Tag Archives: Vaccine

The Truth About Censorship

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On Monday, The Daily Wire posted an article about some recent statements by Mark Zuckerberg regarding censorship under the Biden-Harris administration.

The article reports:

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a letter on Monday that the Biden-Harris administration repeatedly pressured his company — which includes Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, and more —  to censor content that is protected free speech.

Zuckerberg made the admission in a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) this week in which he said that his goal moving forward was to “be neutral and not play a role one way or another” for either any political party or ideology. He said he doesn’t even want the appearance of playing a role and will not be making political contributions.

“In 2021, senior officials from the Biden Administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree,” he said in the letter. “Ultimately, it was our decision whether or not to take content down, and we own our decisions, including COVID-19-related changes we made to our enforcement in the wake of this pressure.”

The censorship during Covid probably resulted in people unnecessarily dying from the disease. We now know that there are some serious risks associated with the vaccine–that was kept quiet. We now that ivermectin used correctly can be an effective weapon against the disease–that information was suppressed. We now know that Hunter’s laptop was real–that information was censored. How much information about the current Democrat party candidates for President and Vice-President is being censored?

The article notes:

He (Zuckerberg) said that the company made a mistake by temporarily demoting a New York Post story during the 2020 election about Hunter Biden’s laptop after officials falsely suggested that it was part of a “Russian disinformation operation.”

“It’s since been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we shouldn’t have demoted the story,” he said. “We’ve changed our policies and processes to make sure this doesn’t happen again – for instance, we no longer temporarily demote things in the U.S while waiting for fact-checkers.”

We are living with the results of an election that was probably stolen in more then one way. Let’s not let that happen again.

Is This The Beginning Of Telling The Truth?

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On Wednesday, Zero Hedge posted the following headline:

AstraZeneca Pulls COVID Vaccine After Admitting Rare Side Effect

Note that the headline says ‘admitting’–not discovering. When did they discover the ‘rare’ side effect.

The article reports:

In yet another damning development for the ‘safe and effective’ crowd, AstraZeneca has announced the worldwide withdrawal of its Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, branded as Vaxzevria, due to a rare but serious side effect. This decision marks the end of the vaccine once hailed as a “triumph for British science” by Boris Johnson and credited with saving over six million lives, The Telegraph reports.

How does anyone know how many lives the vaccine saved? How many people would have not gotten Covid or survived Covid without the shot? There really is no way to track that because there is no way to set up a control group.

The article notes:

Legal experts and victims, however, see the withdrawal as a vindication of their long-held concerns over the vaccine’s safety. “To those who we represent, all of whom have suffered bereavement or serious injury as a result of the AstraZeneca vaccine, this decision to withdraw marketing authorisation, ending the usage of the AstraZeneca vaccine in the EU, will be welcomed,” said Sarah Moore, a partner at Leigh Day, the law firm representing many of the claimants.

“It will be seen as a decision linked with AstraZeneca’s recent admission that the vaccine can cause TTS, and the fact that regulators across the world suspended or stopped usage of the vaccine following concerns regarding TTS.”

Victims and their families have reported a range of severe reactions, from fatal thrombosis to lasting disabilities, sparking a debate over the adequacy of vaccine safety monitoring and compensation for vaccine injuries.

Kate Scott, whose husband suffered a permanent brain injury after receiving the vaccine, expressed mixed feelings: “AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine no longer being used in the UK or Europe, and soon the rest of the world, means no one else will suffer from this awful adverse reaction,” she said. “They say it is for commercial reasons, but maybe it’s because it can no longer be seen as being within the acceptable safety parameters, with 445 confirmed cases of VITT, 81 of these fatal in the UK alone.”

I am temporarily swearing off all vaccines until I am convinced that medicine is about caring for people and not providing profits for the drug companies.

Exactly What Rights Do Our Military Servicemen Have?

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On January 1st, The Gateway Pundit posted the following headline:

231 Current and Former U.S. Service Members Demand Military Leaders Be Court-Martialed Over Forced COVID Vaccines: “Service Members Were Significantly Harmed by These Actions”

The article reports:

On January 1, 2024, two hundred thirty-one current and former service members from various branches of the United States Armed Forces came together to sign the “Declaration of Military Accountability.”

