Measles Outbreak Tied To Texas Megachurch 622
New submitter the eric conspiracy sends this quote from NBC:
"An outbreak of measles tied to a Texas megachurch where ministers have questioned vaccination has sickened at least 21 people, including a 4-month-old infant — and it's expected to spread further, state and federal health officials said. 'There's likely a lot more susceptible people,' said Dr. Jane Seward, the deputy director for the viral diseases division at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ... All of the cases are linked to the Eagle Mountain International Church in Newark, Texas, where a visitor who'd traveled to Indonesia became infected with measles – and then returned to the U.S., spreading it to the largely unvaccinated church community, said Russell Jones, the Texas state epidemiologist. ... Terri Pearsons, a senior pastor of Eagle Mountain International said she has had concerns about possible ties between early childhood vaccines and autism. In the wake of the measles outbreak, however, Pearsons has urged followers to get vaccinated and the church has held several vaccination clinics. ... 'In this community, these cases so far are all in people who refused vaccination for themselves and their children,' [Steward] added. The disease that once killed 500 people a year in the U.S. and hospitalized 48,000 had been considered virtually eradicated after a vaccine introduced in 1963. Cases now show up typically when an unvaccinated person contracts the disease abroad and spreads it upon return to the U.S."
Just goes to show... (Score:3, Insightful)
...that you shouldn't listen to people who have no idea what they're talking about.
Re:As usual. (Score:4, Insightful)
YES!! One of the oldest rules of survival - STUPID ANIMALS DIE!!!!
Re:cases are in people who refused vaccination ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think these people are doubting that vaccines work. Rather they are more afraid of their kids having autism than measles. And they don't understand that vaccines don't cause autism.
You don't need to vaccinate your children... (Score:5, Insightful)
...so long as you keep the little plague bearers quarantined away from me and mine.
Vaccines are science, if you think they are causing health issues use real science, not a personal feeling. This issue is MUCH bigger than a simple personal choice.
The media is also responsible (Score:5, Insightful)
And God will strike down the unbelievers... (Score:2, Insightful)
...and (today) God's name is MEASLES.
Poor fools listened to a man on a pulpit.
Re:Just goes to show... (Score:5, Insightful)
...that you shouldn't listen to people who have no idea what they're talking about.
How do I know that you know what you are talking about?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:cases are in people who refused vaccination ... (Score:5, Insightful)
and probably do not understand how nasty measles can be and what kind of lifelong disabilities it can leave you (deafness, meniere's, ...)
Re:Just goes to show... (Score:4, Insightful)
...that you shouldn't listen to people who have no idea what they're talking about.
Emotional solutions usually trump rational ones. A lot less energy required for thinking, and a lot more self-righteous feel-good dopamine rush.
Re:As usual. (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the oldest rules of survival - STUPID ANIMALS DIE!!!!
Only up to a point. Natural selection works both ways. Stupid animals may die because they make stupid mistakes. But smart animals may also be under a disadvantage because their more active brain consumes more energy, and the curiosity that comes with intelligence may get them in trouble. If wild animals, such as rats, are captured, selectively bred to improve their intelligence, and then released, they will regress to their original level. So you want to be smart, but not too smart.
This isn't a religion issue. (Score:2, Insightful)
Its a "lots of humans gathering in one place" issue. It could be tied to just about any place that happens. I'm sure your local sporting stadium contributes to the spread of disease on an ongoing basis.
Three ways ways deal with this issue:
1. Everyone becomes shut-ins that don't go anywhere, meet anyone, or do anything outside their little domiciles.
2. We wear hazmat suits when we walk around. Gloves and breathing masks at a minimum. And eating anything you don't bring with you from an inspected source is forbidden.
3. What we're doing now.
Re:As usual. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Correlation does not imply.. etc. etc."
To be perfectly frank, I think a lot of skeptics are too ready to stop there and just infer the rest.
That forgets that childhood poverty and subsequent poor educational environment are highly negatively correlated with IQ, while the distressing situation is highly correlated with forming a religious community and the comfort that can provide.
It's way too complicated at present to ascribe that to genetics. It stinks of the same easy answers religion is blamed for providing.
Re:As usual. (Score:5, Insightful)
I prefer to think of it as child abuse. And before you say it, no, there is no correlation between low intelligence and believing stupid things. Intelligent people are, in fact, quite adept at coming up with elaborate justifications for believing the most incredibly stupid things. So this is not just killing stupid kids.
Furthermore, it's not just the children of these deluded fools who are at risk. There are a lot of children who cannot get standard vaccines because of various allergies. Normally, these children are protected by herd immunity [wikipedia.org], but when enough people begin to refuse vaccinations based on stupid, insane, and utterly discredited theories, the herd immunity protection goes away.
