Had enough of the vaccine debate? JJ hasn't and is going to post this little column from the Wall Street Journal published this week. JJ showed you the crazies yesterday and today will show you some cold, rational, hard facts as Dr. Marc Siegel pointed out the high attack rate and overwhelming success of vaccinations in his column. Its a good column and focuses on how measles causes more severe health problems than does the vaccine. Sad that in 2015 the subject is even being debated. Keep reading.
A measles outbreak traced to the Disneyland theme park in California has infected nearly 70 people since December. Even before this alarming episode, 2014 saw the worst U.S. measles outbreak in two decades. What else happened last year? More than 13,000 parents nationwide claimed on forms that vaccinating their children from preventable diseases like measles violated their “personal beliefs.”
Most of these parents are motivated by irrational fears. It is human to be nervous about injecting foreign substances into a child’s body, but should parents be more afraid of the vaccine or the virus? With measles, there is no question: The virus is the danger.
Before 1963, when the measles vaccine became available for public use in the U.S., there were more than 500,000 reported measles cases every year, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. On average, 432 cases a year resulted in death. After an effective vaccination campaign, that number dwindled to 86 measles cases by 2000, with zero fatalities.
Now the disease has returned—with some 640 cases last year—thanks in large part to parental anxiety about vaccination. It is no coincidence that outbreaks happen in communities with low vaccination rates. Nor is it surprising that outbreaks happen at places like Disneyland, where people are pressed together in crowds. Measles is a highly contagious disease with an attack rate of 90%, meaning that an infected person has a 90% chance of spreading it to someone else in close contact. Compare that with the flu, which the public considers highly contagious yet has an attack rate of 25%.
Measles travels on small respiratory droplets, and it takes a week or two for an infected person to develop symptoms. The early symptoms of fatigue, muscle aches and high fever are mostly indistinguishable from the flu, so measles carriers can easily spread the illness before they know they have it. A physician must look for red, watery eyes, white spots on the inner cheeks and a telltale rash that appears a few days after infection.
Measles is tolerated well in most people, but it can be devastating to others. As many as one in 20 children develop pneumonia, and more than one in 10 suffer an ear infection. Even worse, a brain infection known as encephalitis occurs in one or two per 1,000 infections; that is also about the death rate from measles. The frequency of complications and the extreme contagiousness are why public-health officials are terrified of a measles comeback.
Parents should be afraid, too. But too many are more fearful of a highly effective vaccine that provides nearly 99% immunity after two doses. In the past decade, a misinformed campaign by parents and even some doctors has apparently succeeded, to a degree, in demonizing the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. The critics relied heavily on a 1998 British study supposedly linking the MMR vaccine and autism. The study has been completely discredited, but its pernicious effect continues. Only about half of Americans believe that vaccines are safe and effective, according to a 2014 poll by the Associated Press and GfK Public Affairs.
The medical risk from the MMR vaccine is minuscule compared with the potential complications from measles. The Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System has received reports of about 6,000 serious side effects following administration of the MMR vaccine since 1990, with 288 associated deaths. Compare that with the nearly 10 million doses of the MMR vaccine given every year, according to the CDC. A 2007 British study published in the journal Pediatrics found the risk of serious neurological disease following administration of the first dose of the MMR vaccine to be one in 365,000 doses. Remember: The risk of brain inflammation from measles is one or two in just 1,000.
Medicine involves cost-benefit analysis, and it is clear that the benefits of the MMR vaccine far exceed the costs. The bottom line: Not vaccinating children invites a measles resurgence.
In the recent outbreak traced to Disneyland, infants less than a year old are most at risk because they aren’t old enough to have received the first MMR dose. Also at risk are the 10% of the children who have gotten the vaccine but it has worn off, something that can happen over time since immune systems aren’t completely predictable. Then there are children with chronic diseases, who are at risk because they can’t be vaccinated. And while the vaccine is extremely effective, it is not perfect: A handful of the confirmed Disneyland cases were children who had received the vaccine.
I had measles as a young child and I am glad that I’ve never had to treat it in my career as a physician. That may change soon if vaccination rates continue to drop. The unwarranted fear is an assault on one of the greatest public-health inventions in world history.
