We May Be In a 'Post-Herd Immunity World', says Immunology Expert (theguardian.com) 244
Dr. Paul Offit, an expert on infectious disease and immunology, told the Guardian that "We're living in a post-herd-immunity world. I think the measles outbreak proves that. Measles — because it is the most contagious of the vaccine-preventable diseases, the most contagious human disease really — it is the first to come back."
Three large outbreaks in Canada, Mexico and the US now account for the overwhelming majority of roughly 2,300 measles cases across the World Health Organization's six-country Americas region, according to the health authority's update this week. Risk of measles is considered high in the Americas, and has grown 11-fold compared with 2024. Only slightly behind, data released earlier this week from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and WHO also noted that measles cases across Europe were up tenfold in 2024 compared to 2023. That data also indicated that the 2024 measles cases in Europe followed a seasonal pattern, which was not previously noted in 2021 through 2023. Of the European cases, which reportedly hit 35,212 for 2024, 87% were reported in Romania. The ECDC said the dip in vaccine rates has impacted the recent spike in measles, with only three countries, Hungary, Malta and Portugal, having coverage of 95% or more for both doses of the measles vaccine.
More like "post smart"... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because not vaccinating is simply one thing: dumb. And not vaccinating your childen is child abuse.
Yes, anything has risks. Not doing something alos has risks. The smart thing is to honestly and neutrally look at the data and then make a decision. Instead panicky, insight-less and idological approaches have replaced rationality. Pathetic.
Re:More like "post smart"... (Score:5, Interesting)
Because not vaccinating is simply one thing: dumb. And not vaccinating your childen is child abuse.
It's worse than that. It's abuse of an entire community of children.
Re:More like "post smart"... (Score:4, Insightful)
Vaccinations have risks and are widely marketed as such. Unless the kid was tested to know the precisely link between her vaccination (and even then it might be unknowable) and her health problems, this just anecdotal evidence..... and the poster might be some anti-vaxxer making shit up. Gee, they have never been known to do that.
Vaccination risks are backed by statistics and real data, not some anti-vaxxer insinuating something nefarious but unable to point to the precise reason, and this on a data point of 1.
Re:More like "post smart"... (Score:4, Interesting)
My mom, and her siblings, were part of the last group with smallpox vaccine scars. She, and her siblings, were also some of the first vaccinated against the scourge that was polio.
I brook no anti-vaxxers.
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Almost as if reporting on the health of the US isn't really their goal...
Are you serious?
https://abovethelaw.com/2018/0... [abovethelaw.com]
Re:This was addressed (Score:5, Insightful)
1. That's still bad since you cannot contain measles to your religious group.
2. Not yet but 800 is too many in 2025. "Well it didn't turn into an epidemic" is not a positive outcome.
3. Yes, for the same reasons; lack of inoculation. Why even say this? If there was a different cause of measles in Canada this might mean something.
4. See 3, unless you have a novel reason for a new measles outbreak this only makes the argument for vaccination stronger.
RFK has bad arguments because he has no facts on his side.
Obesity, diabetes and autism are not a viral infections. This is total deflection.
We can't actually talk about those things now becasue we are still debating *fucking vaccinations in 2025* with folks like yourself and RFK. If they can't accept the mountains of evidence for that I have negative amounts of faith they can approach an effective policy towards everything.
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Uh, the development of diabetes is actually linked with bad cases of COVID at this point.
https://health.clevelandclinic... [clevelandclinic.org]
"Within a year of recovering from a COVID-19 infection, people were about 40% more likely to develop diabetes"
Now, this is complex stuff, so it's always possible that people on the edge of developing diabetes are more vulnerable to getting sick from COVID, but COVID causing it is also possible at this point...
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Does that make diabetes a viral infection?
Mennonites not religiously opposed to vaccines (Score:5, Interesting)
Republicans have decided that the state should not be in the business of vaccinating children or even having an opinion about vaccinations. Instead they have determined that this should be an optional, for-profit enterprise paid for by parents. The fact that this result in lower compliance should be no surprise.