This document, spearheaded by Commander Robert A. Green Jr. of the U.S. Navy, marks a significant moment in military history, calling for sweeping reforms and accountability within the Armed Forces.

Veteran Brad Miller wrote on X, “At 4 am EST today (a few min ago), senior military leaders received an email with a letter attached called the Declaration of Military Accountability. I know because I sent the email. I sent it on behalf of myself & 230 other signatories of the letter.”

“The letter is not addressed to the military leaders but rather to the American people. The email was merely to inform these military leaders that there is group of troops & vets pledging to the American public that we will do everything lawfully within our power to stop the willful destruction of our military by its own leadership. Let’s take our country back in 2024 & let’s begin by defending our military from its own leadership. You can find the body of the letter below. Soon we’ll have it on a website where you can find it as well, along with the names of the 231 signatories.

I have very mixed emotions about this. For current members of the military, I believe this could be considered a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). There are very specific rules within the code about criticizing military leaders while you are serving.

How Safe Is The Manufacturing Of The Vaccine?

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On Sunday (updated Monday), The Epoch Times posted an article about manufacturing violations in the production of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine.

The article reports:

U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) inspectors uncovered problems at a Moderna plant used to manufacture a substance that is part of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine, according to a newly released document.

Moderna failed to meet multiple requirements, including rules aimed at minimizing the potential for contamination, according to the document.

FDA inspectors performed inspections at the plant in Norwood, Massachusetts from, Sept. 11 to Sept. 21, visiting nine times in total.

They found that equipment used to manufacture the substance was not cleaned properly before usage, that a mock cleaning done for manufacturing did not adequately simulate the actual process, that written alarm procedures were not followed, and that neither the equipment nor the plant were designed in a way that would make contamination less likely.

Inspectors also learned that Moderna used materials beyond their expiration date.

“There are more than two thousand expired items stored in your … warehouse and cold storage at time of inspection,” Unnee Ranjan, the FDA’s lead investigator, wrote in a summary of the inspections.

The article concludes:

Another part of the FDA report, dated Sept. 21, described how the Norwood facility did not have adequately designed air handling systems to “assure appropriate air quality in the … cleanroom in which the mRNA drug substance is manufactured.”

Inspectors also said they found positive air pressure was not “consistently maintained” between cleanrooms and airlocks and that monitoring data showed the cleanroom pressure turned negative between January and September. That development was “not assessed for potential impact,” they said.

“At face value, it appears multiple controls designed to prevent contamination were deficient,” Mr. Lynn said.

Another recently released document, produced by the nonprofit Informed Consent Action Network on orders from a federal judge, showed the FDA detected in Andover, Massachusetts, issues with the manufacture of a substance used in the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Pfizer said in response it had taken actions to correct the issues.

The government is still putting ads up on television encouraging Americans to take the vaccine, even after there have been numerous reports of serious side effects. Now we find out there are manufacturing problems also? It’s time for the Covid vaccine to go away.

 

 

It May Be A While Before This Is Reported In The Mainstream Media–If Ever

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On Wednesday, News Addicts reported the following:

Italy’s top health official is under criminal investigation for mass murder for his actions during the pandemic that allegedly resulted in the nation’s soaring Covid vaccine-related deaths.

Roberto Speranza served as the Italian Health Minister between September 2019 and October 2022, overseeing the pandemic and the Covid vaccine rollout.

However, evidence has now emerged to suggest that Speranza knew that the Covid mRNA shots were dangerous to public health but concealed the information and pushed the national rollout anyway.

Speranza is under investigation for mass homicide after emails reveal that from the very start of the vaccinations, he knew the shots were killing people and gave orders to local health authorities to conceal deaths and serious side effects.

According to investigators, he covered up the information in order to reassure Italian citizens that the injections were “safe and effective” and to not jeopardize the vaccination campaign.

“He knew the shots were killing people and gave orders to local health authorities to conceal deaths and serious side effects,” according to Vigilant News.