Dr. Siegel
is a professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center. He is
the author of “False Alarm: The Truth About the Epidemic of Fear” (
Wiley,
2006) and a Fox News medical correspondent.
Kingfish note: Parents have the right and should have the right to keep their children from getting vaccinated. However, we also have the right to say we don't want their possibly infected children around us in public schools as well. One final question: How many of these advocates for changing the public health laws also favored quarantining Ebola patients?
The bill should have been placed in the Public Health Committee but Speaker Gunn instead placed it in the Education Committee where more mischief is likely to occur as that is what Formby wanted to do.
Thursday, January 29, 2015
90% attack rate, Deaths per 1/1,000. We don't need no vaccine.
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44 comments:
However, we also have the right to say we don't want their possibly infected children around us in public schools as well.
How about sports leagues Kingfish? Should unvaccinated children be allowed to participate in non-school youth sports leagues?
How about going to the movies? Should proof of vaccination be mandatory for catching a flick at Malco?
Church? Should parents be forced to file their child's Form 121 before attending services at an area church?
Museums? Sporting events? Amusement parks? Pancake breakfasts?
Tell us where it ends. Should children be checked at school daily for having brushed their teeth? How about random cuts and scrapes? Considering the growing presence of staph and MRSA should children be required to report daily to their schools daily regarding any cuts and/or scrapes they have may acquired?
Tell us where it ends.
When we have legislators who are so ignorant of the facts, it is a public service for you to continue!
Until the last person who believes this anti-vaccine nonsense understands that they no longer look just gullible and ignorant but are seen as mentally ill or too dumb to be left unsupervised, carry on!
The mentally ill and incompetent are controlling too much of our national debate! Too many are using the mentally handicapped for political purpose as well. Now the problems which they are incapable of recognizing is killing our children!
It is incumbent upon the sane and rational to speak out forcefully as respectful approach hasn't worked. It's even worse now. We've obviously even elected some who are incompetent to hold office!
It is the right of private businesses and private organizations to do so if that is indeed their intent.
Should children be checked at school daily for having brushed their teeth? How about random cuts and scrapes? Considering the growing presence of staph and MRSA should children be required to report daily to their schools daily regarding any cuts and/or scrapes they have may acquired?
Tell us Kingfish.
Should the unvaccinated be kept from viewing the business of the Legislature at the Capital while they are in session?
Pretty simple question.
No but we could start with the unwashed.
Well, well, well.
Despite what others here on JJ have claimed, it doesn't appear that proof of vaccination is mandatory prior to compulsory school attendance in California.
California school bans 66 students without measles vaccinations
Almost 70 Palm Desert High School students who haven’t been fully immunized for measles are banned from classes for the next two weeks. Meanwhile, the classmate who may have exposed them to the highly contagious virus is being allowed to return.
Sixty-six students were released from classes Wednesday afternoon and won’t be allowed to return until Feb. 9 -- or when they are medically cleared or provide proof of immunization or resistance to the virus, said Mary Perry, spokeswoman for the Desert Sands Unified School District.
8:53 is absurd.
1) no child (especially vulnerable ones such as cancer patients) should have to learn in an environment in which they and their parents fear devastating disease. No, you cannot prevent every little illness or cold from coming into a school. But it is reasonable to do all we can to prevent measles, which kills healthy and vulnerable children alike, from coming into our schools. School should be a safe zone for children to learn.
2) you cannot compare the fleeting contact of a movie or a museum to the close contact that children come into one another (including getting in each other's personal space) at school. Yes, you can get measles from fleeting contact. But the contact that comes from 6-10 hours a day, 5 days a week, 10-12 months a year is much more serious and prone to exposing children to all sorts of diseases, beyond measles. Even for those who are successfully vaccinated, such exposure increases the odds they'll carry the germs home to a newborn sibling or elderly grandparent.
Any reasonable person wants to protect their child and every other child vaccinates against horrible diseases. Unless there's a medical reason not to.
@ 8:53 AM
You're the kind of person that scream about free speech when a bakery won't write whatever you want on your cupcakes.
8:53 am You are illogical.
