The New York Times reported yesterday:
Health officials in Tennessee have confirmed six cases of measles in the Memphis area since Thursday, surpassing in one weekend the nationwide total for all of 2016.
Until
the recent outbreak, there had been four cases reported this year, a
steep decline from 2014 and 2015. But health officials say the frequency
and intensity of outbreaks are unpredictable, and they were racing to
try to contain this one.
Dr.
Tim Jones, the state epidemiologist for the Tennessee Department of
Health, said in a telephone interview that none of the six patients had
been immunized. They included infants who were too young to be immunized
and at least one adult who chose to forgo immunization, all in Shelby County.
What
concerns Dr. Jones is that the six people were divided into three
unrelated clusters in different parts of town, and officials had been
unable to piece together how their paths might have crossed....
Until the recent outbreak, the state had confirmed just nine cases since 2004.
Despite the outbreak, there has been a significant decrease in measles patients so far this year in the United States.
As of April 1, four people from three states — California, Georgia and Texas — were reported to have measles, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Rest of article.
Kingfish note: Does it even need to be said?
27 comments:
If they prove that the individual who chose to forgo immunization infected an infant that was too young to be immunized, he needs to be prosecuted.
Why do we allow parents to not vaccinate their children when it obviously leads to outbreaks of curable diseases? Are we that petrified that we might offend some thin-skinned free-range (lazy) parents? What a bunch of morons! I would sue the parents!
So public safety and public health is in the hands of a few parents who do not want to follow the law or advocate for change of these laws. Our country is in serious trouble. We will now see the return of polio, scarlet fever, dysentery, whooping cough, and TB because of these numb-skulled parents.
This country is no longer free but has become so demanding!
What are you people worried about? You do vaccinate your children. Your children should not catch the disease.
Incorrect, 3:18. Quote from the article on wapt: "“Measles can be very contagious although most people are protected because we have had immunizations as children, but there can be strains that have been mutated and the immunizations may not protect us, so we have to be on the lookout," Dr. Timothy Quinn said."
Crazy liberals thinking the internet has made them smarter than goddamn doctors. I hate it. You did read where the doctor said on the news he hopes the strain does not mutate into something a vaccination could be useless for right?
5:06. this cuts across liberals and conservatives. apparently extremes on both sides are anti-vaccines
4:45, Think about that for a minute. If your kids are vaccinated they are protected. But as you say, there may be strains that have mutated and the immunizations may not protect them. In a case like that would it matter if a kid had their shots or not?
Why do you suppose measles is able to mutate? Because unvaccinated people are keeping the virus alive, passing it around, thus giving it the chance to mutate.
Furthermore, a fully vaccinated person has about 97% immunity. Not perfect, but very good. A person who has only had one dose of the vaccine has a lesser immunity. Measles is extremely contagious. Your unvaccinated kid could sneeze in the classroom, and my vaccinated kid could walk into that classroom over an hour later and still get the measles from your kid.
You should not have the right to endanger other kids by being allowed to send your kid to school. Home school them.
California and Texas. Now what do those states have in common?
More importantly, 5/6 of the infected were infants that were not old enough to be immunized. The reason the medical field immunizes all people is for "herd immunity". If the adults or adolescents who were infected had in fact been immunized...these unvaccinated infants may not have gotten sick. There are planty of infants, lukemia patients, immunocompromised patients around that can't be vaccinated and need the herd to be immune so the diseases are not present to begin with.
What do I know. Just a simple medical doctor here. But your Google makes you more informed.
This Mam'fizz Measle outbreak is directly related to that old Nathan Bedford Forrest statue that has yet to be removed.
9:00 - Other than a love for John Wayne movies and prime Colombian weed, California and Texas have illegal Mexicans in common. Am I close?
4:45pm I care because there are many innocent infants too young to yet have been immunized. I feel a moral obligation to stand up for those who cannot defend themselves.
But, since you lack compassion for the innocent, let's see if I can explain.
One day you might have an infant born into your family who is exposed by an idiot and either dies or is permanently damaged. Maybe then it will sink into your self-centered brain why you should have cared.
For the rest of us, we care either because our brains work well enough to imagine long term consequences or else we are empathetic or believe in Christian principles.
Do you understand " why?" now?
6:42, I am beginning to understand. Some people do not have their kids vaccinated for different reasons. One is their kids are too young. If their kids are that young it might be a good idea to keep them at home. Your reason for not getting your kid vaccinated is not any different that the choices other people make about their kids.
