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Are you at risk to get the measles? Are your kids?
Duh, yes if you are not vaccinated!
Commuters on San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit system were exposed
to measles last week when an East Bay resident with the disease rode a BART
train to and from work in the city for three days. The measles is way more easy
to catch then Ebola. If someone has it and brings it on a subway, to a day care
center or to a train station, you could, if you are not vaccinated, get it.
Given these facts, why is it that so many parents all over the United States
have chosen not to vaccinate their children against the measles and other
infectious diseases? Measles was virtually wiped out in the United States years
ago thanks to vaccination. Now it is back. Why the growing rate of
nonvaccination?
The most popular explanation is that false claims linking the measles-mumpsrubella shot to autism are what have led many parents to stop getting their
children vaccinated. This explanation appears everywhere in the media and
even in the public health literature. This leads to the belief that if the phony
link between vaccination and autism could be broken, if we could just clear the
Internet of misinformation and slap a muzzle on celebrity proponents of antivaccine fear-mongering, such as Jenny McCarthy, Rob Schneider, Bill Maher
and Donald Trump, then the truth would get vaccination rates back up to
where they were in the good old days.
Maybe not.
The false claim that the vaccine for measles caused an increase in autism was
made in 1998 by a doctor writing in a distinguished British medical journal. So
Big Pharma is easy to hate. So if its members make vaccines, they must be bad.
Of course pharma also makes insulin and aspirin and cancer drugs and drugs
for many other awful diseases but forget that. I wish pharma and its
brethren in biotech would make more money from vaccines. That would mean
shifting its profit schemes to prevention from treatment. Right now it makes
about 3 percent of its money from vaccines. If it would push vaccines harder,
we would be healthier and it would be only a tiny bit poorer. Making money
from affordably priced vaccines is one of the most ethical things the industry
could do. If critics try to sell that as a plot, the correct answer is, sadly, it is still
only a dream.
Religious leaders and their organizations have been far too quiet about their
support for and endorsement of vaccination. All the public sees and hears is
that many people refuse vaccines on religious grounds. Really? Who? What
religion opposes vaccinations?
Hindu? No. Jehovah's Witness and Christian Scientist? Nope. Eastern
Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Amish, Anglican, Baptist, Mormon,
Congregational, Episcopalian, Lutheran, Methodist, Pentecostal, Presbyterian