You can debate whether or not the shots actually worked–it seems as if the CDC had to change to definition of ‘vaccine’ to call the Covid shot a vaccine, so there have been questions all along. However, the problem is hiding information from the public that the public needed in order to make an informed decision as to whether or not to get the shot. There are a lot of stories coming out about people harmed by the vaccine, but there are also a lot of people who took the vaccine seemingly without having a problem.

Again, the problem is the withholding of information from the public. The public has a right to know about possible side effects of any drug or medical procedure they are asked to take.

How Is Coronavirus Spread?

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Yesterday The Epoch Times posted an article about recent research regarding the asymptomatic spread of the coronavirus.

The article reports:

The most recent study from China on the prevalence of infection after a lockdown found no transmission of the CCP virus among people who were in close contact with asymptomatic patients, contradicting the current narrative that asymptomatic transmission plays a major role in the pandemic.

An asymptomatic carrier is someone who has not displayed symptoms after being infected, but may spread the virus to others. This is different from someone who is presymptomatic, meaning the person doesn’t feel or look sick, but eventually shows symptoms later, and does transmit the virus during that presymptomatic phase.

I’m not sure I trust any research coming out of China, but this is a very interesting concept.

The article continues:

The study, published in Nature, identified 300 asymptomatic positive cases through a massive screening program of more than nine million Chinese citizens post-lockdown in Wuhan—where the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus originated—from May 4 to June 1, using PCR tests.

Samples of all the asymptomatic cases were also cultured in the lab and “no viable virus” was found, meaning it cannot transmit a virus. The authors also found that 190 of the 300 asymptomatic samples tested positive for antibodies (IgG and/or IgM), indicating a possible recent COVID-19 infection or the PCR test resulted in a false positive.

The scientists identified and followed 1,174 close contacts of the asymptomatic cases and found that none of the contacts tested positive for COVID-19. They noted, “Compared with symptomatic patients, asymptomatic infected persons generally have low quantity of viral loads and a short duration of viral shedding, which decrease the transmission risk of SARS-CoV-2.”

The article also notes:

The Infectious Diseases Society of America’s most updated guidance on diagnosing, treating, and managing outbreaks during flu season recommends only people with symptoms get tested for influenza.

Sweden, which has not resorted to lockdowns, universal testing of its citizens, or mandated mask-wearing since the pandemic began, doesn’t believe that asymptomatic spread is common. “Based on the experience of COVID-19 and other similar diseases, the assessment is that the spread of infection from people without symptoms accounts for a small proportion,” according to the Swedish Public Health Agency.

This study is very interesting in light of the fact that a vaccine for the coronavirus will be arriving shortly. On December 4th, I posted an article about an interview with Albert Bourla, chairman and CEO of Pfizer Pharmaceutica.

The article at rightwinggranny noted:

With three promising vaccines for COVID-19 in the pipeline, there’s still uncertainty about how effective they will be.

Albert Bourla, chairman and CEO of Pfizer Pharmaceutical – which has applied to the Food and Drug Administration for emergency use authorization for its vaccine – sat down with CBS’s Lester Holt on “Dateline NBC” for an interview that will air Thursday night.

Holt said: “And then what about the question, Albert, of even though I’ve had the protection, am I still able to transmit it to other people?” according to transcript provided by the network.

“I think this is something that needs to be examined,” Bourla said. “We are not certain about that right now with what we know.”

If the study from China about the asymptomatic spread of the coronavirus is valid, then the vaccine should theoretically stop the pandemic in its tracks. If not, we may be dealing with this virus for a while.

When Medicine Becomes Political

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Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article that included two charts about the coronavirus.

These are the two charts:

The first shows the rate of death from coronavirus by country:

The second chart shows the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine:

The government’s interference in the treatment of the coronavirus is costing the lives of Americans. I won’t speculate on the motive of those involved, but this needs to stop.

The article notes:

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) is a leading non-partisan professional association of physicians across the United States.

Today the AAPS filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to compel the release to the public of hydroxychloroquine by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) and the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS).