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The problem is that vaccination rates for children are still in decline. This means decades from now as these people grow up and older vaccinated people die off due to age we're going to have shit tons more people not vaccinated against many diseases then we do now so while this current outbreak is under control future ones will get harder and harder to control.
We can very easily see a greater problem on the horizon, meanwhile we have a Secretary of Health actively spreading vaccine misinformation like he a
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we have a Secretary of Health actively spreading vaccine misinformation like he actively wants us to go back to a world where it wasn't uncommon for children to die or become crippled from diseases like Polio.
People will wise up once enough unvaxxed kids die from disease.
If they don't, then natural selection will take care of them. You can only realistically be antivax if you're already vaccinated or are living in a society with herd immunity.
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"1) Most of the measles cases are in Texas, among their large Amish and Mennonite population. These people avoid vaccinations for religious reasons."
So for the same reasons as ALL populations in the US. All anti-vax is religious. Also, how were the measles outbreaks in these populations before?
"The US is apparently in good shape as far as measles go. "
Just not as good as it used to be.
"Yes, it's a concern, but not much of a concern and it isn't expected to become a problem."
Not expected to be by what auth
Re:This was addressed (Score:5, Informative)
Strangely silent? I'm assuming you're referring to MSN, not MSM.
Childhood obesity plagues NY. Will new bill targeting false, predatory food ads curb it? [msn.com]
Antibiotic exposure before age two linked to childhood obesity [msn.com]
This is stuff within the last week on childhood obesity. I trimmed some duplicates. Go further back, there's articles on India launching a fight against it.
On autism - I'm seeing articles on how it's commonly overlooked in girls, how the Scottish government is failing, having a 3 year waitlist for a non-verbal child to be assessed, a rock singer paid to have it done sooner, etc...
This Is The Evidence-Backed Reason Why Autism Rates Are Rising [msn.com], published 3 days ago.
But this increase doesn’t mean that autism is growing faster than what should be expected. Instead, experts explain that increased awareness, wider research, and clearer diagnostic criteria are likely responsible for the increase—along with adults who are receiving diagnoses later in life.
So they're saying it's not due to diagnosis method, but improved screening, IE more kids getting tested.
Childhood diabetes:
Childhood diabetes rates are rising globally. How does Europe compare? [msn.com]
Doesn't seem to be "strangely silent", but more a "steady stream of articles on the subjects"
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Of course it didn't turn into an epidemic. A large portion of the U.S. population was vaccinated against measles before the current nutzery about vaccines started spreading.
But that portion will be smaller and smaller as years of idiocy go by.
RFK has a long history of making poor decisions about health and pretty much everything else. Why would you want to follow his advice?
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There were several reasons to rename monkeypox, it wasn't some conspiracy to confuse people or "hide the truth." Quite the opposite. The name has resulted in people scared of contracting it killing monkeys, even though the disease seems to originate in squirrels. However, I will concede that "mpox" was not a particularly inspired rebranding.
Re: More like "post smart"... (Score:2)
All of those reasons were stupid.
Clear and unambiguous language to communicate scientific and technical information is not a nice-to-have. Renaming things because hurt feelings is a child's game that is directly opposite of the need to communicate clearly.
Un. Fucking. Serious.
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Unvaccinated illegal immigrants are not the cause of this latest outbreak. If this was an issue one truly cared about, freely offering vaccinations to all, regardless of status, would be the prudent and morally-right thing to do.
Meanwhile the measles outbreak is totally home-grown, nothing to do with immigration.
Glad to be of a secure generation (Score:2)
Since many years we can see the proof vaccination are for the vast majority of the population very safe, and, they add to our communal safety.
Cure for Stupid (Score:3)
Need some tough talk and perhap strict legislation (Score:5, Insightful)
I am tired of the vaccine conspiracy theorist disease deniers. It's a form of selfishness. Yes, there is always a risk with any medical procedure, and a vaccine is no exception. With a vaccine there is a tiny risk of an allergic or other reaction. It's very small, but non-zero. Vaccine refusers are basically saying that they refuse that risk and defer it onto everyone else. Drafting off of the idea that everyone else will assume the risk and the diseases won't progress to threaten them.
