Irrational fear infects 34; three hospitalized

[Rach3]

What is it with people's awful risk managment? Does a significant fraction of the populace have so little grasp of numbers that they're more afraid of venemous snakes and nuclear power plants than of driving on the interstates? Look what's just happened in the midwest; there are people so unbalanced that they prefer not be vaccinated against horrible diseases. And now they're sick, who would have thought.

Measles, cough outbreaks blamed on vaccine fear

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Recent outbreaks of measles and whooping cough show how easily a rare or "eradicated" disease can flare up again, U.S. investigators said this week.

Three people in Indiana were hospitalized last year after a 17-year-old girl carried measles back from Romania. It spread to 34 people because many in her community had refused to be vaccinated, a team at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
...
Almost all of those infected had previously refused the vaccine for fear of side-effects, the researchers said.

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=healthNews&storyID=2006-08-03T194626Z_01_N03297844_RTRUKOC_0_US-VACCINES.xml

Honestly, why don't they just get up and relocate to the third world, it's just what they want apparently - no scary health care, and dozens of happy, all-natural diseases.

 

[russ_watters]

Yes, a high fraction of people are motivated by irrational fear.

 

[Pengwuino]

Because the government is using vaccines in order to implant mind control agents into the civilians of this country!

The eradication of various diseases was just a coincadence.

Makes perfect sense!

 

[edward]

This more than likely would have been an irrational fear held by the parents. Measles is one of the diseases covered by the MMR vaccine which is normaly given in early childhood.

There has been a long term debate about the safety of many vaccines including, MMR and DPT, because they contained mercury as a preservative.
http://www.healing-arts.org/children/vaccines/vaccines-rubeola.htm

 

[Hurkyl]

I don't think it's fair to call them unbalanced.

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

This more than likely would have been an irrational fear held by the parents. Measles is one of the diseases covered by the MMR vaccine which is normaly given in early childhood.

There has been a long term debate about the safety of many vaccines including, MMR and DPT, because they contained mercury as a preservative.
http://www.healing-arts.org/children/vaccines/vaccines-rubeola.htm

From the CDC:-

http://www.cdc.gov/nip/vacsafe/concerns/autism/autism-mmr.htm

At a glance: The weight of currently available scientific evidence does not support the hypothesis that MMR vaccine causes autism. CDC recognizes there is considerable public interest in this issue, and therefore supports additional research regarding this hypothesis. CDC is committed to maintaining the safest, most effective vaccine supply in history.

http://www.mmrthefacts.nhs.uk/library/disautism.php

Another way to investigate the possibility of a link between autism and MMR is to look at whether the childhood infections themselves, that is the measles, mumps and rubella viruses, cause autism.

If the vaccine were linked to autism - the vaccine consists of a weakened strain of viruses of each disease - you would expect to find that measles, mumps and rubella viruses are also linked to autism.

A study conducted in 1989 found that the autistic children were no more likely to have had measles than the non-autistic children; and the only cases of mumps and rubella were in the non-autistic children.

The evidence does not therefore link childhood measles, mumps and rubella infection with autism.

I asked when getting a flu jab whether the injection had any mercury in it, I was informed that no innoculation injection in the uk uses mercury as a base any more, whether this is the case in the US I don't know, but a hospital occupational health officer/specialist nurse aught to be a pretty reliable source.

AFAIK the case for autism and measles has been debunked, and without further support is liable to remain in the dog house.

This is a childrens health issue and quite rightly people are worried for their safety, it's a kind of damage limitation campaign, the erroneous scientific evidence for MMR's link with autism is hard to overpower, I would imagine.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1429115,00.html

Lingering fears of MMR-autism link dispelled

Ian Sample, science correspondent
Thursday March 3, 2005
The Guardian

Any remaining concern over a link between autism and MMR has been dispelled by a new study that found withdrawing the vaccine did nothing to slow the rise in children diagnosed with the condition.

