CDC: Measles Infections Are 3 Times Higher Than Normal This Year

[FarCenter]

The CDC just announced that measles cases in the United States in 2013 tripled over the annual average. There were 175 cases (so far), when usually there are about 60.

Why?

Well, let's see. In March, there were 58 cases alone in Brooklyn, N.Y., tied to a Jewish community that refused or delayed vaccinations. In Texas, a megachurch that preached anti-vaccination views had an outbreak with at least 20 cases. In North Carolina, 23 cases were reported in one outbreak; most of them in a religious (Hare Krishna) community that was largely unvaccinated.

In all three of these outbreaks, someone who had not been vaccinated traveled overseas and brought the disease back with them, which then spread due to low vaccination rates in their communities. It's unclear how much religious beliefs themselves were behind the outbreaks in Brooklyn and North Carolina; it may have been due to widespread secular anti-vax beliefs in those tight-knit groups. But either way, a large proportion of the people in those areas were unvaccinated.

By the numbers, those outbreaks alone are responsible for the huge increase in measles cases in the US this past year. And they are all due to people not getting vaccinated

Read more: http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/12/06/measles_2013_us_cases_triple.html

[840high]

1. Vaccinate.

[bhikkhu]

2. I just listened to a nutjob go on about how vaccinations are a scam

...this from a guy who supposedly spent years in medical school and then couldn't get a job (his other big point was that college is a giant scam, but that's another story). So his claim was that the drug companies use vaccines to give people diseases, and then sell more vaccines to treat the disease outbreaks. Based on a bunch of garbled nonsense I was trying not to listen to, as at some point its so hard not to say anything you can't even make eye contact. Unfortunately, in a service business (where I'm not the boss anyway), calling bullshit isn't something that can be done easily without consequences.

How some people think, I just don't understand. As he was rambling on at points I was at the computer and could type in bits and pieces and verify that they were complete nonsense in seconds. How does someone carry around all that garbage in their head, and pontificate about openly it to other people, while not even caring enough to see whether its true or not? I'm mortified myself if I find that I've stated something as a fact that isn't so, even trivial things.