The unfortunate reality, is even those who get the vaccine still have a small chance of contracting the disease. So as the community of vaccine deniers grows, they are not only a risk to themselves but to everyone around them who may either not be fully immune, or who are too young to have received the vaccine.
When my youngest son was an infant, a woman in my (then) church contracted pertussis and passed it to him. She was an early vaccine denier ("THEY CAUSE AUTISM" was her cry from the rooftops). She was too old for pertussis to be a threat to her, and likely thought she just had a cough. But when my son contracted it, it was life threatening. He developed a sneeze, then a cough, then had trouble breathing, then his lips turned blue and that wheeze "whooping" cough started. We rushed him to hospital, but it was a rural one and they were unequipped for a newborn needing intensive care. They put him on oxygen then shipped him by ambulance to the next larger center. They still couldn't intubate him, but they did suction his lungs and then he was put on an air ambulance to a major center. That finally saved his life, but for four horus it was touch and go, with him getting just enough treatment at each stop to keep him going until the next.
Vaccine deniers make me angry. They need some tough talk, and perhaps strict legistlation. Namely:
- Call a spade a spade. A vaccine refuser is a danger to themself and others and offloads risk to others. In short they are shirking their public responsibility and are being selfish.
- Even if you don't subscribe to the view that they can be forced to receive vaccines, it is the absolute right of the rest of us to say "we just don't want to play with you". Vaccine refusers should be forced to be identifiable. They should then be barred from all public travel, barred from the public workplace, or in fact any public place where more than 10 people gather as being a danger to themself and others.
- De-insure them from all public health plans (I'd do this with smokers too, but that's another discussion). If a private company wants to insure them, that's fine, but they must be forced to identify that they are not vaccinated. And, yes, as part of the previous point, I would absolutely bar them from public hospitals.
- Or, just avoid all the trouble, and simply make them take their medicine like any good parent would do for a recalcitrant and temper-tantruming child.
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In my country (The Netherlands) there's always been a bunch of "Christian churches" that deny vaccination because it would be against the will of their God.
Luckily they stayed below the 5% threshold but although 'sex' is a banned word for them they do fuck like rabbits...
Now we also have (anti)social media and a bunch of generally uneducated Muslims and together they lower the herd immunity below the required 95% of vaccinations in the population.
Sad.
Re:Need some tough talk and perhap strict legislat (Score:5, Insightful)
What kills me is vax deniers claim to have "done their research" but seem oblivious to what life was like before vaccines. Pretty much every one of us would know someone who had died or had lasting side effects from diseases that we now have vaccines for. We really don't want to go back to the way things were before vaccines or we'd have shit tons more horrible stories like yours, many of which would end a lot worse.
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"For a website for supposedly intelligent people, it's amazing" we have users who purport superior intellect with posts like yours.
But elaborate for us, what things called vaccines arent actually vaccines? What approved vaccines arent actually "good"?
Re:Need some tough talk and perhap strict legislat (Score:4, Interesting)
What approved vaccines aren't actually "good"?
No matter what they say the answer is always "the ones that opposition towards furthers my political agenda"
Re:Need some tough talk and perhap strict legislat (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, we should have rigorous testing to prove that all proposed vaccines actually work and are broadly safe and provide more benefit than risk, and ban those that don't reach that standard.
Oh wait, we DO have that.
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We did have that. And then the Destruction of Governmental Effectiveness people went and laid off a big chunk of the staff at FDA and CDC and NIH, so now we won't have any new vaccines approved, because there is no staff to verify the results and approve them.
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It's not selfish in their mind, they are protecting their family from "wokeness". Too many actually believe dumbass anti-vax conspiracies. They are taught that gov't and subject matter experts are all bribed and/or part of a left-wing club, and that AM-radio pundits and prayer are the best source of truth.
The Age of Morons is Here!
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So your answer is to turn the tables and blame the victim. Your answer is to lock up every family with a newborn until, what... let's call it three months (two month plus the time for the vaccine to provide actual immunity) for DPT, or seven months for MMR. No, I think not. How about if we just sequester all you Typhoid Mary's who make yourselves menaces to society.
