Measles outbreak rages after anti-vaccine groups target vulnerable community | Hacker News Reader

Measles outbreak rages after anti-vaccine groups target vulnerable community

arstechnica.com

87 pointsbluejekyll49 comments

I got the historical measles data from project tycho[1] a few years ago, and plotted by week. It looks like this outbreak is right on time: https://i.imgur.com/wVDvo43.png

The seasonality here is amazing.

[1] http://www.tycho.pitt.edu/data/level1.php

How can we combat woo-woo of this type on a local level? When I moved out to the bay area from Arkansas, I thought I would be escaping this type of garbage but it is still rampant out here. It just comes in a different form. Here the neighborhood health food stores have entire sections devoted to homepathic "medicines", and I see anti-vaxxer bumper stickers plastered all over town. Events like the "March for Science" that just happened are all good, but I worry that standing up for Science and "reason" is too general and abstract. How can local groups educate people to counteract these movements that have actual damaging effects on our communities? Are there organizations we can donate to that have this type of education as a primary goal?

In the South and midwest, magical thinking (ie church, religion and faith) is given more weight than rationality.

In those sort of areas, the pastors and most prominent families have the most influence over communities beliefs, generally.

In the Bay Area, social groups tend to form around work colleagues or hobbies. There are some churches, but they're not typically the center of Valley social universes.

Isn't there space for lawsuits - reckless endangerment, medical advice (harmful) without a licence, etc?

Or does first amendment override such cases and they can go on undeterred? After all, this is a case where this speech caused direct harm to particular individuals.

You cannot remove the burden to think for oneself from people. Fining people who give wrong advice sets a really dangerous precedent. What is wrong? Will we start fining climate change deniers? What about fining people who believe that certain antidepressants are dangerous? Etc.

EDIT: I wanna add to this that if you make things government-mandated and force it on people, you only give the conspiracy theorists more reason to be suspicious.

Simple. You endanger yourself - be my guest. You endanger others, you suffer. The key role of government is to represent community interest and not vaccinating your kids is very clearly endangering others.

Measles is one of the diseases that you only get once, then you're immune for the rest of your life. Some kids are killed by measles, which is why the vaccine is popular - it is difficult to predict which kids will have a difficult case of teh measles.

It's worse. Some kids can't be vaccinated for whatever reasons. They piggyback on others. If you take the herd immunity from their society, you put them in grave danger.

Plus, some outbreaks happen even in vaccinated communities. There aren't many people who are totally against vaccines. Most just recognize that hitting kids with the recommended onslaught of vaccines is associated with a higher percentage of kids suddenly mentally handicapped or dead or paralyzed. Vaccines are often beneficial, but they're not risk free.

The key role of government is to represent community interest and not vaccinating your kids is very clearly endangering others.

Why hasn't the government made it mandatory then (IMO it should be) ?

ok, lets get rid of the ohsa, epa, fda, building codes in general, traffic laws, etc... "you cannot remove the burden to think for oneself" is a stupidly simple response. people have a finite amount of decision making resources, and there are ways we can help... by enacting laws.

> What about fining people who believe that certain antidepressants are dangerous? Etc.

There is no controversy about SSRIs' ability to provoke suicide ideation in people who take these drugs.

http://ahrp.org/prozac-revisited-concerns-about-suicides-sur...

Commonly used psychiatric drugs are notorious for worsening patients' conditions.

Another clear example of someone who did not comprehend my point, writing a message in disagreement when in fact it is precisely what I meant. Sigh... Interacting with other humans is difficult.

People should eat read meat No, red meat is bad for you.

Which one should we sue? Slippery slope. In the end no one was forced anyone not to vaccinate the kids.

If vaccines are made mandatory then the state can fine/jail the parents and do them even if the parents chose not to

what? eating red meat doesn't put other people at risk.

OK, I could use another example or a hundred ones, but eating a lot of red meat can cost us money. At e minimum increases our insurance rates or we have to pick up the tab if they can't afford.

