Anti-Vaxx Insanity: New Study Highlights the Dangers of Science Denialism

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http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/anti-vaxx-insanity-new-study-highlights-dangers-science-denialism



We are breaking a new record in the U.S., and it is not one we want to break: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, measles cases are at a 20-year high. As of May 23, more than 288 cases have been reported this year. To put that in perspective, only 37 cases were reported in all of 2004. In 2002, measles had been declared eliminated in the Americas.

The CDC reports that most Americans have either contracted measles in the past, and are now immune, or have received the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, among the most effective vaccinations available. Yet, measles is now an epidemic in Minnesota, where a 2.5-year-old child was identified by the science journal Pediatrics last month as patient zero, ultimately responsible for exposing more than 3,000 people in its community to the disease.

The child had traveled with family to Kenya and there came in contact with measles, subsequently spreading it to a family member and three other toddlers in daycare. The child had not been vaccinated, as the parents believed vaccines to be dangerous, having bought into the same misinformation that has spread far and wide across America.

The family lives in Minnesota, in a small community of Somali immigrants where rates of the MMR vaccination are very low, and which has seen dramatic decrease in vaccinations, from 91 percent in 2004, down to 54 percent in 2014, according to Pediatrics. Of the more than 3,000 people exposed, 21 showed symptoms of the disease and 16 of those were not vaccinated. Dr. Abdirahman Mohamed of the Axis Medical Center in Minneapolis said of these cases, “Every family will tell you that, ‘We’re not going to give our children the MMR. We’re afraid that they’re going to get autism.’”

[SidDithers]

1. K&R...

Thanks for posting.

Sid