Editorial Boards v. Anti-Vaxxers

 In The Politics of Autism, I look at the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism.

Outbreaks of preventable diseases have given editorial boards an opening to debunk the autism-vaccine notion.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

People opt out of vaccinations for various reasons. Some, like President Donald Trump, fear vaccines cause autism (they don't, as now-Health and Human Services Secretary Ben Carson tried to explain to Trump during a 2016 campaign debate). Others worry about various ingredients found in some vaccines, like aluminum (none of these are dangerous). Another group protests on religious grounds.

It's tempting to say government shouldn't force people to get vaccines, and that people deserve the freedom to make their own choices about vaccines. But those who forgo vaccinations aren't just making choices for themselves; they're making choices for the vulnerable populations that rely on herd immunity.

Burlington Times-News:

 As it is with other immunizations, rumors and incorrect information about this and many other vaccines have spread across the country, especially on social media. One of the leading misinformed theories is that the vaccines can cause autism. The initial research was found to be fraudulent and subsequent testing has thoroughly debunked the claim. Yet it has taken on a life of its own, gaining adherents and causing outbreaks of illnesses that had nearly been eliminated.

Asheville Citizen-Times:

Even more disturbing are those who base their opposition to immunization on the quack science that has been making the rounds on the Internet. The most noted example is the claim of a link between the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine and autism.

That claim was made in a 1998 British paper so poorly done that it later was retracted by its publisher. At least 12 follow-up studies have shown no link whatsoever. Nevertheless, a lot of people continue to oppose the MMR vaccine based on the original study.

That is sad, but it shouldn’t be surprising given the growth of anti-science attitudes in our society. The idea of subjecting ideas to rigorous testing is rejected to favor of saying something and assuming it to be true.

Good News: Court Upholds California Vax Law Bad News: Chickenpox and Measles

 In The Politics of Autism, I look at the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism.

Helen Christophi at Courthouse News:

Dealing a blow to vaccine opponents, a California appellate court upheld a 2016 state law repealing the personal belief exemption to California’s immunization requirements for schoolchildren.

Four California parents and a California anti-vaccine group called A Voice for Choice, Inc. sued the state’s education department over the statute last year, claiming it violated their rights to due process, privacy, a public education and free exercise of religion under the California Constitution.

But in an unpublished opinion issued Tuesday, the Sacramento-based appellate court rejected each of their claims as unsupported by case law.

“Plaintiffs’ arguments are strong on hyperbole and scant on authority,” Associate Justice Ronald Robie wrote for the court’s three-judge panel, adding, “Plaintiffs’ failure to cite or even acknowledge the seminal cases (Abeel or Zucht) directly on point and counter to their argument in their opening brief violates counsel’s duty to the court.”

A release from Buncombe County, NC:

The varicella (chickenpox) outbreak at Asheville Waldorf School has grown to 36 students. Health officials continue to monitor the situation and strongly encourage everyone in the community to do their part to reduce the spread of this outbreak.

The best way to prevent becoming infected with chickenpox is to be fully immunized.

Chickenpox is easily passed from one person to another through the air by coughing or sneezing or through the fluid from a blister of a person who has chickenpox. Although it is usually not a serious illness, it often causes children and their parents to miss days at school and work. Most cases of chickenpox in healthy children are treated with bed rest, fluids, and fever control.

Deena Yellin at The North Jersey Record reports on a measles outbreak in the NY/NJ area:

The measles outbreak has continued to spread, with additional cases reported throughout New York and New Jersey. The majority of people infected with measles were not vaccinated, health officials said.

The largest outbreak is in Rockland County, which had 75 confirmed cases and 11 suspected cases as of Monday morning, the Rockland County Department of Health said.
New Jersey has 14 confirmed cases, with most of them in Lakewood in Ocean County, the New Jersey Department of Health reported.

And Brooklyn, New York, has 24 confirmed cases, the New York City Department of Health said.

Medical experts have called this the largest outbreak of the disease in decades, with measles reported in 26 states, including California, Florida, Nevada and Texas.

The illness has also been responsible for 33 deaths in EU countries in 2018, according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.

The recent outbreaks in New Jersey, Brooklyn and Rockland County are linked to people who traveled to Israel and returned with the infection. In Rockland County, the cases have spread beyond the Orthodox community, where they originated. Health officials say a mix of adults, teens and children have been affected.

Consequences of Vaccine Exemptions: Chickenpox and Measles

 In The Politics of Autism, I look at the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism.

Isaac Stanley-Becker at The Washington Post:

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.

Chickenpox spreads fast and can have very serious effects.

But not all parents seemed to grasp the gravity of the outbreak. Nor does everyone see the rationale behind vaccines, which some believe — contrary to scientific evidence — cause more severe health issues than they’re meant to cure. The claim of an autism risk, though it has been debunked, has remained a rallying cry of the anti-vaccine movement.

Antivax organizations such as Texans For Vaccine Choice are push exemptions for students in public schools, and they are also says that state-regulated day care centers should be subject to the same exemptions. An editorial in The Dallas Morning News says "That's madness."

Applying the personal exemption standard to child care facilities would be a dangerous road to take. The CDC recommends that children do not start to get vaccines for measles until they reach at least 12 months of age. Should parents have to risk their kids getting the measles at such a young age from older, unvaccinated children? We don’t believe so.

Texas was one of 25 states last year to report cases of the measles. Medical experts and researchers say that the continued growth in the number of parents not getting their children vaccinated is increasing the risk of a measles outbreak. One doctor said, “It is really not a question of whether these outbreaks will occur but when.”

We should be thankful that technology and medical advances managed to bring us out of the dark ages. It’s remarkable that in the early 1960s, measles cases numbered in the hundreds of thousands. By the early 1990s, measles practically vanished. Now, it’s slowly starting to make a comeback.

Texans For Vaccine Choice is only trying to make things worse, and their position that personal exemptions are allowed for child care facilities is something Texans cannot accept.