American anti-vaxxers quarantined after children contract measles in Costa Rica's first case for 13 years
The parents, both of whom are American citizens and have five more children, never vaccinated their kids for measles
Two American children who had not been vaccinated by their parents have fallen ill with
measles in Costa Rica, in the first case to originate in the country for 13 years.
The Ministry of Health announced that it tested four American children between the ages of three and 10, who displayed symptoms of the disease after being treated at a clinic in the Cóbano region. Two of them tested positive.
The parents, who are American citizens with five more children, never vaccinated their kids for measles.
The case is the first time an individual contracted the measles virus while residing in
Costa Rica since 2006.
On Thursday, Patronato Nacional de la Infancia (PANI), Costa Rica’s the child welfare agency, placed the family of 11 under tight quarantine in Cabuya de Cóbano to prevent them from spreading the virus.
It is suspected that the children contracted measles from an American woman who visited the family before leaving the island on 12 March.
Costa Rican officials said national surveillance protocol would be used to determine if additional actions need to be taken to prevent the spread of the virus.
“There will not be an epidemic of measles in our country,” Daniel Salas Peraza, the minister of health, told
Tico Times.
“But obviously, we don’t want any child to suffer from measles or face the complications measles can cause.”
The Health Ministry believes there is no relationship between the four suspected cases and the French family that
reintroduced measles to Costa Rica last month. Those cases, Costa Rica’s first since 2014, also involved an unvaccinated child.
It is investigating whether the infected American children came in contact with any other individuals. They have not attended school in Costa Rica.
Patricia Vega, PANI executive president, said the child welfare agency has the authority to force vaccination on the children if they believe the children’s rights to health and education are at risk.
“We have already pronounced on our power to force the children to be vaccinated. In this case, what we ordered was that the local office initiate a special protection process, which means that the PANI will visit the family to assess if there are any violation of the rights of the children; in this case, health and education,” Ms Vega told
Q Costa Rica.
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/american-anti-vaxxers-costa-rica-child-measles-13-years-a8836816.html
Startling evidence on measles cases should spur us towards hardline action against anti-vaxxer parents
A responsible government would be considering sanctions for parents who choose to deny their children vaccinations
If you were to leave a one-year-old unattended in the home for any length of time and social services found out, the chances are they’d be on you like a fired up NFL defensive end in pursuit of a quarterback.
Nor would anyone argue if you were left gasping for breath on the turf afterwards.
But if you avoid getting the same child vaccinated against potentially lethal diseases, the worst you might have to put up with is a talking to from your harassed and overworked GP
who really ought to be focusing on better things than dealing with an irresponsible fool of a parent.
But which is the bigger risk? I’d argue the second, and it’s not even close.
Skipping
vaccinations means you’re not only exposing your child to potentially life-threatening diseases that can have very nasty consequences for those lucky enough to survive them.
You’re also putting every child your little darling comes into contact with at risk, as the growing number of outbreaks of
measles, a disease that ought to have been all but consigned to the history books by now, proves.
Vaccination is safe and effective.
The only people arguing against it are quacks, charlatans and people who think X Files scripts are based on real-life events.
And it’s free too.
Despite this, more than half a million kids missed their measles jabs between 2010 and 2017.
Those figures are from Unicef, the charity.
When it comes to developed nations they put the UK in a dismal third place behind only the US and France.
Simon Stevens, the head of NHS England, described the figures as a
“growing public health time bomb” and he’s not over-egging it.
To work properly, vaccination relies upon mass take up so as to confer “herd immunity” on populations.
This is necessary to protect those who might otherwise still be at risk after their jabs. I’m talking here about people with compromised immune systems.
Get too many people listening to quacks, charlatans and people who think X Files scripts are based on real-life events, and the system that protects us from a host of invisible microbial killers starts to break down.
So how to address the issue?
I find being on the same side as health secretary Matt Hancock to be anathema.
Yet his call for new laws to force social media companies to cease promoting false information about vaccines is well made.
Pages devoted to the ludicrous anti-vaxx movement lock members into a destructive ecosystem that fortifies and validates their fantasies and draws others in. They spread misinformation and lies like, well, a disease.