My point still stands. If it was so ironclad, it would illegal to refuse to vaccinate. Refuse to "care" about your child and you go to jail and lose the child Yet, you can refuse to vaccinate him/her and suffer no consequences. So you have a choice. If I tell you that you do not have to vaccinate, why should I be sued or jailed?

i honestly wonder if you are a troll paid to spread FUD, and drive societal wedges.

On HN driving societal wedges? I really don;t understand your comments at all.

Let's start fresh:

1. Vaccines apparently are not mandatory. You can vaccinate your child or not.

2. Someone that's telling parents not to vaccinate, shouldn't be going to jail, because he's not doing anything illegal (see point 1).

3. The state should make vaccines mandatory first, which IMO is the correct choice.

There's no FUD or anti-vaccine thing, simply saying that as long as vaccines are optional, people should not go to jail for saying don't vaccinate.

Actually, as it says in the current article: "The vaccine is very safe and effective, with two doses being 97 percent effective at preventing infection."

Unfortunately, while 97% sounds great, "effectiveness" must be considered in light of the infectiousness of the virus. In this case it appears measles may be so infectious (eg one infected child can sneeze and expose an entire school, so-called "superspreaders"), that vaccination will cause a "honeymoon period" that ends with a gigantic epidemic.[I discussed this earlier here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13656252]

Now we are pretty much stuck with measles vaccination, but I doubt the original program would have been begun if they had today's knowledge. Anyway, when/if this giant measles epidemic happens, that is where you should point your fingers.

I'd love if someone who disagrees would post why. The references are found in my earlier post (linked to above).

The honeymoon period, role of vaccine failure rate vs R0 value in epidemic generation, and herd immunity are all derived from the same general SIR models... So I don't see how you can reject what I am saying while still accepting the herd immunity concept (which is generally accepted).

Wakefield lost his license to practice medicine in the UK for his fraudulent "studies" and the academic papers submitted based on them. So he moved to the US.

I wonder if, though, he could be prosecuted for practicing medicine without a license. Certainly a foreign physician without a US license (or a licensed US physician in a state in which she is not licensed) would be subject to that.

As a non-physician (and non-former physician), if I tried propagandizing on this issue I think I'd be safe. But it's not the license that makes you a physician.

Who is profiting from anti-vaccination propaganda, and how? Are they just going for publicity? I know some actually believe it, but people like Wakefield need some sort of motive.

what's the point for all the hate? everybody who got the shot is safe. now you are running around screaming at ppl who didn't? how can one non-vaccinated person endanger vaccinated ppl?

They endanger the people for whom the vaccines are not effective (its not a 100% preventative), or people who have weakened immune systems / a medical condition and thus can't have the vaccine. The non-vaccinated person becomes an extra vector for spreading the disease amongst a population.

the theory is that vaccines train the immune system. so, it's not like the virus doesn't exist anymore but the body knows how to fight it. "weak" ppl are endangered anyway.

Vaccinated people are not effective carriers for the disease because their body is properly fighting it. Unlike an infected person.

Beyond herd immunity, which everyone should understand, there is the issue of kids not getting vaccinated due to parents choice. Is it ok for parents to deny medical care to a child due to superstition? When is it choice and when is it abuse?

Bottom line though the herd immunity issue means its not just your choice, now it affects me and mine as well, that crosses a bright line for me.

I have been thinking that probably most likely vaccines can appear to "cause" autism, but only if there is things like leaky gut.

some discussion from an earlier, local newspaper article https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14229989

Darwin awards would suffice here if this antivax crap didn't hurt others who were vaccinating properly as people are supposed to.

Could you please elaborate how someone not-vaxing who gets sick can hurt a vaxed person? I hear this argument some times but no-one was able to explain how this works.

Vaccines are not 100% effective. A small percentage of those vaccinated do not develop immunity.

What nokcha said, plus: Some people for legitimate health reasons can't get vaxxed, so they depend on others being immune (aka "herd immunity") to stay safe. That model only works if healthy kids get vaxxed

You can't get vaccinated before a certain age. If there are unvaccinated people around, spreading the disease, your child has a chance to catch it when they are still vulnerable.

This is a myth. The original reason babies are not vaccinated is that they are supposed to be already protected by maternal antibodies, and therefore the vaccine won't work.