The general rule in a situation like this is ‘follow the money.’ The question that needs to be asked is, “Who has investments in the companies searching for a vaccine? How much money will the investors make if a vaccine is found and Americans are forced to take it?” It should also be noted that hydroxychloroquine costs about 60¢ a pill versus some of the drugs being used to treat the coronavirus that cost as much as $6000 a pill. What is the profit margin on the $6000 pill? Unfortunately, this may be another example of Big Pharma putting profits ahead of the welfare of Americans.

Think About What Is Being Said Here

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Hot Air posted an article today that included a recent quote from a Washington Post article:

Hot Air reports:

Over at the Washington Post, Keith Humphreys ended the week on a pessimistic note, opining that no matter how much testing and contact tracing is required to get us fully past this pandemic, America will never do as well as several other countries that seem to be taming the virus more quickly. The reason? Because Americans love their “freedom” too much. (Please note for the record that it was Humphreys who put the word freedom in scare quotes, not me.)

We love our “freedom” too much?! You mean that same freedom that men died for in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1912, World War I and World War II? You mean that same freedom that men and women today serve in our military to defend? You mean that same freedom that men and women spend months away from their families to protect? You mean that same freedom that allows you to post really dumb things in your newspaper?

The article continues:

He begins by quoting medical professionals who insist that the only path toward the new normal relies on our ability to “test, isolate, contact trace and quarantine.” He then lists a few examples of countries where those practices appear to be helping them tame the virus, including Germany, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. But, the author argues, we may never succeed in the same fashion because such programs would require not only a willingness to surrender considerable privacy rights and freedoms, but also a general attitude of trust towards the government which doesn’t exist in the United States today.

The article concludes:

I suppose we should examine this analysis with two questions in mind. First, is Humphreys correct? And second, even if we assume that he is, should we really be envious of people living under harsher authoritarian rule and emulate their behavior if it gets us past the pandemic faster?

As to the first question, I have no argument to offer. The author is absolutely correct. Americans are probably just about the orneriest group of curmudgeons on the planet when it comes to bending to the will of the government. That’s because we are arguably the freest people on Earth. We were born of generations of people who had experienced life under the rule of a monarch without any serious assurances of God-given rights. And they wound up telling that monarch to go stick it where the sun doesn’t shine. We’re not all that different today.

…In the end, we’re probably doing the best we can do in our fight against the novel coronavirus. Every nation has to come up with their own solution and ours will wind up being uniquely American, framed around both our scientific capabilities and our values. If that means that we can’t get our virus numbers down to nearly zero as fast as some other nations, so be it. Heck, we still don’t know with 100% certainty if this virus can ever be eliminated or if we’ll ever have a vaccine. But if not, we’ll at least go down swinging.

I wish we still taught civics in school. If we did, Keith Humphreys might realize that America was founded by people who had just fought a war against a tyrannical government. They set laws in place to protect what they referred to as ‘God-given rights.” The laws were to limit the government–not to limit people’s freedom. Anyone who wants to live under a more tyrannical system is free to move to another country–there are many out there that fit that description. Meanwhile, Americans like their freedom and are generally willing to protect it.

No Longer Fair And Balanced

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“Fair and Balanced” has been the slogan of Fox News since it began in 1996. Unfortunately, as the children have taken the management over from their father, the station is no longer quite as fair and balanced as it used to be.

The Daily Caller posted an article yesterday reporting that Fox News reportedly cut ties with social media personalities Diamond & Silk after the pair stirred controversy over incorrect comments about the novel coronavirus. Actually I am not sure anyone on the news is currently making accurate comments about the coronavirus.

Diamond & Silk are Trump supporters who are entertaining and funny. They do not claim to be scientists. They are as entitled to their opinion on the coronavirus as much as anyone else is. I believe that they are being censored not because of their comments about the coronavirus but because of their support of President Trump.

The article reports:

“After what they’ve said and tweeted you won’t be seeing them on Fox Nation or Fox News anytime soon,” a source with knowledge of the situation said according to The Daily Beast.

Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller.

The siblings came under fire after saying on March 30 that the number of Americans who have died from the novel coronavirus is being misreported to make President Donald Trump look bad, The Daily Beast reported.

