IT is time to end the tolerance of the anti-vaxxer community in the U.S. If these stupid, ignorant and irresponsible people want to risk the health of their children and themselves by not getting their children vaccinated that is legally (unfortunately) their right. They should not have the right to put the general public at risk. It is time to pass laws at every level of government that will allow the criminal and / or civil (financial) prosecution of anti-vaxxers for the cost to the public for outbreaks of diseases that could be prevented by vaccines and for the harm and deaths caused by their refusal to participate in vaccination programs. These articles from +Mother Jones .....
New data released by the CDC
on Thursday shows that 288 cases of measles have been reported in the
US since the beginning of the year—a higher number than those seen in
the first five months of any year since 1994. More than one in seven of
this year's cases resulted in hospitalization.
As assistant surgeon general Dr. Anne Schuchat explained, "The current increase in measles cases is being driven by unvaccinated people, primarily U.S. residents, who got measles in other countries, brought the virus back to the United States and spread to others in communities where many people are not vaccinated." Several of the cases occurred after US residents traveled to the Philippines, where there has been a measles outbreak since October 2013.
According to the CDC press release, "90 percent of all measles cases in the United States were in people who were not vaccinated or whose vaccination status was unknown. Among the U.S. residents who were not vaccinated, 85 percent were religious, philosophical or personal reasons."
The data adds fuel to the ongoing debate about vaccines: though research from around the world consistently shows that vaccines work, some doctors continue to support opting out of immunizations, and in some states, more than five percent of kindergartners have nonmedical vaccine exemptions.
Measles Cases in the US are at a 20-Year High. Thanks, Anti-Vaxxers.
| Thu May 29, 2014 9:07 PM EDT
As assistant surgeon general Dr. Anne Schuchat explained, "The current increase in measles cases is being driven by unvaccinated people, primarily U.S. residents, who got measles in other countries, brought the virus back to the United States and spread to others in communities where many people are not vaccinated." Several of the cases occurred after US residents traveled to the Philippines, where there has been a measles outbreak since October 2013.
According to the CDC press release, "90 percent of all measles cases in the United States were in people who were not vaccinated or whose vaccination status was unknown. Among the U.S. residents who were not vaccinated, 85 percent were religious, philosophical or personal reasons."
The data adds fuel to the ongoing debate about vaccines: though research from around the world consistently shows that vaccines work, some doctors continue to support opting out of immunizations, and in some states, more than five percent of kindergartners have nonmedical vaccine exemptions.
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Is she right?In some places, dodging your children's immunizations is as easy as checking a box.
| Mon Feb. 17, 2014 7:00 AM ESTIt's easy to find bad information about the safety of vaccines on the internet. That's, well, the internet. But what's scarier is that in many states, parents who buy into those myths can easily opt out of immunizing their children. In some cases, it's no harder than checking a box on a school form saying that vaccines are against their "personal beliefs."
In a 2012 study of vaccine exemption policies across the country, a team of researchers led by Saad Omer, a professor of public health at Emory University, found that of the 20 states that allowed personal-belief exemptions for enrollment in a public school or child care program, less than a third made it "difficult" to do so (for instance, by making parents reapply for one each year, explain their beliefs in writing, or get a notarized letter of approval from a health care provider). In the nine "easy" states identified in the study, the rules required only signing a form. Indeed, Omer suspects that some parents sign vaccine exemption forms not because they actually hold anti-vaccine beliefs, but simply because it's easier than juggling the doctors' appointments, missed work, and other inconveniences of getting kids vaccinated. (More about that here.)
Personal-belief exemptions aren't the only option available to vaccine-averse parents. Every state allows for medical exemptions for reasons such as an anaphylactic allergic response to a previous vaccine. Forty-eight states (all but West Virginia and Mississippi) allow exemptions on religious grounds. In many states, obtaining a religious exemption isn't any harder than getting a personal-belief exemption. But according to Omer, religious exemptions aren't as popular as personal-belief exemptions. He's found that opt-out rates in states that allow personal-belief exemptions are 2.5 times as high as rates in states that only permit religious exemptions. In one analysis he found that whooping cough rates in states with personal-belief exemptions are more than double those in states that allow only religious exemptions.