He might also have taken a shot at broadcasters.
Both the BBC and ITV have been guilty of featuring anti-vaxx “activists” on their programs.
In so doing, they confer a false legitimacy upon their “opinions” that are in fact – and I mean fact – nothing more than dangerous fantasies.
There is no debate to be had here.
Those same broadcasters would not, for example, feature someone claiming that it’s safe to jump off a tall building without a parachute and pointing to false research to back up their claims.
Yet if anti-vaxxers are shouty enough to make good TV, they get invited into the studio and onto the sofa.
It has to stop!!!
But it should go further than that.
This is where we can and should call Hancock out because while social media companies, and media companies in general, have caused a great deal of damage through their indulgence of fruit loop anti-vaxxers, it’s too easy just to put the responsibility for dealing with this problem on to them. It was there before they helped it to metastasise it.
A responsible government (yes, I know what you’re going to say about this one) should be considering further steps to address the problem up to and including s
anctioning the parents who choose to deny their children vaccinations.
To my mind they are guilty not just of abusing their own children, they are also guilty of abusing other people’s.
We wouldn’t tolerate that in any other circumstances.
We wouldn’t allow a parent to leave their child at risk by leaving them unsupervised at a young age.
We shouldn’t allow anti-vaxxers to hurt their kids and ours.
www.independent.co.uk/voices/measles-outbreak-cases-anti-vaxxers-children-vaccine-autism-conspiracy-a8885936.html
Politician who opposes mandatory chickenpox vaccinations contracts chickenpox
Senior member of ruling League party branded previous government ‘Stalinist’ over mandatory chickenpox immunisation programme - but insists he is in favour of vaccines did have his children vaccinated
A senior member of
Matteo Salvini’s far-right League party who is an outspoken critic of
Italy’s mandatory vaccination rules has been treated in hospital after contracting chickenpox.
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/italy-vaccination-chickenpox-anti-vax-massimiliano-fedriga-salvini-a8829926.html
MMR vaccine does not cause autism, study of over 650,000 children finds
Experts hope new study will help inform 'fact-resistant world'
A huge new study has become the latest research to confirm the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine does not cause
autism, despite continued warnings by anti-vaccination advocates.
Data from more than 650,000 children showed there was no link between the MMR jab and the developmental problem, which affects how people communicate and interact.
The findings by a Danish team were intended to reassure the growing number of people making the unfounded link between
vaccines and conditions including autism.
They come after a 30 per cent rise in the number of measles cases being reported, which the World Health Organisation
has attributed in part to parents shunning vaccines.
Alongside pandemics, climate change and HIV, WHO listed so-called “anti-vax” ideas as one of the biggest threats to global health in 2019.
www.independent.co.uk/news/health/mmr-vaccine-autism-antivax-measles-study-andrew-wakefield-a8808086.html
The anti-vaxx movement has reached peak stupidity – more than half of US parents believe immunisation causes the flu
I’ve been called a sheep and ridiculed by anti-vaxxers for putting my children’s health in the hands of doctors instead of crystals and herbs
Every winter, there is one issue that polarises opinion, particularly among parents – is the
flu jab a good idea?
No matter where I hear this issue being discussed, the same argument comes up over the false belief that getting the vaccine will give you
flu.
Researchers in the United States found more than half of parents believed their child could get flu from being immunised against it. And although this study was released weeks ago, it is still dominating online discussions into 2019.
Let’s be clear, this is absolute nonsense – there are no active viruses in the vaccine.
But the growing anti-vaxx movement is encouraging more people to buy into the idea that immunising the most vulnerable members of our society against potentially deadly diseases is a conspiracy by money-making pharmaceutical companies.
www.independent.co.uk/voices/anti-vaxxers-flu-jab-children-health-doctors-vaccination-immunisation-medicine-a8709421.html
Anti-vaxxers linked to spread of measles outbreak in US
Doctors fighting to contain disease as dozens of cases identified in county where only 78 per cent of people are vaccinated
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/measles-outbreak-orgeon-portland-washington-anti-vaxxers-health-clark-county-a8751576.html
Anti-vaccination campaign’s advert banned for claiming all vaccines can kill children
Advertising watchdog bans Facebook post targeted at parents containing image of 'dead baby'
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/anti-vaccination-antivaxxers-uk-advert-banned-facebook-post-vaccines-kill-babies-a8620831.html
I'm deafblind because my mother didn't get the rubella jab – now anti-vaxxers on social media are putting countless children at risk
Half of all parents have been exposed to negative messages about vaccinations, causing them to make dangeous decisions which could have tragic consequences
My name is Emma Blackmore and I’m deafblind. My condition is a result of being born with congenital rubella syndrome (CRS).