They also accused billionaire Bill Gates of being involved with the virus on April 10 during a livestream, saying he has pushed for “population control,” the publication reported. Diamond & Silk said they would not be taking any vaccine that Gates was involved in producing, according to The Daily Beast.

Just for the record, Bill Gates is an advocate of population control and is one of the major fund sources for the World Health Organization. It may be that Diamond & Silk were fired because some of what they were saying was a little too close to the truth.

Much Of America Is Focused On Solving The Problem Rather Than Politicizing It

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On March 30, The New York Post posted an article about the ways that Americans are fighting the pandemic of the coronavirus. The title of the article is, “Answering the coronavirus: exponential American innovation.”

The article reports:

America has long led the world in innovation, and the coronavirus won’t change that. Indeed, US inventors and entrepreneurs are rising to the occasion, jumping in to fill urgent needs.

With ramped-up testing the best way to discover who has the virus and so learn what the fatality rate really is, the news from Abbott Laboratories couldn’t be better. The Food and Drug Administration gave emergency-use approval to Abbott’s new test, the fastest available at the point of care: It can deliver a positive result in five minutes and a negative result in under 15.

…Even more promising are serology tests that can find antibodies in a finger-prick of blood — proving that you had COVID-19 even without any symptoms. That will make it easier to track contacts and clear some people to stop isolating. Biomerica has developed one that can deliver results in 10 minutes at a cost of $10; it’s already shipping kits to Europe but needs emergency-use Food and Drug Administration approval for US use. (Get going, FDA.)

The list goes on. Startup BioIntelliSense has developed the BioSticker, a wearable sensor that can measure vital signs — temperature, heart and respiratory rates and coughing — and transmit it to clinicians in near-real time.

Vici, an InTouch Health robot with a camera forehead, tablet chest and keyboard navel, let docs in Washington state communicate with the first US COVID-19 patient in isolation. And Stanford researchers are using the Crispr gene-editing tool to see if they can stop the coronavirus from hijacking human cells.

Other companies are at work to end shortages of vital equipment: The FDA on Sunday approved the nonprofit Battelle’s request to sterilize N95 masks without limit (after the agency at first tried to set a 10,000-a-day limit — why?). Battelle’s seeking approval to sterilize other equipment, such as ventilator parts, as well.

Here in New York, the Northwell hospital group is converting anesthesia machines and BIPAP devices (used for sleep apnea) into ventilators.

With the pandemic’s peak still ahead, take some consolation in the fact that innovators’ responses are expanding exponentially, too.

The test that can detect antibodies will be a game-changer. Once we can discover who has the disease, who has had the disease, and who is immune to the disease, we can limit our lockdowns to the people and places that are necessary. One of the reasons we are seeing the numbers in New York and some other places is that those places are densely populated and people we out eating, gathering together for plays and music, and generally spending time in close proximity for at least a month without anyone understanding the risk. When we reach the point where we know the risk and can test freely, we should be able to gradually open our economy back up.

A Very Interesting Possibility

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Townhall is reporting today that a group of scientists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine believe that they may have found a vaccine for the coronavirus.

The article quotes The New York Post:

The researchers announced their findings Thursday and believe the vaccine could be rolled out quickly enough to “significantly impact the spread of disease,” according to their study published in EBioMedicine.

The vaccine would be delivered on a small, fingertip-sized patch. When tested on mice, the vaccine produced enough antibodies believed to successfully counteract the virus.

[…]

“These two viruses, which are closely related to SARS-CoV-2, teach us that a particular protein, called a spike protein, is important for inducing immunity against the virus,” read a statement from co-senior author Andrea Gambotto, M.D., associate professor of surgery at the Pitt School of Medicine.

“We knew exactly where to fight this new virus.”

[…]

Researchers said they sided with using a patch, rather than a traditional needle, to deliver the spike protein to the skin, which elicits the strongest immune reaction.

The patch contains 400 tiny “microneedles” made of sugar and protein pieces. It would be applied like a Band-Aid with the needles dissolving into the skin.