There will always be some who legitimately can't get vaccinated for actual (not ignorant) medical reasons, some who are too young to get vacc
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You are very, very wrong. Covid vaccinations saved lives and reduced the severity of cases.
There are many absolutely unequivocal studies that prove this.
Here's one: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cov... [umn.edu]
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And now you're just lying.
Trolling, or completely delusion? I really don't care.
I'm only responding so that if anyone else reads this thread, they will know that you are completely, totally full of shit.
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Equating people who want to protect their kids with holocaust deniers is pretty low.
First of all, drawing a parallel to holocaust denier because I used the word "denier" is repugnant and sophistry to the extreme. I said nothing about holocaust denying. I said what I meant.
Secondly, don't you dare equate denying children vaccination with protecting them. That is more repugnant than your holocaust misdirection and is nothing less than neglect. Any parent who refuses to vaccinate their children should be charged with neglect if their child contracts any vaccinatable disease. Parents have
where (Score:2)
Where was the reservoir of measles that initiated the outbreak?
Re:where (Score:4, Informative)
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Apparently you've never heard of international travel?
Basic Statistics needs to be tought in schools (Score:2)
I know it's not something i was exposed to myself till i went looking for it on my own in the middle of high school.
We'd have a lot less stupid people killing their children by misunderstanding the safety of vaccines if we taught them how to properly evaluate statistics young. Or at all.
Stupidity will do in humanity (Score:2, Insightful)
Measles outbreaks are completely preventable, at least in wealthy developed countries. There's absolutely no excuse for them to happen other than human stupidity.
And yes, there are some people who legitimately cannot take vaccines for medical reasons, and they rely on most other people being vaccinated for their protection. So not only are stupid people harming themselves and their kids, they're also harming other people.
And also yes, there are very occasionally serious side effects from vaccines. Th
Make Health Care Medieval Again (Score:2, Informative)
The new slogan for the US Dept of Health and Human Services. MHCMA. Not sure how well that will fit on a hat though.
Seriously though, have you seen the hhs.gov website? It has been turned into a propaganda platform. We live in scary times.
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Seriously though, have you seen the hhs.gov website? It has been turned into a propaganda platform. We live in scary times.
+1 Unsettling.
Let's hope so (Score:3, Insightful)
The planet is crowded enough with idiots. Having some of them die off because they're anti-science is a good thing.
This will probably be accelerated in the U.S. because of cuts made by anti-science [propublica.org] bear killer Kennedy. At a time when measles cases are soaring in Texas due to anti-vaccine Christians [apnews.com], he decided it would be a good time to pull funding [nbcnews.com] for free* measles vaccination clinics [npr.org].
* Free in the European sense that it's free to person because they paid for the vaccine with their taxes
Re:Let's hope so (Score:5, Insightful)
The planet is crowded enough with idiots. Having some of them die off because they're anti-science is a good thing.
The problem is idiots are not always the victims of their idiocy. As example:
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For children, all that means is the defective genes won't survive to pass on to another generation.
For the immune compromised, they can at least take precautions to minimize their risk.
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For children, all that means is the defective genes won't survive to pass on to another generation.
I see no evidence that vaccine denialism is correlated with genetics... or even intelligence. I think it's better characterized as a "memetic disease" than a genetic disease, as in a disease that is conveyed through memes (the information analogue of "genes", not pictures on the Internet). The vulnerable are those who have received and accepted a meme-complex of various conspiracy theories that all rest on skepticism of educated elites.
Children of anti-vaxxers are likely to get these memes from their par
Re: Let's hope so (Score:3)
So you're hoping kids die because of their parents?
I hear the IDF is hiring drone pilots for the following exciting opportunities:
Refugee tent bombing
Baby-seeking missile guidance
Food and aid interdiction
You've already impressed us with your personality, go get em, tiger! Those babies were coming right at us!
We need leaders, not rulers (Score:2)
Countries need leaders who are at least nominally concerned with the general welfare. That includes balancing rights against responsibilities.