I contracted rubella though my mother, who had been exposed to German
measles during pregnancy. When she discovered she was pregnant, being of a young age and frightened of the response of those around her, she didn’t tell anyone or receive medical support. Because of this she didn’t receive the rubella vaccination and now I live with a range of complex health and medical needs.
Fast forward 31 years, and I’m now married. I work in Woodside, Bristol, at a day service which supports families and children with complex disabilities, run by the national
disability charity
Sense. I’m supported by
Access to Work and I love my job because it allows me to help people, which has always been my ambition.
I’m happy, but my condition has caused me and my family a lot of pain over the years, and I sometimes think about what things would be like if my mother had been vaccinated and I hadn’t been born with CRS.
It’s why I felt so upset this week reading a new
report published by Royal Society for Public Health. It reveals the extent to which false information about the vaccination safety was “breeding” on social media and fuelling parents’ fears about side effects, leading to reduced vaccination rates.
For many it will come as no surprise to learn that fake news is rife online, but there are few instances where misinformation is so harmful.
The report contains the findings of surveys of nearly 5,000 people across the UK on their awareness and attitudes towards vaccines, such as
MMR, the flu jab and HPV. It includes contributions from 2,600 parents, 2,000 other adults and more than 200 healthcare professionals, such as nurses, pharmacists and GPs.
It found that one in two parents had been exposed to negative messages about vaccinations, and that a fear of side effects was the number one reason why people failed to vaccinate themselves or their children.
On the whole, the report found parents’ attitudes to vaccines were largely positive, with 90 per cent getting their children vaccinated routinely. But roughly one in 10 parents surveyed said they had chosen not to give their child the MMR jab, which protects against measles, mumps and rubella. The main reason given was concerns over side effects.
At the same time we have seen a drop in some vaccinations in England, and a record-breaking measles outbreak that caused hundreds of infections in the UK and tens of thousands across Europe.
Put simply, the spread of misinformation about vaccine safety has seen a reduction in the number of people taking vaccinations, and this in turn poses a great risk to the public’s health.
We are all influenced by headlines in newspapers and online, and it can take a long time to change people’s perceptions.
It’s why I feel we must tackle the problem now, and put pressure on technology companies such as Facebook and Twitter to manage content more responsibly, so that reliable health sources are prioritised.
I also think we must do more to raise awareness of the effects of illness such as measles, mumps and rubella. If there was more information out there about what a vaccination prevents, and the impact that illness can have on a child’s life, I feel vaccination numbers would go up. Ultimately, it’s the mother’s responsibility to choose whether to vaccinate or not, and we must say to them:
“I know you may have concerns about what a vaccine can cause, but please also look into what it can prevent before making a decision.”
I fear that there are parents out there right now, some vulnerable, feeling scared and alone like my mother, who will act as a result of receiving the wrong information, and they, and their children, will have to live with the consequences.
www.independent.co.uk/voices/vaccination-mmr-anti-vaxxers-disability-deafblind-pregnancy-children-fake-news-a8747936.html
Who is Andrew Wakefield and what did the disgraced MMR doctor do?
What part did his, now retracted, 1998 study on the link between autism and vaccines play on measles outbreaks and the modern anti-vaccination movement?
Who is Andrew Wakefield?
Andrew Wakefield is a former British doctor and researcher, who birthed the modern anti-vaccination movement with widely discredited research, since withdrawn by
The Lancet medical journal and renounced by its co-authors.
He received his medical degree in 1985 and trained as a gastrointestinal surgeon with an interest in inflammatory bowel disease.