Vaccinations were required when I was growing up and it ENDED with the eradication of measles, mumps, chicken pox, small pox, tuberculosis and polio from our population until gullible people like you fell prey to hoaxes and to assuming everyone who has a website is an authority or expert on a subject!
Any idiot or charlatan or con artist or insane person can start a website or facebook page!
If you are not smart enough or educated enough to go to Snopes, Fact or Fiction and/or competent to do research on a subject, then please shut up!
Not every damn thing is the " slippery slope" fear mongers would have you believe. And, frankly, the bad slopes that exist is because people like you got duped and so we elected those with agendas unconnected to the Nation's interest!
You people can try to debate this mess all day long, its entirely irrelevant. Simply put, if you or anyone else tries to give my child a government shot you will be leaving in a body bag.
And if you idiots are so worried about measles and other vaccines, maybe do something to stop the flow of illegals that are sitting right next to out children everyday.
Yes, you can get measles from fleeting contact.
That pretty much craps out your #2.
Thanks for playing.
Man, Granny Whack Job is fired up today!
9:14
"2) you cannot compare the fleeting contact of a movie or a museum to the close contact that children come into one another (including getting in each other's personal space) at school."
You mean a fleeting contact like standing in line at Disney World? I disagree with Kingfish that parents have the 'right' not to vaccinate their kids. Their rights end when mine are infringed upon.
I wonder if those anti vaxxers are willing to let their kid get spit on by a kid with measles.
9:14 undermines their own argument. You CAN get measles from fleeting contact. You CAN compare the fleeting contact of a movie or a museum or visit to Disneyland to that of a school environment. You won't contract "double measles" by virtue of being in school for a longer period of time versus the other venues. I CAN carry home as much measles by sitting right next to someone in a movie theatre as I could if I sat across the room all day from an infected classmate.
And the winner is "idiot"!! Most common word thrown back and forth by anonymous posters hell bent on bashing each other (no matter the subject).
It'd be nice if we brought back civics class and took them and biology classes to pre-1940 cemeteries to see all the family plots filled with children's markers from childhood diseases. Usually clustered around a month or two as the disease spread. And interview some grandparents who remember those times before vaccines and antibiotics. And the suffering. Maybe some "grown ups" here who actually didn't grow up could audit the class and learn something. We ought to be grateful to public health departments and the people who give us a chance for our kids to grow up healthy.
It IS legal for parents in Mississippi to decide not to vaccinate their children. It is NOT legal for children who have not been vaccinated to attend school. There is no reason for relaxing these standards which keep us all safe.
Kingfish you are wrong in your statement that a private business has a right to restrict customers as you stated. Are you familiar with the EEOC and the term 'disparate impact'? For every businessman who wants to run his business on his own terms, there are at least two government agencies standing by to ensure that he does not.
I am not going to do the research for you. If you want a real factual based opinion on this topic:
1.Go to google type in whooping cough, Kentucky. Let your brain absorb. Completely preventable.
2. Go to TED and watch this video:
http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_specter_the_danger_of_science_denial?language=en
3.And the KICKER of all Kickers:
http://www.ted.com/talks/wendy_chung_autism_what_we_know_and_what_we_don_t_know_yet
I think this is where journalists should take a stand and state only facts. This is a public health topic and needs to be discussed by doctors of the highest caliber.
-W
Good grief! Why are we having this stupid discussion? The loonies are loose and saying "government shots" and "don't tread on my rights," etc., etc. I am old enough to have had measles, whooping cough, chicken pox (I just had my shingles shot) and I nearly died as a child during World War II from pneumonia. Thankfully, I never had smallpox, or polio, although I had school mates in braces and as a cub scout we regularly visited a kid in an iron lung. I'm not read to return to the "good old days" of people dying or crippled from preventable diseases. And that seems to be what some want.
@11:21 the EEOC does not police a business' treatment of its customers.
I know Bill and Melinda Gates are not always the most popular people, but she nailed it when she pointed out that mothers in Africa will stand in line for hours in the hot sun for something we will flippantly reject because of something we saw on a website. People who live with these diseases as part of daily life know how fortunate we are to have vaccines.
1:57
You grew up in an entirely different time. A time when the government could be trusted, and america was a great country. They are adding more and more shots every year. Enough is enough.
hey 9:33 -
If your precious child gets smallpox, measles, polio, etc, he/she will be the one needing the body bag. Sadly, also, some of his/her playmates might need some too. you didn't visit Disneyland recently, did you?