The vaccine would be “highly scalable” for widespread use, the researchers said in a news release.

Stay tuned. This may be the best news we have had since January.

 

You Might Not Have Read This In The Mainstream Media

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Yesterday The Western Journal posted some comments by Dr. Marc Siegel, a professor of medicine at New York University, a medical correspondent for Fox News, and the author of “False Alarm: The Truth About the Epidemic of Fear.”

The article reports Dr. Siegel’s comments:

“I’ve been handling these emerging contagions for about 20 years now, and I have to tell you, I’ve never seen one handled better,” Dr. Marc Siegel said regarding the actions of President Donald Trump since the coronavirus first emerged as a concern in January.

…“The task force are really top players,” said Siegel, noting the inclusion of Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Fauci is “one of the top infectious disease experts in the country,” he noted.

“They’ve been doing exactly what they’re supposed to be doing,” he said, listing actions Trump has called for such as “restricting travel, isolating patients who are sick and, trying to cut down on contact. It’s a very hard thing to do when people are pouring in from all over the world.”

CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield, a virologist, and Dr. Nancy Messonnier, an expert in vaccines who has been sounding the alarm about the virus, are also important members, he said, though he believes the “doom and gloom comment” about the inevitable spread of the virus was uncalled for.

Siegel said that the coronavirus is different from diseases such as SARS or the flu.

“SARS had about a ten percent mortality [rate], but it only affected about 8,000 people. Swine flu had a very, very low mortality for flu, but flu itself really only causes about a point-four percent death rate, and [coronavirus] is about one-point-four percent. So this is killing more than flu, but I want to make a couple of points that will reassure people,” he said.

“One, at the beginning of an emerging contagion, it always appears more deadly than it actually is. The 1918 flu is an exception, but normally as time goes on, it’s less deadly, and part of that is because you see more immunity appearing, and you also find a lot of milder cases — or even cases where people don’t get sick at all. You find that as you start to test more people,” he said.

He also noted that people who were infected but never got sick do not show up in statistics, making the virus seem more deadly than it is.

The bottom line here is that the coronavirus is serious, but it is not the 1918 flu. Wash your hands, and use common sense. Winter is ending, and hopefully the flu season will end with it!

We Need To Re-evaluate Vaccine Requirements

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There have been stories in recent years that childhood vaccines may cause autism. I have no idea whether or not this is true. My children were routinely vaccinated in the 1970’s with no ill effects, but I have no idea if today’s vaccines are the same as the ones given to my children. However, as more and more people decide to decline vaccinations for their children because of fear of autism, we need to look at the consequences of that decision (for all of us).

The New York Post posted an article today about measles in America.

The New York Post reports:

America has charted 387 cases of measles across 15 states since the beginning of the year — the second-highest number of reported infections since the disease was declared “eliminated” in 2000.

The number was topped only once before, in 2014, when 667 cases were reported by the same date.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s graph of year-over-year cases — updated every Monday — shows that 2019 passed last year in terms of outbreaks as of March 28. There were 372 cases confirmed by this time in 2018.

The states that have reported cases are Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Texas and Washington.

Outbreaks — defined as three or more cases — are ongoing in California (Santa Cruz and Butte County), New Jersey, New York (Rockland County and New York City) and Washington, according to the CDC.

Rockland County has banned unvaccinated minors from public spaces. The recurrence of measles in America is the result of two things–parents who refuse to vaccinate their children and travelers who brought the disease to America from foreign countries such as Israel, Ukraine and the Philippines, which currently have measles outbreaks.

We need to find a way to make the vaccine safer (divided into more doses?) to assure parents that it is a good idea to vaccinate their children. This is a public health issue. The other aspect of this measles epidemic is that we need to make sure we control our borders to insure that immigrants are not bringing diseases into this country that have been eradicated. We need to question both legal and illegal immigrants about their health history.

Actions Have Consequences

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I am not a doctor, and I raised children before the controversy over vaccines began. I had my children vaccinated because it was what their pediatrician recommended. At the time that was pretty standard. Times have changed, and I am not sure what the right answer is, but at some point it seems that common sense should play a role.