But his licence to practise was revoked and he was erased from the medical register in 2010 after the UK’s General Medical Council
found him guilty of dishonesty, the "abuse" of developmentally delayed children by giving them unnecessary and invasive medical procedures, and acting without ethical approval for his research.
Two of his co-authors, Professors John Walker-Smith and Simon Murch were also found guilty by the panel.
What he did?
In 1995 Wakefield claims he was approached by parents of an autistic child with stomach issues. He then encountered other families in a similar position who claim their child had first shown signs of the developmental disabilities after receiving the childhood immunisation for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR).
The three-in-one jab had been introduced in 1988, replacing the single jabs for each disease that had been given previously, two forms of the MMR jab were withdrawn in 1992 after signs they caused mild mumps meningitis.
Wakefield and 12 co-authors published research in
The Lancet in 1998, based on the cases of 12 patients, which proposed a link between the MMR jab and autism and bowel disease.
At a press conference for the paper’s release Wakefield called for the return to three single jabs.
What happened next?
Mistrust of vaccines was stoked by campaigns in the
Daily Mail and other papers backing Wakefield, the absence of other scientific voices challenging the link, and PR gaffes like UK prime minister Tony Blair refusing to comment on claims his son, Leo,
had not received the vaccine.
MMR vaccination rates in the UK collapsed from above 90 per cent to 79 per cent in January 2003.
In 1987, the year before the MMR jab was introduced, there were 86,000 cases reported.
In 2006 a 13-year-old boy from Manchester became the first UK death from measles for 14 years, and that year in England and Wales there were more than 450 measles cases, the
highest levels for 20 years.
Another measles outbreak in south Wales in 2013 infected more than 1,000 people, mainly children, and led to the
emergency distribution of 50,000 MMR vaccines to prevent the disease spreading.
Why did the view of him change?
In 2004 a
Sunday Times journalist, Brian Deer,
published an investigation into Wakefield’s undisclosed financial interests.
It alleged many of the families in his case study were part of legal action against the MMR jab manufacturer, and he had been funded by the solicitors for these cases to provide evidence in support.
In the wake of the revelations 10 of the co-authors of
The Lancet paper withdrew their support for the interpretation section, which was the area that had claimed a link with autism.
In 2007 the GMC opened its investigation into the allegations of serious professional misconduct against Wakefield and two co-authors, which would eventually lead to him being struck off.
Twelve years on from the original study, and a month before the GMC panel found Dr Wakefield guilty
The Lancet withdrew its paper, with editor Richard Horton describing aspects of it as
“utterly false” and saying he “felt deceived”.
What is stoking these fears now?
Wakefield moved to America where he has become a documentary producer and campaigner on the issue.
He points to a rise in autism diagnosis since the jab was introduced, however critics say this has also coincided with more awareness of disorders like autism, which is playing into higher diagnosis rates.
Concerned parents and interest groups are major propagators of myths about vaccines, and these can spread rapidly online and has transcended even Wakefield’s original concerns, extending to issues like
“canine autism” in vaccinated pets.
Much of the concern lies in theories about the ingredients of the vaccines themselves.
Mercury?
The bulk of any vaccine will be water and other ingredients are often found in the body in varying amounts already.
The British Immunology Society (BIS) told
The Independent that mercury (thiomersal), an often worried about ingredient, is no longer used in UK vaccines. However extensive research has failed to find any link with brain damage in children.
Aluminium?
Another common ingredient, is added to vaccines to increase the response of the body’s immune system to the inactivated virus.
However the BIS adds that Aluminium is, again, only a trace amount at a level much lower than safe amounts in breast milk, formula and foods.
The triple jab itself?
Some parents fear that the combined effect of all three can overload the immune system and affect brain development. But the BIS stresses the immune system comes into contact with thousands of bacteria and viruses each day with no ill effect. A major study, of 500,000 infants followed up over 12 years found no risk of extra infection risk from the multiple versus single jabs.
So what causes autism?
The National Autistic Society in the UK says this picture is still complex. Autism is a spectrum of developmental disorders and people can have huge variety in how they’re affected.
Fundamentally autism affects how someone interacts with other people and their environment.