You should not have the freedom to roam around as a virus reservoir, threatening your community. You should have the responsibility to be properly vaccinated for communal safety, and this responsibility should be encouraged with significant legal sanctions if you don't get it done.
I don't care if you're MAGA or Mennonite, I don't care how loudly you scream about you
One expert says so (Score:3)
Must be true. It's just a coincidence It's on the side of selling new vaccines.
One expert says we just need to vaccinate the vulnerable, its wrong to rely on just one expert.
Science!
Only works when survival of the fittest works. (Score:3)
Eventually we will have watered down our own species to a point that a major event wipes out over 90 percent of the population.
I am sure drugs will save us all though.
And yes, I have bad eyesight and was born C-section - I realize it sounds hypocritical, doesn't make it less true.
Re:No such thing.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Such a famous example you've never heard of it? (Score:3, Interesting)
You're just feeding a troll. At first I thought it was another case of Poe's Law or going for Funny, but the lack of citations gives it away. If it actually happened, then it would have become a famous case by now, not a meaningless bit of dribble on whatever Slashdot has devolved into.
Re:No such thing.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Decades of medically proven research proves vaccines save lives. When we give in to decisions based on emotion, fear, paranoia or pseudo-science, the results can lead to millions of deaths. Unfortunately, we no longer teach critical thinking and we as a planet will suffer the consequences.
Re: No such thing.... (Score:2)
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The underlying data that is not publicly available, could be doing a LOT MORE if it were open to scrutiny and statistical study by third parties.
The data is publicly available [hhs.gov]. It's just not all that statistically significant. The reports are all self-selecting; that is, many people who might have experienced an adverse effect do not report it, and many people who think they have experienced an adverse effect do report it, even though they're wrong about the cause. All VAERS does is gather reports. It's up to doctors and scientists to decide whether there is any validity to the reports. VAERS itself draws no conclusions.
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At some point cause and effect are stupidly obvious.
Re: No such thing.... (Score:2)
Both pf those vaccines are lnown to cause febrile seizures, and apparently if a child is genetically predisposed to epilepsy it can induce the onset (as can infection with the actual virus). Did they tell you any of this and just claim she would have gotten anyway or just blow you off?
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Technology can be used for good or evil. Generate electricity vs incinerate masses for example. The process of science remains the same. Deciding who gets life saving treatments, withholding or burying technologies that could forward humanity, copywriting new life saving drugs for the purpose of profit while the poor die, these speak to the heart of humanity. Not the behavior of scientists.
Re:No such thing.... (Score:5, Interesting)
The fact it started the night we brought her home after the boosters may be one indicator...(First Grand Mal Seizure that night, fever of 105, bald spot within days, then absence seizures started after that. More Gran Mals, pissing herself, turning blue, Etc... ) The fact that NONE of the doctors would speak to us about the DTAP being the possible cause, was another... The research that I have done into THOUSANDS of similar reactions, would be the third. Only one issue, without a doctor STATING that this was a possible cause, we cannot even seek compensation OR report it to VAERS... WAKE UP PEOPLE! I'VE LIVED THROUGH THIS NIGHTMARE! Personally! My Daughter lives with this to this DAY! (Last seizure caused her to get into a car accident on her bike and nearly killed her coming home from work. She is 25 now. Her stitches aren't even out yet... So, yeah, we are pretty freakin CERTAIN!)
You may be certain, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're right.
What your daughter is experiencing is a febrile seizure [nih.gov], which is a seizure that is triggered by a fever. The rate of these seizures increases by a factor of about 1.5 in the three days after the DPT shot. That doesn't mean that they are caused by the DPT shot, though. They're *triggered* by the DPT shot. A kid is either prone to having seizures during fevers or isn't.
Almost nobody who gets a febrile seizure ends up with epilepsy, though. Out of the 277 people in the study linked above who had febrile seizures, zero of them were the beginning of a history of epilepsy; either they already had a history of seizures before or they never developed it.
So although it's *possible* that your daughter is an incredibly rare exception, but it is orders of magnitude more likely that the epilepsy and the febrile seizure are unconnected, and that the lack of a prior seizure is a fluke.
