The toll of the anti-vaccination movement, in one devastating graphic.

[JaneyVee]

Measles outbreaks (purple) worldwide and whooping cough (green) in the U.S., thanks in part to the anti-vaccination movement. (Council on Foreign Relations / January 20, 2014)

Aaron Carroll today offers a graphic depiction of the toll of the anti-vaccination movement. (H/t: Kevin Drum.) It comes from a Council on Foreign Relations interactive map of "vaccine-preventable outbreaks" worldwide 2008-2014.

A couple of manifestations stand out. One is the prevalence of measles in Europe -- especially Britain -- and the U.S. Measles is endemic in the underdeveloped world because of the unavailability of the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine.

But in the developed world it's an artifact of the anti-vaccination movement, which has associated the vaccine with autism. That connection, promoted by the discredited British physician Andrew Wakefield and the starlet Jenny McCarthy, has been thoroughly debunked. But its effects live on, as the map shows.

Vaccine panic also plays a role in the shocking incidence in the U.S. of whooping cough, also beatable by a common vaccine. Researchers have pointed to the effect of "non-medical exemptions" from legally required whooping cough immunizations -- those premised on personal beliefs rather than medical reasons -- as a factor in a 2010 outbreak of whooping cough in California.


The rest: http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-antivaccination-movement-20140120,0,5576371.story#ixzz2r6EmagUI

[Ohio Joe]

1. The willfully stupid

They scare me sometimes.

[El_Johns]

2. Or in one misleading graphic, perhaps.

Coverage for the MMR vaccine, the polio vaccine, and the varicella (or chickenpox) vaccine are all above the national targets of 90% — which is obviously wonderful news. It’s particularly nice to see the uptick in children getting one or more dose of MMR, which reverses what happened between 2008 and 2009, when there was a decrease from 92.1 percent to 90.0 percent.

http://blogs.plos.org/thepanicvirus/2011/09/01/running-the-numbers-us-vaccination-rates-up-ever-so-slightly-new-jersey-way-below-national-average/

[kcr]

4. That graph stops at 2008

But it is good news that MMR vaccine rate is going up. Maybe the damage from Wakefield's nonsense is starting to fade.

[El_Johns]

6. It never particularly went down. And it's been above 90% for a long time.

Your graphic:

It comes from a Council on Foreign Relations interactive map of "vaccine-preventable outbreaks" worldwide 2008-2014.

So 2008 in my chart is the starting year for your graphic.

[kcr]

35. Not my graphic

But that's my point. I don't know how you can claim it's misleading when the graph you posted stops at 2008

[TrollBuster9090]

13. By including everything back to 1954, the scale makes it a little hard to see what's happening.

Try this:



SOURCE: CDC

Note:
1. The incidence of measles outbreaks is increasing, and
2. The incidence of them being IMPORTED is DECREASING. (ie-more domestic outbreaks of measles.)

Here's what I find interesting about the graph. Wakefield published his dumbass paper in 1998. So, why does the incidence of measles only start to spike ten years later in 2008? Because THAT'S the year Jenny McCarthy started her activism.

Believing a fraudulent physician who fakes evidence to get his name in a LANCET article is one thing, but that's not what happened. These days, people would rather get their medical advice from a frikkin' Playboy centerfold. That's what I find really disturbing.

[El_Johns]

20. The foreshortened scale also makes it hard to see what's happening. 1988-1991 there was also

a spike; in 1991 there were 9500 cases, affecting mainly preschool children (even though it used to be primary school children who were mainly affected). Your graph shows the highest # of cases to be about 225, in 2011. That's an increase from 2010, but a huge decrease from 1991.

To see any pattern, you need a longer view, since "spikes" are a fairly regular occurrence. Measles outbreaks have a cyclical incidence pattern, and that has always been the case.

At any rate, MMR vaccination coverage has been over 90% for some time, and Jenny McCarthy didn't change that.

[stevenleser]

33. And that is the key graph. nt

[SidDithers]

36. Oh, Hannah. Are you really arguing in favour of the anti-vaccination movement?...

Sid

[alittlelark]

3. I got Whooping Cough in my early 40's....2002

Damn - it was nasty!!