Unsurprisingly, Omer's research also shows that states that make it easy to get a nonmedical exemption see a corresponding dip in numbers of schoolchildren who get their shots. Rates of nonmedical exemptions in the "easy" states were 2.3 times higher than rates in states with difficult exemption policies. Not only that, but that rate is climbing faster in easy states than it is in difficult states.
Nonmedical vaccine exemptions are dangerous because they threaten what's known as "herd immunity:" Diseases simply can't spread in a community where a high enough percentage of the population is vaccinated against them. The required percentage of vaccinations to ensure herd immunity varies by disease; for pertussis (whooping cough), it's between 93 and 95 percent, according to Johns Hopkins University's Jessica Atwell, lead author of a study on pertussis and vaccines published last year in the journal Pediatrics. So if even a seemingly small number of kids across the state aren't getting their shots, the immunity rate of the entire community can drop below safe levels. When that happens, lots of people are put at risk: infants who are too young to get shots, children who haven't had their full series of shots yet, and those who can't get vaccinated for medical reasons such as pregnancy or immune-system problems. And, of course, the exempted, unvaccinated children are also at risk.Rates of nonmedical exemptions from school immunization, according to type of exemption and ease of obtaining one, 2006–2011 Saad Omer et al, New England Journal of Medicine
With a personal-belief exemption rate four times the national average, Marin County had the second-highest rate of whooping cough in the state of California.In California, the percentage of kindergartners who get their full set of shots has been dropping since 2008, while the rate of personal-belief exemptions jumped by nearly a percentage point in that time. Given that the national average exemption rate is 1.8 percent, that's a big increase. During a California outbreak of pertussis in 2010, more than 9,000 cases were reported, and 10 infants died. It was the worst outbreak of whooping cough in 60 years.
In the Pediatrics study, Atwell and her fellow researchers identified 39 geographic "clusters" across California—ranging in size from a few blocks to entire counties—where belief-driven opt-out rates are higher than the norm. The team found higher rates of whooping cough associated with these clusters. For example: Marin County, which had a personal-belief exemption rate of 7.8 percent in 2012—nearly four times the national average—has the second-highest rate of whooping cough in the whole state. These results support the findings of a 2006 study led by Emory's Omer, which found higher rates of pertussis in states that allowed personal-belief exemptions and had easy policies for doing so.
California is not the only state with high-exemption hotspots. On Vashon Island, Washington, 17 percent of kindergartners failed to receive their shots in 2013 due to a "personal/philosophical" exemption. That's nine times the current national average. The year before, Vashon Islanders accounted for 16 percent of all whooping cough cases in Washington's King County, despite housing just one percent of its population. And a 2008 study of exemption rates in Michigan found 23 clusters within the state, and, you guessed it, a correlation with higher rates of whooping cough. Even individual schools and churches can serve as ground zero: After a measles outbreak broke out in north Texas in 2012, the state epidemiologist linked it to a local megachurch whose pastor had spread anti-vaccine myths in the past.
After Washington made it harder to obtain a personal-belief exemption, the exemption rate dropped by 40 percent in just two years.Now, some states are rethinking the personal belief loophole. Reeling from the 2010 outbreak, California passed a law making it harder to get a personal-belief exemption. As of January 1, parents seeking a personal-belief exemption have to obtain the signature of an authorized health care provider. (Finding such a doctor may not be easy; recent studies show that more pediatricians are choosing to drop patients who refuse to vaccinate their children.)
But not all states that currently allow personal-belief exemptions are looking to tighten the rules for getting one. In a study released last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Omer and his colleagues surveyed the legislative landscape of vaccine exemptions, state by state. They found that of 36 bills introduced across the country last year, 31 sought to expand access to exemptions. While none of these passed, they far outweighed the number of restrictive bills; five were introduced, and three of these passed, in Washington, Vermont, and California.
There's evidence that tightening exemption laws makes a difference. After reaching an exemption rate of 7.6 percent in 2009, Washington state passed a law requiring parents to get a doctor's signature if they wanted to opt out of their children's vaccinations. In just two years, the exemption rate plummeted by more than 40 percent. Pertussis vaccination rates climbed to 92.4 percent in the past school year, representing "the highest pertussis vaccine completion rate for kindergartners since the state began to collect this data in the 2006-2007 school year," according to the Washington Department of Health.