That said, a temperature of 105 is considered a medical emergency, and fevers over 105 can cause neurological damage, so I can't definitively rule out the possibility that it was caused by the vaccine (or maybe by the vaccine happening to coincide timing-wise with some other illness, e.g. picking up some virus while at the hospital/clinic to get the vaccine).
There's also the remote possibility that the vaccine somehow triggered an autoimmune condition, and that this is the root cause of the seizures. The hair loss is also a red flag for an autoimmune condition. Has she been evaluated for autoimmune disorders?
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How would a vaccine or anything else cause a GENETIC seizure condition?
What mechanism do you imagine for it that is more likely than an unfortunate combination of recessive traits or a very unlucky spontaneous mutation?
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Unless there isn't any mechanism because that wasn't the cause of the problem.
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Our son had a febrile seizure one time when he was sick. One of the scariest moments we had in his younger years. He stopped convulsing while we were in the phone to 999 to call for an ambulance. No vaccine, but he was sick with a very high temperature. Some people have strong immune reactions to vaccines, which can cause a high temperature. So, I can see that a vaccine could cause a febrile convulsion. The chances of long term issues are low but better than the odds of what might happen if catching t
Re: No such thing.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Our son had a febrile seizure one time when he was sick. One of the scariest moments we had in his younger years. He stopped convulsing while we were in the phone to 999 to call for an ambulance. No vaccine, but he was sick with a very high temperature. Some people have strong immune reactions to vaccines, which can cause a high temperature. So, I can see that a vaccine could cause a febrile convulsion. The chances of long term issues are low but better than the odds of what might happen if catching the disease without immunity.
Yeah, and that's the bigger point. Without vaccination, if exposed to diphtheria, she would have a one in ten chance of dying. With vaccination, even if we assume that it was the actual cause of her condition, she had at most probably a one in a few hundred million chance of that happening.
Tetanus? More like one in five.
And pertussis has a low rate of death, but causes... well, a lifetime of seizures, for one.
That's the fun part of vaccination. In theory, any vaccine can cause the symptoms that the original infection can cause, just with vastly lower probability.
But the thing is, unless your odds of being exposed are vanishingly low for some reason, your odds of getting those permanent injuries are likely to be orders of magnitude lower from the vaccine than from the actual disease. So yes, you're taking a risk to save yourself from a much bigger risk. It's like wearing a seatbelt. There's a tiny chance that a seatbelt can kill you by causing the injuries that it is trying to prevent, or by keeping you stuck in a burning car. But you're still *individually* way less likely to die if you wear it.
And that's in addition to the collective benefits to society.
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You're also just fine to submit it yourself, you don't need to wait for the hospital. That's the point of VAERS - they take all reports of POTENTIAL adverse incidents. They make no judgement of what is actually attributable. If you want to troll more effectively, you're going to need to find an angle where you aren't clearly lying the seco
Re:No such thing.... (Score:4)
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I totally believe you!!!
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But the troll won (Score:2)
Interesting situation. Don't think you were going for Funny, though the trolling did get funny. (Not a Funny in the entire discussion?) However it would have been worth a Funny mod that your response was moderated troll.
Obviously a BS discussion, but I do wonder if it was a single troll or a couple of them working together.
He obviously isn't secretive about his anecdote, but if it was a real story then it would be famous and there would have been credible citations. (Okay, so I haven't looked at everything,
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Well, if the second part is true, it is a good revenge for your recent meddling in their elections on behalf of putin.
Re:Caused by (Score:5, Interesting)
if the second part is true
And it's not. Which one could guess by 1) absence of source and 2) use of racial slurs. The facts:
* Romania used to have excellent vaccination coverage (96%) because Caucescu encouraged it
* After the end of that regime, it stayed very high due to inertia
* When Romania joined the EU, many new vaccines were introduced, along with rumours leading to increasing distrust.
* As vaccination was never compulsory, rates fell to today 62%
* Antivax rumours are now widespread. As example, during COVID pandemic, the a broadcasted intervention of the Archbishop of Bucharest was needed to convince people to get vaccinated.
