The Religious Right Is Resuscitating Dead Diseases

[SecularMotion]

Thanks to certain communities’ fear of vaccines, illnesses such as the measles, which had been wiped out for decades in America, have come back into existence. This resurgence of diseases is dangerous for a number of reasons, the first being that a lot of doctors and nurses are no longer trained to treat or look out for them.

The religious right’s apprehension when it comes to vaccines isn’t founded on any hard science, despite claims that the shots could cause disabilities (lest we forget Rep. Michele Bachmann’s declaration that the HPV vaccine causes “mental retardation”). Vice magazine’s Benjamin Shapiro angrily explains how the religious right’s actions (and inactions) are putting everyone’s lives in danger:

Remember measles? That old-timey disease we officially eliminated in the United States 13 years ago? Thanks to the wonder of inoculation, measles should be entirely nonexistent in this country, but yesterday the Center for Disease Control reported 159 cases from January through August of this year. This puts our country on track for the worst measles year since 1996, when there were 500 reported cases—which is disturbing, especially because doctors and nurses aren’t really trained to look out for measles anymore, because of the whole “elimination” thing.

...What’s unique about this year’s outbreak is that the CDC has finally admitted the spread of this “eliminated” disease is based on religious communities’ philosophical aversion to vaccines and reliance on divine healing through the Word of God. According to the report, 91 percent of the reported cases were in people who were unvaccinated, or didn’t know their vaccination status, and “of those who were unvaccinated, 79 percent had philosophical objections to vaccination.”

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/the_religious_right_is_resuscitating_dead_diseases_20130917/

[madrchsod]

1. it`s not only the religious right

there`s plenty of other dumb fucks who think vaccines will kill their kids. it might kill their kids but that`s god`s doing. but they are playing god by killing other kids.

i have a friend who decided that the tap water gave her son autism. all three of her kids are not vaccinated and are home schooled. we never go to their home.

[gopiscrap]

2. There should be much stricter laws so that these ass hats can't force this shit on the rest of us.

[cbayer]

3. This problem is widespread and not necessarily related to religion,

though there have been some recent church groups in the news.

The most recent story from Texas ended up with a pretty good outcome, as the church completely reversed it's position and set up vaccination clinics.

There has been recent discussion of whether parents who make the decision not to vaccinate should/could be held legally liable if someone else is harmed.

Parents that choose not to vaccinate should be held responsible in some way.