Nowadays there is a new problem of people spreading the myth that vaccination is known to be dangerous to infants, so it is not politically acceptable to lower the vaccination age. This is even though we know the maternal antibodies of vaccinated mothers wear out sooner than those of earlier generations (who generated them in response to a full on infection).

I explained this a number of times in an earlier thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13655795

For example here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13656462

Does it really matter why an infant is not vaccinated in this discussion? Unless we immeduatly vaccinate everyone as soon as they leave the womb (unlikely / impossible) there will always be unvaccinated people.

>"Does it really matter why an infant is not vaccinated in this discussion?"

Yes, for two reasons:

1) It is not the vaccinated/unvaccinated state that determines whether someone is susceptible to measles. Instead, it is whether they have antibodies towards the virus. One reason to have antibodies towards the virus is vaccination, another would be having had a measles infection in the past, and the most important to us here is being recently (~1 yr) born from a mother that has antibodies. The newborns are already protected from measles, there is no reason to be concerned about exposing them to measles until the maternal antibodies wear off.

2) This myth is an obstacle to preventing the spread of measles because it is not possible to lower the vaccination age to account for the more quickly waning maternal antibodies generated by vaccinated (as opposed to previously infected) mothers. By repeating this myth you are helping to spread measles.

> "Unless we immeduatly vaccinate everyone as soon as they leave the womb (unlikely / impossible) there will always be unvaccinated people."

So what if the newborns are unvaccinated? They are already protected by the maternal antibodies. Further, even if you did vaccinate them, it would fail to elicit immunity because the maternal antibodies would just neutralize the vaccine. I feel like I am repeating myself here though...

Thanks for this thorough response.

The issue is 2-fold. First and most importantly is that there are people who either cannot get vaccinated for either medical or religious reasons and there are people with immune systems so weak that the vaccination serves little use protecting them. By having high vaccination rates, it serves as a buffer to protect these people by limiting their exposure to it.

The other side of the issue is that vaccinations do not guarantee immunity from a disease. Exposure to a disease puts anyone at risk but they are much less likely to get it if they are vaccinated but they still can get it none the less.

Even more importantly certain vaccines are given at certain ages. So if some anti-science parent doesn't vaccinate their brood and say, take their kid to the same play area as my kids, one of which isn't a year old yet, she's now got an exposure to something she can't be vaccinated for yet.

This is why having high vaccination rates are so important. There is a percentage who can't be vaccinated (age, health issues, whatever), there's an unknown percentage for whom the vaccination just didn't work, and then there's the wide circle of immunity formed around them by everyone else who is immune and up to date on those immunizations.

Please stop spreading this "cannot vaccinate due to age" myth. It is completely off-base. I explained more here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14282142

It's not really a myth if your pediatrician won't do it. And though I see the idea as valid, I'm not really going to fight against the vaccination schedule that every pediatrician wants to stick to.

What reason did the pediatrician give?

Have a look at the video in this article[1]. Not everyone can get vaccinated (for example, doing so would kill them due to allergies/born with some form of deficit or weak/missing immune system). These people rely on herd immunity.

[1] http://www.forjudeforeveryone.com/2017/02/22/how-herd-immuni...

> Could you please elaborate how someone not-vaxing who gets sick can hurt a vaxed person?

Because vaccines, while very effective, are less than perfectly effective. Vaccines have a first order effect of reducing the vaccinated person's chance of getting the disease when exposed, and a second order effect of reducing everyone else's chance of getting exposed.

As antivaxxers and MMS folks are irrational child-abusers, they should be investigated by CPS. Worse, antivaxxers put the community at risk by reducing herd immunity. Just like fluoride in water, there should be no exceptions for protective prophylaxis like vaccines. No exclusions for religious magical thinking or affluenza "conditions," only based on medical need where harm would be likely.

Have you ever read the list of side effects of a vaccine?

Do you understand how lists of side effects are created?

You understand the differential of risk right?

You've got a 1 in 10 million or so chance of serious adverse reaction to vaccination.

You've got a 1 in 10 chance of serious adverse reaction if you're exposed to the virus.

You're effectively saying something along the lines of "Do you know how dangerous motorcycle riding is?! We should play russian routlette instead!"

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