[alcibiades_mystery]

5. It's one thing to be a moron. These people are dangerous morons.

That this whole movement is yet another symptom of social breakdown and obsession with the self over the community is clear enough to anyone not infected with this monumental stupidity.

[TrollBuster9090]

8. That, PLUS the rampant paranoia and distrust of 'government' and authority. In the old days, if

if people who'd spent their entire lives studying medicine told you it was in your best interests to be vaccinated, you'd trust both their sincerity and their expertise. These days, a significant portion of the population trust neither, and think it's all a 'conspiracy.'

[davidn3600]

11. Dont you dare try to connect the two!

The fact we have a government that doesn't respect our privacy or our constitutional rights, or the police that violate our rights constantly does not have ANYTHING to do with anti-vaccinations.

[TrollBuster9090]

14. The fact that government doesn't respect our privacy or our constitutional rights, and police

violate our rights has been going on for a century. Having a LARGE percentage of the population believe that healthcare professionals are involved in a conspiracy, and/or that scientists are faking evidence for political purposes....THAT'S NEW.

[ReRe]

7. Are all those un-vaccinated kids being home-schooled?

I don't know if it's different now, but they wouldn't let my kids in school without proof of vaccinations & booster updates.

[brett_jv]

9. I dunno, but it's probably different now, because, you know ...

Freedumb ...

I will, say, though ... I'd sure like to understand why it ACTUALLY is that Autism has been on the rise ...

[ReRe]

12. I know...

I, myself, have been puzzled over the rise of Autism.

[TrollBuster9090]

17. Take your pick. There are at least 13 other things correlated with the rise of autism.

http://theweek.com/article/index/238898/13-things-linked-to-autism

[ReRe]

19. Thanks for that list...

...very interesting.

[De Leonist]

23. They've forgotten two other things.

A better ability to diagnose and population growth. There are a large number of children and adults who are better able to function because our better ability to detect neurodevelopmental disorders has improved. Also something to keep in mind a lot of the hoohaa over an Autism epidemic is fear-mongering by the anti-vacc crowd. Compared to the total world population the amount of people on the spectrum is pretty damn small.


EDIT: Also, I remember reading an article sometime ago that another contributing factor could the fact that a lot of the worlds' ancestors bred with Neanderthal. It was still in the Hypothesis stage though and I have yet to run into anything like it. So it wouldn't surprise me if it was just some random bored researcher's half-baked idea.

[Hekate]

16. The amniotic fluid has become a soup of countless industrial chemicals

Several years ago I read it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 200-- wonder how much it is now? When I read that in the LA Times, it seemed to me that would be reason enough for the rise in such disorders as autism.

[Lordquinton]

21. It probably has less to do with external influences

and a lot more with advances in psychology and recognition of the disorder.

[LeftyMom]

18. In CA homeschooled kids have the same vaccine requirement as public or private schooled kids,

and the same easy opt out provision.

[El_Johns]

22. MMR coverage of California children 19-35 mo was 94% in 2007.

Coverage for children 2-4 years is 97%, Kindergarteners, 94%, 7th graders 95%.

"Personal beliefs exemption" was 1.6% 2007-08. It was about .6% in 1980 & .8% in 1987.

http://www.cdph.ca.gov/programs/immunize/Documents/ChildhoodImmunizationCoverageCA2006-08.pdf

The group with the lowest vaccine coverage is black children, & I doubt that has anything to do with Jenny McCarthy.

[dreamnightwind]

24. +1

Thanks for your contributions to this thread, which though they have not been debunked have largely been ignored.

[LeftyMom]

25. The school by school exemption data tells a very different story.

The highest opt out rates are in very wealthy, very white schools, particularly private Waldorf schools. Some of them have nearly universal opt outs.

Toddler compliance data can reflect shortages, difficulty scheduling appointments, etc and most of those kids will get caught up. The school exemption data better tracks opt outs and tells a very different demographic story.

[El_Johns]

26. OK, CDC & Cal Dept of health are just a waste of the taxpayers' money. They don't know what's

happening even though the personal beliefs exemption is an official document.