* Proposals to make vaccinations compulsory are in the hands of politicians, but none want to touch the subject because the public doesn't like the idea. It seems people join antivax as a means to "oppose the System", in a country much marked by strong political polarization.
* As contrast, other countries from the former Soviet bloc e.g. North Macedonia, Montenegro, have used popular sportsmen to promote vaccination, to much success.
Source: interview with Dr. Mihai Craiu, pediatrician at Carol Davila Medical University of Bucharest. (in French) https://www.lexpress.fr/scienc... [lexpress.fr]
Re:Show me the numbers (Score:4, Informative)
"Is that the case? I don't know, the article doesn't say."
Yes it does. 'Dr. Paul Offit, an expert on infectious disease and immunology, told the Guardian that "We're living in a post-herd-immunity world.'
You didn't invent the term, "post-herd-immunity" meant what it meant when that statement was made. The VERY FIRST THING that the summary says is exactly that.
"I doubt it, as it appears the Texas outbreak (largest in the US) remains concentrated in the particular community it started in."
So not only do you have reading comprehension issues, you like to make scientific assumptions. How large does a "community" have to be to meet your criteria?
"So it appears to me this is sensationalism..."
We all know you started with this conclusion, then tried to justify it.
"...we are not seeing the breakdown of herd immunity as a whole but rather a very large outbreak among a subpopulation that was never herd immune."
Add you your list of poorly defined concepts is "subpopulation". Is a living room a "subpopulation"? Is a continent a "subpopulation"? Playing games with terms doesn't get anyone anywhere. Herd immunity is a large scale characteristic, local outbreaks are not absolute proofs, that's why the expert said "I think the measles outbreak proves that." Try engaging in good faith for a change.
"...but so far I don't see evidence that there will be a return of endemic measle..."
And who are you, and why should anyone give a shit what your opinion is? You're clearly demonstrating bias.
"In the meantime, might want to avoid the outbreak areas if you have a not-yet-immunized child or some reason to believe immunization has failed."
Who, that's some real expertise on display. We're all really grateful for your expert advice.
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You think its all immigrants? What about all the anti-vax Karens returning from their vacations in some exotic parts of the world? Are you suggesting that we stop them all at the border? Because my manager doesn't want to put up with that kind of grief.
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Immigrants had nothing to do with this. It’s the mennonites https://www.texastribune.org/2... [texastribune.org]
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You know what they call an anti-vaxxer's 8 year old child? Old Timer.
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The entirety of the vaccine/autism theory was predicated on a fabricated lie by a doctor trying to sell his own vaccine version. It was fiction. This is not argued, it's well known. [youtube.com] The fact we have spent 20 years just wasting money trying to assuage people to this day makes that one of the costliest lies in history. The fact Andrew Wakefield won't die in a prison cell is an injustice to humanity.
If you don't believe me maybe let Jonathan Frakes tell you about that study [youtube.com]
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That can be true and everything I said can be true at the same time.
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Shouldn't we cross-reference vaccinations and autism
That has been done. Repeatedly.
Multiple studies have confirmed that there is absolutely no link.
This has an overview and links to many of the studies:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:measles autism (Score:4, Insightful)
Not only has that be done, repeatedly, my point is that was all done in response to a study that was bogus to begin with so we have done above and beyond at assuaging the fears of people who got roped into bad information and confirmation biases. Ungodly amounts of money and human effort went into that and yet here we are still asking for more, "ruling out" connections that never existed in the first place. That's the issue here, will the facts ever be enough for you or these folks?
"One more study then we're convinced" is not how you are operating a presume.
Just like the EDC you mention, there are stories here every week, huge amounts of effort is going into seeing if those changes exist. Can we not make everything a conspiracy?
Since big Pharma has no financial in carrying out such tests.
You're right, that's we have (or had) public science and medical funding, to fund studies that are important but that there isn't a profit motive to study.
I just... I just can't believe this line of argumentation: on the one hand we have corporate interests allowing medical problems to happen because of lack of financial incentive so the response of (I assume you) most of the vaccine skeptic community is to vote for people who promise to cut all the other funding and research. It's pants on head crazy. Almost like the science isn't actually at question here but the politics.
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