Those Anti-Vaxxers make me Sick! (actually DL related)

[hobie16]

A mom turned to a controversial ‘treatment’ for her daughter’s autism — feeding her bleach

Police arrested the 28-year-old mother on Saturday after she allegedly put drops of hydrochloric acid and water-purifying solution in her young daughter’s drinks. The potentially dangerous chemical combination, which becomes an industrial bleach, is marketed as Miracle Mineral Solution or Master Mineral Solution, which its advocates claim will cure a number of diseases, including autism, cancer, AIDS and hepatitis.

The Food and Drug Administration issued a warning in 2010 advising people using MMS to stop immediately and throw it away, citing side effects ranging from uncomfortable to life-threatening, according to the warning. But the MMS website calls it an “amazingly powerful compound” that has “stood the test of time because it works — & works well!” According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there is no medication that cures autism, a developmental disability that can cause noticeable social and behavioral challenges. There are medications, however, that can help manage the behaviors connected to autism, such as high energy levels, depression and seizures. Some supporters of autism’s neurodiversity movement are against curing the disability, believing it to be a natural human variation central to autistic people's identities.

... a Washington man was sentenced to more than four years in prison for selling the miracle cure through an Internet business called “Project GreenLife.” His instructions for the product explained that nausea, diarrhea and vomiting were all signs that the miracle solution was working, according to the Department of Justice.

[felinefan]

*shakes head* Shakespeare's Ariel (I think-- or maybe it was Puck) said it best:"Lord, what fools these mortals be!"

They canceled Mythbusters because they ran out of myths to bust, after a 10 year run. Think we should bring Jamie and Adam back to test these myths promoted by quacks? There is, in fact, a quite interesting website--with even more interesting links--called QuackWatch (www.quackwatch.com). Check it out when you have a few hours to spare. It's altogether amazing what people will do/believe in order to make their child "perfect".

[hobie16]

Vaccinations Drop in Europe, and the Result Was Over 21,000 Cases of Measles

[felinefan]

The Amish leave the decision to vaccinate or not to parents, and as a result they get polio--largely controlled in the rest of the U.S.--and other preventable diseases at higher than average rates.

[hobie16]

Chickenpox has taken hold of a school in North Carolina where many families claim religious exemption from vaccines.

[felinefan]

I don't understand how someone can claim to be religious and then say they're against vaccination. Okay, it was invented over 1500 years after the Biblical record was completed, but it falls under keeping your children protected; if you love your children, you do what it takes to prevent them from getting sick. Isolation was key to combating the spread of disease in Biblical times, and is still used today in certain circumstances. The religious exemption should be thrown out, and parents who insist on not vaccinating their kids should have their kids taken from them because they're not good parents.

[Zazu]

I'd settle for letting them build a tall wall around their property and never letting anyone out ever again. Let them and the bugs fight it out. Two problems solved with one tool!

[hobie16]

From the NY Times...

The World Health Organization has ranked vaccine hesitancy — the growing resistance to widely available lifesaving vaccines — as one of the top 10 health threats in the world for 2019. That news will not come as a surprise in New York City, where the worst measles outbreak in decades is now underway. Nor in California or Minnesota, where similar outbreaks unfolded in 2014 and 2017, respectively. Nor in Texas, where some 60,000 children remain wholly unvaccinated thanks in part to an aggressive anti-vaccine lobby.

Leading global health threats typically are caused by the plagues and perils of low-income countries — but vaccine hesitancy is as American as can be. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the percentage of children who are unvaccinated has quadrupled since 2001, even though the overall utilization of most vaccines remains high. More than 100,000 American infants and toddlers have received no vaccines whatsoever, and millions more have received only some crucial shots.

It’s no mystery how we got here. On the internet, anti-vaccine propaganda has outpaced pro-vaccine public health information. The anti-vaxxers, as they are colloquially known, have hundreds of websites promoting their message, a roster of tech- and media-savvy influencers and an aggressive political arm that includes at least a dozen political action committees. Defense against this onslaught has been meager. The C.D.C., the nation’s leading public health agency, has a website with accurate information, but no loud public voice. The United States Surgeon General’s office has been mum. So has the White House — and not just under the current administration. That leaves just a handful of academics who get bombarded with vitriol, including outright threats, every time they try to counter pseudoscience with fact.

Full article

[felinefan]

I wonder who or what is controlling all this misinformation. I mean really--exactly how many people became ill or died because of a vaccine--assuming it was the vaccine and not something else--compared to how many lives were saved? When I was in Pennsylvania, there were people who believed water fluoridation was poisonous. And Pennsylvanians place dental care at the bottom of their lists of priorities. It's disgusting to see teenagers with dentures, or teeth without enamel because they drink lots of sugary sodas. This despite the fact that the state of Pennsylvania has milk listed as the official state beverage. Once at work, someone saw me buying milk and said,"You drink milk?" Uh, yeah, that's what it's for, duh. I swear the average IQ of this country is slipping. I'm no conspiracy theorist, but it makes you wonder if someone/something is doing this to make us into obedient, brain-dead sheeple for their goals of world conquest. Anyone else feel this way?

[hobie16]

From the Washington Post...

A quickly escalating measles outbreak around Portland, Ore., has led health officials in nearby Clark County, Wash., to declare a public health emergency as they warn that people infected with the highly contagious virus have visited schools and churches, a dentist’s office, a Costco, an Ikea and an Amazon locker pickup station. Someone with measles was at Concourse D of the Portland International Airport on Jan. 7, the county’s public health department advised. An infected person attended a Portland Trail Blazers home game Jan. 11.

At the beginning of last week, there were only a handful of confirmed cases. On Friday, the day the emergency was declared, there were 19. By Sunday, that number had grown to 21. The latest update came Tuesday, when county officials said they had confirmed 23 cases and were investigating two more suspected cases. The vast majority of those who have fallen ill had not been immunized.

“Portland is a total train wreck when it comes to vaccine rates”

Full article