It is driven by a mix of genetic and environmental factors, which can include medications, which affect the development of the brain.
However there has been no reputable evidence to link autism to the MMR jab and at least 17 major trials have looked at Wakefield’s findings and found no effect.
There are drugs which can cause autism and autism like disorders. For example, sodium valproate antidepressants and anti-epileptic medicines were recently
banned in the UK for all women who have the potential to get pregnant, and the European Union is also reviewing its use.
If taken in pregnancy four in 10 children is born with some form of developmental disability and one in 10 with a serious physical deformity, such as spina bifida.
www.independent.co.uk/news/health/andrew-wakefield-who-is-mmr-doctor-anti-vaccine-anti-vaxxer-us-a8328326.html
My children are vaccinated – but I still don’t want them playing with Jessica Biel’s kids
They’ve had their jabs, so they’ll be fine. I’m more worried that her stupidity would somehow wear off on them
So, is Biel an anti-vaxxer or isn’t she?
Well, let’s look at the facts.
1. Biel’s own son is unvaccinated.
2. The bill she’s opposing, SB 276, intends to stop families claiming medical exemptions to vaccines without sign-off from a state-approved doctor.
3. According to someone in her meeting with the California state assembly,
she called vaccines “dangerous and ineffective”.
Whether Jessica Biel identifies as pro-vaxx, anti-vaxx or Schrodinger’s Anti-Vaxxer – somehow both pro- and anti-vaxx simultaneously – she’s dangerous. Because, like Jim Carrey, Jenny McCarthy and
Donald Trump, she’s using her wide-reaching platform to advocate against vaccinating children. Which, according to leading medical experts, is actually damaging on a global scale.
Cases of measles in unvaccinated children are
rising across the world. I have small children, and every couple of weeks I see new measles notices in schools, nurseries and GP surgeries. The UK saw a 400 per cent rise in measles reports between 2017 and 2018.
Meanwhile, UK vaccination rates (87.2 per cent) are now well below the figure deemed sufficient by the World Health Organisation to protect a population against disease (95 per cent).
The World Health Organisation lists “vaccine hesitancy” as
a major health threat to humanity.
Blaming “vaccination deniers”,
the NHS is considering making vaccinations compulsory for primary school-aged children. And, following a recent study that suggests
measles outbreaks could double in the next few years, scientists have laid the blame solidly with “misleading campaigns claiming vaccinations are dangerous”.
And this is what celebrities like Biel are claiming – that vaccines contain harmful toxins, and cause autism, and that “natural immunity” is the healthier choice. This may sound reasonable to anyone who may not have all the facts but (quite understandably) probably doesn’t want to risk their kid getting mercury poisoning from an injection they don’t even need.
That there is
zero evidence to support
their claims (
natural immunity, outside of the maternal immunity that protects babies up to four months old, doesn’t really even exist) almost adds fuel to believers’ fires of fervour. Mention research and they rant about conspiracies and “big pharma”. And all the actual science around
herd immunity and how it protects us from disease – which is how more vaccinations provide better protection for all – gets lost in the noise.
It seems it is stupidity, and the availability of this stupidity, that is making our kids ill.
The thing is, it’s making anti-vaxxers’ kids ill, too.
Of the increased cases of measles in the UK, most of them were among unvaccinated children.
And many required hospital treatment.
By lobbying against California’s vaccine bill, Jessica Biel is risking
her own family’s health. As Leah Russin from Vaccinate California (one of the bill’s sponsors) pointed out to
The Daily Beast, the bill won’t actually prevent children who need medical exemptions from getting them:
“In fact, the people who truly need medical exemptions desperately need everyone else to be vaccinated.
Medical advice should be coming from medical professionals.
A Hollywood celebrity [...] should not have credibility on an issue about how to regulate the medical profession.”
This is why I don’t want my kids to play with her kid.
Not because they might catch measles – my kids are vaccinated – because they might catch stupidity.
And there’s quite enough of that going around as it is.
www.independent.co.uk/voices/jessica-biel-anti-vaxxer-vaccinations-measles-california-children-a8960081.html
www.independent.co.uk/topic/anti-vaxxers
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Food for thought
Frank