Frankly, I think the anti-vaxxers are shouting fire in a crowded theatre, and should be treated accordingly.
Re:Please Explain (Score:2, Insightful)
Even if this is a troll, there are many who think this way, so:
Fabricated evidence should be ignored.
If the only evidence for global warming were fabricated, global warming should be considered unsubstantiated.
There is more evidence for global warming than that which was fabricated.
Similarly, if there were many legitimate studies which showed that vaccines caused autism, they should be paid attention to. There are not.
If one person fabricated data which showed that the Earth revolves around the Sun, would you stop believing in heliocentrism?
Re:As usual. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Please Explain (Score:5, Insightful)
Please provide a link to any reputable source claiming that Phil Jones admitted to falsifying data and deleting it to prevent peer review. I very seriously doubt that you can. I also very seriously doubt that you care, because you seem to have made up your mind already.
Re:As usual. (Score:5, Insightful)
I took him to mean that US customs or border enforcement or some such should have been keeping an eye out
No, they should be keeping an eye out for ebola - Not for diseases that citizens of no 'western' nation should ever get in the first place.
Re:Prominent figure reversing her incorrect opinio (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh please. This is a religion. They do everything to cover their asses. On one hand they may be running the vaccination clinics but on the other hand nobody is attending them, that seems like they continue preaching their idiotic viewpoints from the pulpit while legally and publicly covering their asses. All cults do it, Jehovah's Witnesses, Scientologists, ... They preach one thing within the rank and file and then publicly state the opposite.
Re:As usual. (Score:3, Insightful)
If a deliberately unvaccinated child dies as a result of his parent's "choice", when the advice came from the pulpit of the parent's church, should anyone be held responsible for manslaughter? Keep in mind these are the "it's a child, not a choice" people.
As the saying goes, "Life is sacred from the moment of conception until the moment of birth. After that you're on your own."
But I was wondering about liability too. If your child catches it but doesn't die, is this grounds for a lawsuit?
Re:As usual. (Score:5, Insightful)
Most importantly, herd immunity doesn't work if you socialize almost exclusively with a herd lacking that particular immunity.
Which, incidentally, makes this just the most sublimely satisfying bit of news I've heard all week - Idiots reject vaccination on assorted bogus grounds, trusting that their baby won't die of some horrible disease because our society has largely eradicated it (through vaccination, no less). Idiots then hang out with other idiots following the same flawed logic. Idiots thereby have their gene-pool chlorinated.
Sadly, not fast enough, and really, quite a pity that these things mostly affect the young, not-yet-brainwashed members of their community. But - if you'll pardon the pun - baby-steps in the right direction.
/ Now if we could just find a disease that prefers people who drive too slow in the left lane...
Re:Please Explain (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't need to even bother with any reputable source. The simple fact is this. If you want to beat an anti-vaxxer in an argument, simply give in to them. Admit every single thing they said is true.
Now, with that said. We are going to assume that measles causes 10 autism cases per 1000 kids. A 1% rate.
Measles alone, and JUST Measles, in a first world country, has a 0.3% mortality rate - http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/189/Supplement_1/S4.full [oxfordjournals.org]
Now we have 3 dead kids, against 10 autistic ones. This doesn't factor in the kids maimed and permanently blinded by complications of just measles.
Now throw in rubella, diphtheria, polio, smallpox, pertussis, hep b, influenza, mumps and chicken pox.
How are those 10 autistic kids looking against the pile of dead, blind and scarred kids.
Exactly. I can concede every single point to an anti-vaxxer and still show the outcome is better with vaccines.
Re:As usual. (Score:5, Insightful)
You understand how Customs works, right? By the time they allow you on "US soil", you've already spent ten hours with 100+ people packed into a flying sardine, landed somewhere inside the US, made your way from Terminal F to terminal D, spent 15 minutes mixing with a different group of 50 people on a rolling sardine can, spend another half hour packed in line with hundreds of people so some minor official can wave a blacklight over your passport with no clue why... And only then do they allow you to mingle with the far less densely-packed US public.
Somehow, I question the efficacy of bothering to send the one symptomatic visitor back, at that last point in a whole chain of weakest links.
Re:Just goes to show... (Score:5, Insightful)
You could start by refusing medical advice from a pastor...
Re:No they're not... (Score:5, Insightful)
If not, then . . . who cares?
People who can't get vaccinated for medical reasons, for instance because they're babies and too young to get the vaccine yet, or they have compromised immune systems (for one reason or another). People in these groups have to rely on otherwise healthy people to do the right thing and get vaccinated.
