The Scourge of Anti-Vaxxers

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Moms Across America, a virulently anti-vaccine organization.

MAAM claims that vaccines contain glyphosate and cause autism. There is no good reason to believe the former statement is true, and the latter has been disproven over and over again. The website also peddles all sorts of phony medicine, such as hemp oil (the benefits and risks of which medical science basically knows nothing) and magical detox potion (for the bargain price of $35.99!) that absurdly claims to "eliminate brain fog, improve memory, and... [d]etox from heavy metals and chemicals." (Hey FDA, where are you?)

Meanwhile, measles -- a vaccine preventable illness -- is ravaging Europe. The World Health Organization just reported that there have been nearly 90,000 cases of measles in Europe so far this year alone, which is up from 84,462 cases in 2018 and 5,273 in 2016. In other words, because of malevolent forces like MAAM, measles has surged well over 1600% in 3 years in Europe.

Source: NYT's Eric Lipton Defends Anti-Vaxxers As Measles Ravages Europe

While there are legitimate concerns about vaccinations (such as brain damage from secondary effects such as brain inflammation), those who promote hysteria or even stoop to profit making should be ashamed.

However, I suspect that massive health problems in Europe may have more to do with the invasion (welcomed or otherwise) of people from countries with less a established habit of health choices.

New York City’s biggest measles outbreak in nearly 30 years, which predominantly sickened ultra-Orthodox Jewish residents of Williamsburg and Borough Park, has ended.

Since the outbreak began in early October, 654 New York City residents got sick, 73 percent of whom were unvaccinated children. Fifty-two people were hospitalized and 16 of those people were admitted to intensive care units, according to the Health Department.

“The response to this outbreak has been nothing short of epic,” Barbot said, adding that 547 health department employees worked more than 1,000 hours. In total the response efforts cost the city more than $6 million.

Efforts to quash the outbreak were met by pushback from anti-vaccine activists at every turn, she said.

The height of the outbreak occurred in April, with nearly 200 cases. Those numbers began to decline in the following months, after the city declared a public health emergency. Immunization rates for children in affected neighborhoods jumped in that time, from 88 percent before the outbreak to now nearly 99 percent in Borough Park and from 67 percent to 95 percent in Williamsburg, officials said.

As part of the city’s emergency order, people who refused vaccination for themselves or their children could be fined $1,000. The city doled a total 232 of those summonses to parents for failing to get their children vaccinated, and about 29 have had to pay fines after an administrative hearing. Some of the cases are still pending and another 159 were canceled after the family either got their child vaccinated or showed proof of measles immunity from a blood test.

In the years leading up to this most recent outbreak, ultra-Orthodox areas saw a decrease in immunization rates, and a spike in religious exemptions, Gothamist and WNYC reported. The trend was largely fueled by misinformation about the supposed dangers of vaccines, spread by a handful of anti-vaccination activists within the Orthodox community who had ties to the national, secular anti-vaccine movement, and propagated their ideas with glossy hand-delivered pamphlets, robocalls, hotlines for fearful moms and massive symposiums with hundreds of attendees.

Source: NYC Declares End To Measles Outbreak, But Fight Against Anti-Vaxxers Continues

In 2015, California was the first state to repeal religious and personal belief exemptions after a measles outbreak at Disneyland; several other states, including New York in June, have followed suit. The 2015 law was initially a success — more kids entering schools were vaccinated. But since then, anti-vax parents and doctors have turned to medical exemptions, which have quadrupled.

Four years after California led the nation in rolling back religious exemptions for vaccines, lawmakers are pushing to tighten remaining medical exemptions after a handful of skeptic doctors helped anti-vax parents exploit a loophole that’s resulted in hundreds of schools no longer having immunity from dangerous diseases like measles.

On Friday, the bill, which would create oversight of the medical exemption process and allow investigation of exploitative doctors, faces its last committee hurdle before going to the full legislature for final votes. Gov. Gavin Newsom has said if passed, he’ll sign it into law, in spite of ferocious opposition from anti-vaccine parents and lobbying by celebrity skeptics including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Jessica Biel. Activists rallied on Wednesday at the California capitol in an event they called "The Last Stand," with other protesters also coordinating this week.