The Hill is reporting today that state lawmakers are considering eliminating the vaccine  exemptions that have been granted to parents. The reason is the recent outbreaks of measles.

The article reports:

But the most recent measles outbreaks, which have infected 159 mostly unvaccinated people in 10 states, is leading some states to reconsider.

“That goes beyond religious freedom,” said Burke.

Every state requires that students be vaccinated to enroll in school, and all states allow exemptions for children who are too sick to receive vaccines or who have a weakened immune system.

Most states also allow exemptions for religious reasons, and 17 states, including Washington and Texas, allow exemptions for both religious and personal or philosophical beliefs, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Both Washington and Texas have seen measles outbreaks this year.

Lawmakers in Iowa, New Jersey and Vermont, which already ban personal or philosophical exemptions, are now debating proposals to eliminate religious exemptions.

I am concerned that if these exemptions are eliminated, exemptions for more controversial vaccines will also be eliminated. I am also concerned that smallpox vaccines are no longer given to American children because the disease is said to have been eradicated in America. Unfortunately, a person recently stopped while attempting to enter America illegally was diagnosed with smallpox. I would like to think that he was the only person with the disease attempting to enter America, but I am not sure that is realistic.

The article concludes:

Outbreaks can occur in communities where there is not a high enough percentage of people who are vaccinated.

Described as “herd immunity” by public health experts, at least 94 percent of a community must be vaccinated against measles to prevent the disease from spreading.

Herd immunity protects those with weakened immune systems, babies who can’t be vaccinated or those who are too sick to receive vaccinations.

But as more and more parents claim vaccine exemptions, experts say, the disease is more likely to spread.

And federal officials have indicated the government might step in if state legislatures don’t.

“Some states are engaging in such wide exemptions that they’re creating the opportunity for outbreaks on a scale that is going to have national implications,” Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb told CNN last week.

If “certain states continue down the path that they’re on, I think they’re going to force the hand of the federal health agencies.”

Health committees in the House and Senate are set to hold hearings on the measles outbreaks this month.

It will be interesting to watch the hearings. Good arguments can be made on both sides of this issue.

Smile, You Have Been Manipulated

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Last Sunday KRAE News 13 posted an article with the following headline, “Measles outbreak casts spotlight on anti-vaccine movement.” We all heard about the supposedly scientific report that showed a link between vaccines and autism. We also heard later that the research was fraudulent and there was no link. Generally speaking, I think I would vaccinate my children, which is what I did, but not everyone makes that choice. Because of the outbreak of measles that began in Disney World, there has been a focus on those parents who have not vaccinated their children–as if they were responsible for the outbreak of measles. Admittedly, they may not be helping the situation, but before we attack those parents who have refused vaccinations for their children, let’s look at some facts.

A website called stason.org posted statistics on the number of children worldwide who receive vaccinations. These are statistics from the early 1990’s, but they are interesting. In America, parents opt out of vaccines because they fear the consequences of the vaccine more than they fear their child contracting the disease in question. In many other countries, the vaccines are simply not available or not affordable.

According to stason.org (1992 figures):

 About 80% of the world’s children aged less than 1 were
reported to have received measles vaccine

The CDC Website cites a measles vaccination rate for Americans of about 91 percent.

So what am I getting out here? Most American children are protected against measles.

The article at KRAE News 13 reports:

Health authorities believe the outbreak was triggered by a measles-stricken visitor to one of the Disney parks who brought the virus from abroad last month.

As one of the world’s biggest tourist destinations, Disney was a perfect spot for the virus to spread, with large numbers of babies too young to be vaccinated and lots of visitors from countries that do not require measles shots. The disease has since spread beyond Disneyland.

Last summer there were a number of children from South American countries who crossed the Mexican border into America. What percentage of those children was vaccinated? It seems to me that rather than focus anger on parents in America who have refused the measles vaccine, we should be looking to the number of illegal aliens in this country (both children and adults) who because of poverty have never been vaccinated. One of the unintended consequences of President Obama’s policy of not enforcing our southern border may be a much more serious measles epidemic than might have otherwise occurred.