/20/2018 6:19:17 PM PST by Shethink13 (there are 0 electoral votes in the state of denial)
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To: Shethink13

I cannot believe you think it’s good parenting to allow your children to become Petri dishes spreading their disease to the rest of town.


72 posted on 11/20/2018 6:21:16 PM PST by Vermont Lt
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To: TexasGator

Being vaccinated against chickenpox does not protect you from shingles in adulthood. There is a risk of developing shingles from having been vaccinated, it’s a live virus vaccine. I’ve had chickenpox as a child, and I’ve had shingles as an adult, it’ll be ten years ago come Christmas Day. It started out as two small bumps behind the hairline on my left temple, they felt oddly cold, no real pain but sort of uncomfortable. That progressed in a few hours to being quite painful and starting to swell a bit, I became concerned that I’d been bitten by a spider in my sleep, it really was an odd sensation, cold, hot, numbness, pain, all rolled together. Difficult to explain. By the end of the day it had developed into a rash that spread onto my forehead on the left side, by the next morning it was in my left eyebrow. Finally went to a doc in the box, they prescribed several things, hydrocodone for pain, gabapentin and Neurontin. One or the other of those really knocked me for a loop, couldn’t drive a car, really out of it. Wasn’t the hydrocodone, that alone just helped with pain, didn’t feel buzzed or out of it. So it was one of the two for nerve inflammation and damage. Can’t begin to describe the pain, it seemed impossible for a mere rash to hurt like that, it honestly felt like it was drilling down into my skull and into my brain, very intense. I still have numbness in my left eyebrow and a fading area that only showed when I had something of a tan, slightly depigmented I guess. I wouldn’t want to ever go through that again. It was truly debilitating and took a good week to get to the point that I could function again.


73 posted on 11/20/2018 6:47:18 PM PST by RegulatorCountry
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To: RegulatorCountry

I had a rash around me left eybrow. And also shingles in my left eye.


74 posted on 11/21/2018 1:21:35 PM PST by TexasGator (Z1z)
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To: TexasGator

You’re fortunate not to have had vision loss or even blindness in that eye from shingles, according to what I’ve been told. I was worried about that myself.


75 posted on 11/21/2018 1:53:49 PM PST by RegulatorCountry
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To: RegulatorCountry

I had vision loss but not total and it cleared up. Bad experience.


76 posted on 11/21/2018 3:10:33 PM PST by TexasGator (Z1z)
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To: TexasGator

Oh, I know, the pain is surreal. Can’t imagine having it in an eye. Just on my forehead was awful enough, felt like it was drilling into my brain or something.


77 posted on 11/21/2018 4:04:52 PM PST by RegulatorCountry
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