Quick Fact: In 2012 the personal belief exemption became more restrictive in that there is an additional requirement of a signature from a health care practitioner to obtain the exemption. Effective Jan. 1, 2014 parents, guardians and empancipated minors must now obtain this additional signature when filing with the governing authority the necessary documents that state which vaccinations have not been given on the basis that they are contrary to his or her beliefs. When the law was amended for this change, Governor Brown also issued an executive order directing the health department to include a separate religious exemption on the new exemption form.

http://www.nvic.org/Vaccine-Laws/state-vaccine-requirements/california.aspx


Or...maybe there just aren't that many "very wealthy schools" when compared to the general population.

That's why they call it the 1%.

[LeftyMom]

27. The subthread was about school admission requirements and you're posting data about toddlers.

That is a non sequitur.

edit: Here are the opt out data. http://blogs.kqed.org/stateofhealth/2013/09/06/more-california-parents-opting-out-of-vaccines-look-up-your-school-online/ The schools with the highest opts outs are in Napa, Santa Barbara, Sebastopol, Sausalito, are we noticing a theme here?

[El_Johns]

28. I posted data about children up to 7th grade.

The data on opt out comes from Cal Dept of Health, the reporting agency.

"By contrast, San Francisco County’s PBE rate is 1.33 percent, and Los Angeles County’s rate is 1.88 percent...More than 90 percent of kindergarteners in the state start school fully immunized."

I guess I don't understand what your beef is? Are you saying that the true rate statewide is higher, or are you saying there are higher rates in some areas?

I understood you to be saying the first, but maybe you meant the second. In that case, no argument, but I don't see the special significance, as it has always been the case, for various reasons.

And to be even more clear, the data I posted is specific to MMR vaccine: measles, mumps, rubella.

Coverage for all schools is 92.7% from your own data, and 88.2% for private schools.

[LeftyMom]

30. Marin county's exemption rate is 7.8% The very data you're posting show that you're wrong.

California has significant pockets of non-compliance and they're disproportionately prosperous and white. This is a problem of misinformation, not one of poverty.

[El_Johns]

31. But those prosperous white people aren't sufficiently numerous to affect total rates much.

http://www.cdph.ca.gov/programs/immunize/Documents/2012-2013%20CA%20Kindergarten%20Immunization%20Assessment.pdf

Public school rates for MMR = 93.2%. Private school = 88.2%. State total = 92.7%

So private schools drop the overall total half a percentage point.

You're right though, the data on page 5 showing blacks having the lowest coverage is for pre-kindergarten vaccinations. Presumably that gap closes somewhat by school age.

http://www.cdph.ca.gov/programs/immunize/Documents/ChildhoodImmunizationCoverageCA2006-08.pdf

[ErikJ]

10. CRE is a much bigger threat. Resistant to every anti-biotic ,

and spreading rapidly in the US.

[brett_jv]

15. Hadn't heard that name, so I looked it up ...

http://www.medicinenet.com/cre_bacteria_infection_carbapenem-resistant_enter/views.htm

Turned out to not be anything I wasn't familiar with, but found it somewhat amusing how the article tries to dance around discussing the fact that EVOLUTION is taking place here ... and rather makes it sound like it's all a master plan of the evil bacteria to become resistant to antibiotics ... lol ...

[dem in texas]

29. Whooping Cough Outbreak in North Texas

There was a localized outbreak of whooping in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area last year. It started in a church where the members home schooled their children and did not believe in getting vaccinations. One of the members had visited an undeveloped country and brought the whooping cough back. It spread through the church's children and to one of their associated church's children before it was brought under control by immunizing all the children at the two churches.

[longship]

32. Jenny McCarthy should go back to picking boogers on MTV.

Or better yet, Indigo mom, Jenny, claiming crystal child status for her son.

Read about it here.

But now it's all about the vaccines.

Jenny McCarthy is a babbling idiot.

[davidpdx]

34. +1

Better yet, send her to the moon.

[SidDithers]

37. DU rec...nt

Sid