Fears that the triple vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella could cause autism were first raised in 1998 by a gastroenterologist, Andrew Wakefield, but his research has been largely discredited.

Parental concern over the vaccine did cause a slump in its uptake, which has fallen to 60% in some parts of Britain, prompting health officials to draw up contingency plans to combat a possible measles epidemic.

All I can say is it's a good job that the diseases in question have low mortality rates

 

[iansmith]

Lingering fears of MMR-autism link dispelled

Ian Sample, science correspondent
Thursday March 3, 2005
The Guardian

Any remaining concern over a link between autism and MMR has been dispelled by a new study that found withdrawing the vaccine did nothing to slow the rise in children diagnosed with the condition.

Fears that the triple vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella could cause autism were first raised in 1998 by a gastroenterologist, Andrew Wakefield, but his research has been largely discredited.

Parental concern over the vaccine did cause a slump in its uptake, which has fallen to 60% in some parts of Britain, prompting health officials to draw up contingency plans to combat a possible measles epidemic.

All I can say is it's a good job that the diseases in question have low mortality rates

I think this is the scientifc article for those interested
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...d&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15877763&query_hl=1

More scientific litterature about the vaccines and autism
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...d&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15858952&query_hl=1
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15366972&query_hl=12
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12421889&query_hl=12

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

Good find there! Thanks for that

 

[BobG]

What is it with people's awful risk managment? Does a significant fraction of the populace have so little grasp of numbers that they're more afraid of venemous snakes and nuclear power plants than of driving on the interstates? Look what's just happened in the midwest; there are people so unbalanced that they prefer not be vaccinated against horrible diseases. And now they're sick, who would have thought.

I wouldn't say it's horrible risk management.

The risks associated with vaccinations remain pretty constant. The risk of coming in contact with a disease decrease as the percentage of the population receiving vaccinations increases.

At a certain point, the risk associated with the vaccinations is greater than the risks of coming in contact with the disease, let alone suffer serious effects from the disease. If your family were the only family that thought of this idea, then you'd have to say the family actually reduced the risks for their children.

Of course, the problem with that line of thought is that the family's evaluation was based on a snapshot in time. Not getting the vaccinations really carries an unknown variable risk. There's no way to know how many other people will choose to bypass the risk of vaccination, meaning there's no way to know what the chances of coming in contact with the disease actually are over a person's lifetime.

With no controls, you would expect the risk of disease to fluctuate around some value approximately equal to the risk of vaccination. With vaccinations being mandatory (mandatory with easy to get exemptions), the risk of disease could probably be expected to stay a little below the risk of vaccinations.

 

[Gokul43201]

This more than likely would have been an irrational fear held by the parents. Measles is one of the diseases covered by the MMR vaccine which is normaly given in early childhood.

There has been a long term debate about the safety of many vaccines including, MMR and DPT, because they contained mercury as a preservative.
http://www.healing-arts.org/children/vaccines/vaccines-rubeola.htm

Perhaps you missed this bit:

Almost all of those infected had previously refused the vaccine for fear of side-effects, the researchers said. Some groups say vaccines preserved with a mercury compound called thimerosal can cause autism and other disorders.

The U.S. Institute of Medicine says studies show no link with autism, but media reports and campaigns by the anti-thimerosal groups persist. The ingredient has been removed from all U.S. childhood vaccines except the flu vaccine.

 

[edward]

I didn't miss it. Whether or not thimerosal contributed to neurological disorders in children is still questioned by many people. Many parents believed that it did, and that was probably the reason that it was recently removed from vaccines given to young children In the U.S.

During the 1990's the CDC increased the number and types of vaccines that they thought children should have. At that same time there was an increase in neurological, especially autism, disorders in young children.

I have no idea whether or not there was a connection. That is still being debated. I do know that many parents thought that there was a connection and did not allow their children to be vaccinated.
http://www.a-champ.org/documents/geier%20Early%20Downward%20Trends%20JAPS%203-1-06.pdf