What's it like to be an ignorant dipshit? Here in this anonymous environment, it's safe for you to be your true, stupid self without any fear of anyone knowing just how TRULY stupid you are. Rest assured, though, most people who know you probably already have a pretty good indication of that fact.
Come on, Kingfish, 9:33's comments are fair ground for criticism. . . why zap my response??
My kid got the measles vaccine and got measles anyway.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/vaccine-mccarthyism-what-if-the-vaccine-paradigm-itself-is-deliberately-flawed/5427768
@ 6:21
Try this illogic: Some children die in car seats held in by seat belts in cars equipped with airbags and anti lock brakes. Therefore everyone should be able to opt out of modern auto safety features.
Also society should pay for the increased medical costs from injuries that result from this "free choice".
Not to mention I left out the well known hazards of safety glass.
Weak 7:12 PM. Maybe you should have advocated that we all stop driving.
If you don't vaccinate your kids, you are retarded. No unsupported statistics from Jenny McCarthy or any other anti-vaccine goober will change that.
My child, now in her late teens, has not had measles, mumps (both of which I had to endure), diphtheria, whooping cough, or smallpox all thanks to the vaccines which the foolish and ignorant now want to opt out of to the peril of others. Thank goodness this kind of idiocy wasn't around before smallpox was eradicated. There are always risks, but only the foolish would opt not to have a child vaccinated with well documented, low-risk, highly effective vaccines, absent some compelling medical condition. Bulletin: the world is not flat, man has landed on the moon, and measles vaccines are highly effective and low risk.
When I went to med school, one of the older attending physicians used to talk about seeing at least 3 or 4 kids die of encephalitis as a complication of measles (subacute sclerosing panencephalitis--no cure, almost always fatal) every year. We occasionally now see someone with post-polio syndrome. The polio virus can live in your body for fifty years and then attack your nervous system when you are elderly. It's not right to rely on "herd immunity" and then not vaccinate your own child. When the vaccinated "herd" gets smaller, these diseases get much more common.
When the vaccinated "herd" gets smaller, these diseases get much more common
Do you think the size of the vaccinated herd in the United States in 2015 only gets smaller by virtue of parents not vaccinating their children?
Bulletin: the world is not flat, man has landed on the moon, and measles vaccines are highly effective and low risk.
[And] Mississippi Republicans DO NOT race bait black Democrats into primary runoff elections!
7:12- sell your story to the parents of the kids that turn autistic. It's bad enough, there's a fund to compensate you for it.
Yeah, it's a small chance, but a chance nonetheless.
9:24, if you knew in advance that your child would be autistic as a result, it would make sense not to vaccinate. However, the science is that the risk of serious harm from not vaccinating is much much higher than from vaccinating. Since one can't know in advance if one's child will be one of the few with an adverse reaction, the rational person chooses to vaccinate. The irrational person chooses to not vaccinate in the hopes that his child will beat the very stacked odds, while increasing the risk for everyone else. It is a bad gamble for the child and everyone else to refuse to vaccinate.
And the autism risk has been debunked. Find a better reason.
During the Spanish flu epidemic in 1918 some cities closed theaters and cancelled public events and stopped the spread. Philadelphia did not cancel a big Liberty bond parade and thousands of its citizens died in the next two weeks.
Science is evil! It's a government/Obama conspiracy don't you know.
Health official says measles outbreak carried into US from overseas
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/01/29/health-official-says-measles-outbreak-came-from-overseas/
So unvaccinated kids spreading these diseases means we shouldn't vaccinate or require such vaccinations for schools. You are defeating your own point. The story just proves that the vaccines work.
Right, we should make sure everyone is vaccinated because our lawless POTUS dictator can't be stopped from letting whomever he wants including the unvaccinated.
Ebola yesterday, enterovirus the day before that, measles today and tomorrow, well, let's see what all the Syrian muslim refugees he's hauling over here will bring with them tomorrow.
Hey, is that piss on your pant leg?
The end of this debate. Period. Can you post this on the home page?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfdZTZQvuCo
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