Now Colorado wants to follow suit. The state is tied for ninth in the nation (with Maine) for the number of kindergartners who show up at school with vaccine exemptions—nearly 3,000 of Colorado kindergartners in the 2012-13 school year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. To get a personal belief exemption, parents need only fill out a single form. Recently, a task force led by the state health department released a set of recommendations for lowering the state's high opt-out rate. Among them: publicizing the percentage of immunized kids at every public school or child care center in the state.
Additional research by AJ Vicens and Eric Wuestewald.
Forget Jenny McCarthy. This shot scandal is much scarier.
| Mon May 27, 2013 6:00 AM EDTMuch ink has been spilled railing against vaccine skeptics—you know, those people who don't get their kids immunized against catastrophic childhood diseases because they believe the shots can cause autism and other serious problems. In a recent Parade magazine piece, reporter Seth Mnookin, author of The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear, pointed out that vaccine resisters tend to cluster in places "where parents are often focused on being environmentally conscious and paying close attention to every aspect of their children's development."
Journalist Megan McArdle, in a 2011 post for The Atlantic, opined: "We spent most of the last century trying to stamp out the infectious diseases that used to cripple and kill hundreds and thousands of people every year. Sometimes it seems like the bobo elites plan to spend the 21st century bringing them all back."
These "bobo elites" are fair targets, especially if you live somewhere like Marin County, California, whose schools granted "personal belief exemptions" to 7 percent of kindergartners in 2010—enough to compromise what epidemiologists call herd immunity. Some of these vaccine resisters refuse shots outright, while others opt for alternative vaccination schedules that delay and stagger shots. This increasingly popular system minimizes kids' exposure to supposedly harmful vaccine ingredients—but it also leaves them more vulnerable to outbreaks.
Yet the vaccine resisters and delayers are not the only parents whose kids miss out on shots. Far more children are undervaccinated for reasons unrelated to personal beliefs, according to a January 2013 study funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The study found that an astonishing 49 percent of toddlers born from 2004 through 2008 hadn't had all their shots by their second birthday, but only about 2 percent had parents who refused to have them vaccinated. They were missing shots for pretty mundane reasons—parents' work schedules, transportation problems, insurance hiccups. An earlier CDC study concluded that children in poor communities were more likely to miss their shots than those in wealthier neighborhoods, and while that may not be too surprising, it's still a dangerous pattern. "If you're going to delay one or two vaccines, it's not going to make a huge difference," says the new study's lead author, Jason Glanz, an epidemiologist at the Kaiser Permanente Colorado Institute for Health Research. "But you could also think of it like this: If a million kids delay their vaccines by a month, that's time during which a disease could spread."
That's no mere hypothetical. In 1990, for example, an outbreak of measles killed 89 kids in the United States—most of them from poor families who said they couldn't afford the vaccine. A 2008 outbreak in San Diego resulted in 12 cases, this time among kids whose parents had refused the vaccine—but authorities had to quarantine an additional 48 who were too young to be vaccinated. The episode cost taxpayers an estimated $10,376 per case.
Shannon Stokley, the acting associate director of science at the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told me that many parents simply need a reminder. "You have so many things to remember when you have a child, and vaccines can just slip your mind," she said. Indeed, sending out reminder texts has been shown to increase vaccination rates. Making shots convenient also helps. In response to a whooping cough outbreak last year, the state of Washington sought to get more teens and adults vaccinated. It plastered buses and billboards with ads; in some harder-hit counties, health departments sent out mobile inoculation units—if people couldn't make it to a clinic, health workers would bring the shots to them. Within a year of the campaign, the adult vaccination rate had doubled.
To be sure, access to vaccines has been improving nationwide. The federal government now offers free shots to children who aren't otherwise covered. But the program doesn't cover adult vaccines, most of which cost from $20 to $100, even for diseases that are easily passed from adults to kids, like whooping cough—which can kill infants.
Unfortunately, short of an outbreak, money for expanded access is hard to come by. "It took an epidemic to make our pertussis push possible," says Tim Church, a spokesman for Washington's health department. And while Obamacare will make vaccines cheaper, it won't ensure that people actually get their shots.
Because I live in Northern California, where whooping cough has been a problem among adults—those childhood shots don't last forever—I recently emailed my doctor to inquire about the adult pertussis vaccine. She invited me to drop in "anytime"—from 9 a.m. to noon or 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., right in the middle of the workday. I'm planning to go in eventually, but finding the time is going to be a hassle. Those undervaccinated people that everyone talks smack about? I guess now I'm one, too.
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