Keep them at home? No going to the pediatrician? No grocery shopping for women whose husbands are away serving the country or work out of town? Church is out.
You have to be either male or agoraphobic!
10:50am I vaccinated my children as soon as possible! I also breast fed so they would benefit from my immunities until they were old enough to be vaccinated! I am 6:42 am and flabbergasted by your post!
We are in a new century and there are advances in knowledge and science since your mother had you!
10:50am I vaccinated my children as soon as possible! I also breast fed so they would benefit from my immunities until they were old enough to be vaccinated! I am 6:42 am and flabbergasted by your post!
We are in a new century and there are advances in knowledge and science since your mother had you!
6:03, so you want the rest of the world to do something you will not do just to protect your kids? Sounds sort of selfish to me.
You refuse to get your kids vaccinated but demand others get their kids vaccinated just to protect your kids.
8:12 pm Wake up sweetie. I'm 6:03 and 6:13 . I think you are very selfish to not vaccinate your children and to ignore that your notion that keeping a child inside a house( which also involves keeping others out of the house) is unrealistic!
Science is on my side and history is own my side!
I'm old enough to remember what it was like when vaccinations against measles, mumps ,chicken pox and polio weren't available! I know that children died and were handicapped in great numbers. I have chicken pox scars and was happy to get a shingles vaccination since I was at risk. I was quarantined during a polio epidemic because I was exposed. And, I visited my friend who was in an iron lung and had friends on crutches for life and who can't use an arm half a century later! A friend in high school who had mumps is sterile. My uncle died from measles! And, these stories happened thousands of times!
You are a terrible mother if you haven't bothered to actually get facts but believe crazy, uneducated bloggers or Facebook or wherever you are getting your nonsensical beliefs about immunizations!
8:29, I am a believer of every person having the same rights. If you think your child is too young to have the vaccinations you are no different than those who think their kids do not have to be vaccinated for other reasons. You just have a different reason and want others to let you make the decisions on what they should do.
How about you doing what you think is best for your family and letting others do the same thing?
Amen, 8:29!
So individual rights should trump public safety? That's absurd. If that was the case, then as I am individual should not be obliged to stop at a red light because I as individual feel it is a major inconvenience and f%#* public safety. So what if people did not get vaccinations? Just means sterlization, handicapped, deafness and blindness will be the norm of these parents get their way. These things can be nearly eliminated if parents didn't want to jeopardize public safety.
10:42, No one is trying to force you to stop at a red light just so they can safely run a red light.
If you want your kid to be safe from some disease get the kid vaccinated. Just don't expect everyone to get their kid vaccinated just because you don't want to vaccinate your kid.
I guess the idiot that keeps posting that we should get the kids vaccinated does not realize that the medical recommendation for providing the vaccination is not that it be done at birth. For that is the only way his theory works.
Let's try this for the simpleton: Kids do not get vaccinated at birth. There is a several month waiting period before their infant bodies can properly be immunized. During that time your solution that they be quarantined within the house indicates your infantile brain and its ability to comprehend.
Because your non-vaccinated kid spreads a disease that my infant has not had the opportunity to be vaccinated for yet due to his age is not the fault of my infant child. It is the fault of your kid's idiot parent who does not recognize the public safety concerns trump what you feel are your individual rights.
OK, so the anonymous internet blowhard at 9:03 feels entitled to call others 1) "idiot", 2) "simpleton", 3) "infantile" and 4) "idiot" (redux). Then the blowhard announces, ex cathedra, "Let's try this for the simpleton: Kids do not get vaccinated at birth."
Apparently the blowhard needs to inform the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that they are idiots, simpletons, - hell, you get the picture:
"The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommends that all children receive their first dose of Hepatitis B vaccine at birth and complete the vaccine series by age 6–18 months." [http://www.cdc.gov/hepatitis/HBV/VaccChildren.htm]
Someone explain to the blowhard what the phrase "at birth" means in that vaccination recommendation. Someone who obviously knows nothing about pediatric vaccines schedules should STFU and let the grownups discuss this civilly. Being a douchbag (nb - not jackassery) can be a real problem for anyone 1) totally nasty and 2) totally uninformed/misinformed, especially when someone who actually knows something gets tired of your BS. You don't like it - go argue with the CDC.
How about letting the people who are parents do the decision making for their children.
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