With their pathway to legally getting out of vaccines coming under threat, anti-vax parents have for months been mobilizing on social media. California has long been a center of the anti-vaccine movement in the US, with generations of hippies skipping shots in favor of alternative medicine, and Hollywood celebrities pushing false claims linking autism and vaccines into the mainstream. Outside of the state’s liberal strongholds, conservative anti-vaxxers have championed their beliefs as medical choice and balked against vaccine mandates as government overreach.

Source: California Is Considering The Strictest Vaccine Law In The Country After Anti-Vaxxers Gamed The System

Okay, I found the source of that bogus "Glyphosate Causes Autism" rumor, and it originated with -- you probably guessed it already -- either The Alliance for Natural Health (which perhaps should be renamed "The Alliance for Joe Mercola Followers and Other Assorted Screwballs", or Stephanie Seneff, a Senior Research Scientist at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (where does she come off with being a medical expert after playing with computers all day?).

Source: "Glyphosate Will Cause Half Of All Children To Be Autistic By 2025."

Leave those people. Don't waste time on them. They won't understand no matter how much you explain to them.

I do not believe that vaccinations cause autism.

However I do know a woman with 4 children. Three boys who were vaccinated and are autistic, and one who she chose not to vaccinate who appears to be neurotypucal.

This does seem to be more than a coincidence and I can see why their parents have come to blame the vaccine. They have also turned to unusual remedies and diets.

Correlation is not the same as causation.

Screw antivaxxers, they are as much a disease as the diseases the spread

I have a couple of anti-vaxx relatives that were downright mean to me. My cousin who has a classically autistic daughter and her mother (my aunt). My cousin and aunt told me to f-off before when discussing vaccines... Then there was the incident where I overheard my cousin telling my husband when discussing her daughter "the higher functioning ones like your wife can be very intelligent at least"

What they are saying is that I am a mutant and not in the good X-Men kind of way.

A protester was taken into custody at the California Statehouse in Sacramento on Friday evening after she allegedly threw a feminine hygiene device containing "what appeared to be blood" onto the floor of the state Senate from a public viewing area, splashing the liquid onto lawmakers working below.

The Senate chamber was evacuated and lawmakers finished their work in a committee room on the final day of the legislative session.

The disruption occurred as a group of protesters — many holding signs promoting “Medical Freedom” -- were permitted into the Senate chambers to overlook state Senate proceedings from the upstairs balcony. They had been demonstrating against a recently signed state measure intended to crack down on fraudulent medical exemptions for vaccinations.

Around 5:15 p.m., a woman in the group leaned over the railing and hurled the unidentified red liquid onto the unsuspecting lawmakers. Someone reportedly called out: “That’s for the dead babies.”

The Senate called a quick recess and law enforcement evacuated the chambers. A video posted to social media shows a woman, who walked out of the gallery into the hallway, saying, “My menstrual blood is all over the Senate floor… a representation of the blood of the dead babies,” before she is then handcuffed.

The incident comes after Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, signed controversial legislation into law this week that places restrictions on medical vaccine exemptions for children. State Sen. Richard Pan, a Democrat representing Sacramento, authored the bill. He was shoved by a protester last week outside the Capitol.

“This incident was incited by the violent rhetoric perpetuated by leaders of the antivaxx movement,”

Senate Bill 276 and SB 714 intend to increase oversight on California’s vaccine medical exemption system, according to the Sacramento Bee. Doctors in the state will be required to submit a form to the state Department of Public Health every time they issue a medical exemption. Public health officials will be alerted when doctors issue more than five exemptions a year and review each exemption case to evaluate if fraud is being committed. The system will also flag schools that fall below a 95 percent vaccination rate.

Source: California lawmakers splashed with 'what appeared to be blood' during anti-vaxxing protest at Statehouse

I don't waste my precious time on any of those twinkies. I'd rather have fun and enjoy life than fret about anti-vaxers.

Just like Climate change, Abortion and various issues, people have the right to believe in Vaccines or not. I do not see the big deal in Anti-vaxxers, they have the right to believe in vaccines or not. It is their body, their choice. It is their right to decide whether they want to have vaccines or not.