Re:As usual. (Score:5, Insightful)
. Granted, there's a lot of reasons he could pass through and it wouldn't be noticed, but I'd think there's some protection.
Apparently measles is not strictly on the list, if I'm reading this right.
There is some protection, its called vaccines, and pretty much the rest of the US population has taken them. So why bother?
Re:Just goes to show... (Score:3, Insightful)
In other words, it was a record of proven best practices of the time. The same was true of the Bible's social advice. And people have changed much less than our knowledge of medicine and hygiene. It amazes me how quick people are to reject the ways of living suggested by any major religion in favor of some idea that sounds good. These were not arbitrary codes of behavior, these were proven ways of keeping society working over time. That doesn't mean everything is right or that one could improve upon most of it, but there's good solid advice there that should not be lightly discarded.
vaccination should be mandatory, legally (Score:5, Insightful)
of course the morons will then WHARGARBBBL about fascism and tyranny, as if the only threat to life and liberty comes from the government, and not from the morons living around you
no one should have the "freedom" to kill children, whether theirs or their neighbor's. they might not realize that their beliefs are doing that. and you're certainly entitled to your beliefs, but you're not entitled to your own facts
when the issue is life and death, it's time to force the morons to stop killing children. if they can't be reasoned with, they need to be forced
scientific fact is not tyranny
Re:As usual. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's far less shocking when much of the rest of the world is no more enlightened than we are. Standards should be applied equally or not at all. Although some people just want to engage in mindless America bashing.
Re:Prominent figure reversing her incorrect opinio (Score:2, Insightful)
You respect her for deciding that avoiding lawsuits was more important than her supposed faith? She doesn't look stupid, she looks like the opportunist criminal she always was.
It wasn't her faith in God that made her believe the vaccines caused autism. It was her belief in a scientific research paper done by a doctor.
Re:cases are in people who refused vaccination ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly, over on Phil Plait's blog, an anti-vax commenter said "If by chance a death occurs... I personally would rather bear the dead than sustain the epidemic trend of life long chronic illnesses such as autism, asthma, diabetes, cancer." Yes, this person would rather see a child dead than have autism, diabetes, cancer, or ASTHMA!
Personally, my son is autistic (Asperger's Syndrome) and I know plenty of other parents of autistic kids (many with needs much greater than my own son). I know of NO parents who wish their kid was dead. I know a parent whose child has cancer (second or third time back - going to need a bone marrow transplant and even then it's not a guarantee) - I'm sure that they have NEVER wished their child was dead. I can't imagine ANY parent wishing their kid was dead (perhaps short some terminal illness where the kid has zero chance of recovery and is suffering greatly... and even then it's a "choosing between two evils" scenario). But this anti-vaxxer would rather see kids dead than risk the "horrors" of asthma.
One last point: I have Asperger's Syndrome as well so I was also personally offended by the implication that both my son and I were better off dead than autistic. I've done pretty well for myself and my son's future is quite bright. (The kid's a natural at math and computers. Scary good.) Even if vaccines DID cause autism (WHICH THEY DON'T), I'd rather have a hundred autistic kids than one child die of a vaccine preventable illness.
Re:Please Explain (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly. I can concede every single point to an anti-vaxxer and still show the outcome is better with vaccines.
The other angle to take is that with most people immunising, their position is relatively safe. They can protect their little darlings from the "horrors of immunisation", while the fact that the rest of us continue to immunise protects their little darlings from the disease itself. Seems like a fairly selfish position to take, and certainly doesn't scale.
Re:As usual. (Score:5, Insightful)
Don’t be dense. “Should” in this usage has nothing to do with “deserve.” Poster meant that citizens of any continent where a disease has been almost entirely eradicated shouldn’t get that disease, much as you shouldn’t be attacked by a crocodile in the Himalayas.
Re: As usual. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm also content in my beliefs of a deistic reality, as it does not contradict available data and satisfies the psychological need for purpose in life and the possibility of an afterlife. Blind faith is absurd, but on the other hand so is atheism; the premise being that if life is purposeless, why would one subject themselves to the trials and tribulations of life? As life is a death sentence right from the start, logic implies that one should end their life once they belief atheism as fact, however society correctly asserts that this is a mental defect because one can not know with absolute certainty that life is pointless. Belief in abrahamic religions is equally delusional, harm others, and should also be assumed to be a mental defect.
Atheism is just a lack of faith. Life is worth experiencing for it's own sake. Why would the enjoyment or purpose of life depend on the promise of an afterlife? And a promise dependant largely on which culture you were born into.