Measles Outbreak at Vaccine-Denying Pastor Kenneth Copeland's Fort Worth Church

[Ichingcarpenter]

For several days now, state health officials have been sounding the alarm about a nascent measles outbreak in North Texas. As of Friday, there had been nine confirmed cases, a number that will grow as new reports from local health agencies filter up to the state.
The epicenter of the outbreak is Tarrant County, which has now confirmed 10 cases, and the epicenter of cases in Tarrant County seems to be at Eagle Mountain International Church.

Pastor Terri Copeland Pearsons delivered the news in a sermon last Wednesday:

There has been a ... confirmed case of the measles from the Tarrant County Public Health Department. And that is a really big deal in that America, the United States has been essentially measles free for I think it's 10 years. And so when measles pops up anywhere else in the United States, the health department -- well, you know, it excites them. You know what I mean I don't mean. I don't mean they're happy about it, but they get very excited and respond to it because it doesn't take much for things like that to spread.
The sermon was awkward, to say the least. Pearsons is the eldest daughter of megapastor Kenneth Copeland, and her church is one of the cornerstones of Kenneth Copeland Ministries, his sprawling evangelical empire. He's far from the most vocal proponent of the discredited theory that the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine causes autism, but, between his advocacy of faith healing and his promotion of the vaccine-autism link on his online talk show, he's not exactly urging his flock to get their recommended shots.

That left his daughter doing some nifty theological footwork in last week's sermon as she struggled to explain how believers should trust their health to both God and medical professionals.


http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2013/08/theres_a_measles_outbreak_at_v.php

[Demo_Chris]

1. How much more of this bronze age shit are we gonna have to deal with? nt

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. God moves in mysterious ways

Especially with the genus Morbillivirus

[KamaAina]

17. Holy cats! Morbillivirus is what's killing the dolphins

in the Atlanttic.

http://election.democraticunderground.com/1014577437

Would it be possible to vaccinate dolphins in the wild?

[LostOne4Ever]

3. Anti-science anti-intellectualism

Once again strikes America.

Who here is surprised?

[defacto7]

4. Maybe they'll really get the message when

Whooping cough sets in.

[blkmusclmachine]

5. Meh.

[Hekate]

6. NOW she's hosting free vaccine clinics

Hopefully modern medical intervention will help the children to avoid complications from measles, such as pneumonia leading to death; ear infections leading to hearing loss; encephalitis leading to convulsions, retardation, &/or deafness.

Among malnourished people it kills as many as 25%; in Africa it's the leading cause of blindness among children. Measles kills almost a million people a year worldwide.

http://www.cdc.gov/measles/about/complications.html

Faith and a Bible don't make you invulnerable to disease, just sometimes invincibly ignorant.

My sibs and I had all the so-called childhood diseases in the 1950s and it was a miserable experience. My baby sister caught everything from my brother and me before she was even two, and it compromised her health for the rest of her childhood.

[xchrom]

7. OOOPSIE!11 nt

[malaise]

8. Oh Dear!

No other words needed

[hobbit709]

9. There was a lot of praying during the plague years, didn't help then either.

[Jamastiene]

10. Irony

God's way of telling idiots they are doing it wrong.

[Ichingcarpenter]

11. Update: More cases and they found who brought it in to the US

The measles outbreak in Tarrant County has jumped to neighboring Denton County, where five new cases were reported Wednesday.

The toll has grown to 20 cases since last Thursday, when Tarrant’s health department reported the first two.

Fifteen of the measles cases are in Tarrant, including four confirmed Wednesday.
“We are on high alert as we’ve seen case counts can cross county lines overnight,” said Carrie Williams, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of State Health Services.
All 20 measles cases so far have been traced to the 1,500-member Eagle Mountain International Church in northeast Tarrant County, health officials said.

The outbreak appears to be occurring within a group of families that has chosen not to get vaccinated, officials said.“This will spread fast among pockets of unvaccinated people,” Williams said.


Of the 15 cases in Tarrant County, 11 of the infected people were not immunized against the measles. In Texas, that’s rare. Almost 98 percent of students are vaccinated against the measles when they enter kindergarten, a state requirement for public and private schools, according to the state health department. About 1 percent of students obtain “conscientious exemptions” for all vaccinations.

In this outbreak, all the infected children in Tarrant County were being home-schooled, said Al Roy, a spokesman for the health department.



The measles outbreak originated from a man who traveled to Indonesia on a mission trip where he was exposed to the infectious disease.
Upon his return, he visited the Eagle Mountain church, which is about 50 miles northwest of Dallas. The church’s risk manager, Robert Hayes, said the man, who was not a member of the church, shook hands and gave hugs to many others.

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/metro/20130821-more-measles-cases-linked-to-tarrant-county-megachurch.ece

Well at least it wasn't smallpox

[liberal_at_heart]

12. if they are so anti-vaccine does that mean they don't get vacccines before traveling to other

countries? Don't you have to have certain vaccines before you can travel to certain places?

[Ichingcarpenter]

13. He might have just been a carrier and vaccinated

but had it in his system.

[TexasTowelie]

14. The count is up to 21 cases.

http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/texas/article/Texas-megachurch-linked-to-21-measles-cases-4764666.php

[hobbit709]

15. Meanwhile in East TX, Loony Louie opens his mouth.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014577509

[malaise]

16. Oops! The stupid burns

Ignorance is bliss - this time we can see the result of their asinine beliefs but these folks are responsible for many more serious problems.