Israel – The old-fashioned children’s illness measles, not often seen in western nations where immunizations are standard procedure, has somehow managed to make its way back to Israel nevertheless.
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An outbreak of the virus has hit the country and is spreading rapidly at a rate of six new cases a day, according to the Health Ministry. It is not an epidemic, but the trend, which began this time with a young passenger on an El Al flight from New York City at the beginning of March, is troubling.
infants are generally protected from the virus for six to eight months after birth due to general immunity passed on from the mother. Afterwards, most children in developed nations receive a vaccine known as the MMR – the measles-mumps-rubella immunization, given at 12 to 15 months, and then at 4-to-6 years of age, with certain medical exceptions.
But, many families are refusing to vaccinate their children, fearing neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism and Asperger’s Syndrome.
There has been some research linking one of the components in the vaccine to the development of such conditions in a small percent of the population, and many parents don’t want to risk the chance, particularly those with a family history of developmental disorders.
While measles is rarely fatal in healthy children, it is highly contagious and can kill. People living in the same household with someone who is sick with measles, and who have not been immunized, have a 90-percent chance of contracting the illness, according to KidsHealth.org site. [arutz7]
“We can’t possibly ever have a discussion about the risks of vaccines vs. benefits if you will NEVER acknowledge even the POSSIBLITY that there may be risks.”
I totally acknowledge that there can be risks with vaccines. The old live polio vaccine (no longer used) would cause a few cases of polio each year in the US. It is important to compile such statistics and compare the incidence of those events with that of the unvaccinated.
YOU, however, are rejecting this basic principle of science! This actually has a biblical precedent — see the first chapter of the Book of Daniel where he convinces the guardian of the slaves to compare the progress of the Jewish slaves who eat vegetarian food to that of the non-Jewish slaves who eat the King’s food. Anecdotes do not prove anything. The danger of going unvaccinated from measles is now known beyond a doubt to be far more severe than the danger of the vaccine. It is as impossible to argue with someone who does not accept this basic science as it is to argue halachah with a Reform rabbi who rejects the entire halachic system. The Reform rabbi can endanger us spiritually, rejection of medical science endangers us physically.
Ignore the junk science and VACCINATE YOUR KIDS!
“Sorry, but you are incorrect. You can’t prove that the child would not have received the injuries had the child not been vaccinated. In fact, even the term “vaccine injured” in this case is junk science. There is no evidence that children who get vaccinated are any more likely to have such injuries than those who don’t get vaccinated.”
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Charlie, I hope other people are reading this since I sure am wasting my time with you. JUNK SCIENCE?!?!? In the case that I wrote above, a 2 month old did whatever 2 month olds do, i.e., lift head, focus, gaze, smile. She did all those, then she had her shot and she had a prolonged high pitched screaming fit, then fell into a deep sleep from which she woke up many hours later. Upon wakening she was, and still is years later, a completely different child and was unable to do all that stuff she was previously able to do. Today she cannot focus or smile and she was able to IMMEDIATELY preceding her DPT, with pictures to prove it. Saying the DPT did not cause her reaction is like saying – I pulled the trigger at the guy and he died around the same time – but I didn’t kill him. Don’t tell me “there’s no evidence” – there are scores of cases where the kid’s neurological problems began 3 minutes after a vaccine.
Another example – my grandfather received a measles vaccine about 60 years ago (they don’t have this particular vaccine anymore) and UPON receiving it contracted encephalitis and fell into a 3 week long coma. Of course, the doctor said – coincidence! Or in Charlie Hall speak, there is no evidence that this otherwise healthy individual wouldn’t have contracted encephalitis that particular instant regardless of the vaccine! Only doctors and fools could ever say his falling into a coma was NOT from the vaccine.
We can’t possibly ever have a discussion about the risks of vaccines vs. benefits if you will NEVER acknowledge even the POSSIBLITY that there may be risks.
Charlie, whaddaya mean proof?!? If your family member reacted “coincidentally” that way, you would also have second thoughts. What’s most alarming is doctors who see severe reactions in babies, who then give more vaccines 8-10 weeks following. What’s the rush? These are babies!! Thank G-d New York allows for exemptions. The liberals have done well by us.
Dear thinktwice,
Sorry, but you are incorrect. You can’t prove that the child would not have received the injuries had the child not been vaccinated. In fact, even the term “vaccine injured” in this case is junk science. There is no evidence that children who get vaccinated are any more likely to have such injuries than those who don’t get vaccinated.
And look at the flip side: If a child has not been vaccinated for measles, the child WILL get infected, because measles is possibly the most contagious disease affecting humans. About one out of every thousand such children will die. And they will pass on the disease to any other unvaccinated child — or adult — with whom they come into contact.
Another way of looking at this: About 100,000 Jewish babies are born each year in Eretz Yisrael. Vaccinate none of them, and about a hundred of those babies will die as a result. Hamas will be very happy.
What is the autism rate in Israel? A 2003 study found 8 per 10,000 children developed pervasive developmental disorder (PDD), about half of which were autism, and much of that risk is known to be genetic. And that is less than the death rate when a child develops measles. Or do we secretly prefer for a child to lose his or her life rather than to grow up developmentally disabled? Chas v’shalom!
We can handle a few parents not vaccinating their kids because herd immunity protects them. But when a substantial fraction does not vaccinate, it endangers the entire community. The United States has a long history of enacting mandatory health measures going all the way back to when George Washington order soldiers in the Continental Army to be innoculated for smallpox — an innoculation that itself carried a 1-2% death rate (as opposed to the 50% death rate that some of his Continental Army units had experienced from the disease). But that policy may have won the war.
The irony is that it is possible to completely eradicate measles as has been done with smallpox, which will make vaccinations no longer necessary. But to do so requires the cooperation of the entire world, and it is not happening. Already this year over 500 children have died in Nigeria alone because religious Muslims have refused to
allow their children to be vaccinated. Surely we don’t want Jewish kids to suffer the fate of these poor Muslim kids!
Vaccinate your kids — for their sake and the sake of every Jewish child with whom they come into contact!
Charlie, the reason why the “debate” over vaccine causing autism will NEVER go away is because those parents who claim the vaccine caused their kid’s neurological injuries, relatives of mine included, saw that it happened IMMEDIATELY at the time of vaccination, not “around 18 months.” We have a relative who has severe neurological disorders, symptoms include that she can’t focus or smile. This started the INSTANT she got her DPT. Family pictures the night before that fateful DPT show her focusing and smiling. Doctor’s response: coincidence.
Face it Charlie, the debate will NEVER go away because the parents see a DRAMATIC, IMMEDIATE, and PERMANENT difference in their kids the instant they are vaccinated. Parents of disabled children are suffering enough; don’t insult their intelligence by claiming that the vaccine does not cause the injury when there was no injury immediately preceding the vaccine.
Obviously, some kids are more genetically predisposed to these reactions. That’s why we can’t have a one size fits all vaccine policy and people need to be allowed to opt out for philosophical objections. The parents of the kids that I know who were vaccine injured (and only an absolute moron like the pediatrician at hand could claim her injuries are not from the vaccine even though she did not have them one second before and did have them one second after) did NOT receive government compensation under the VAERS. Huge chutzpa of the government to mandate vaccinations but leave it to the parents to deal with the plethora of injuries from them.
Let’s assume that there is absolutely no established link between MMR and Autism.
But why are these 3 live Viri (made with Monkey blood) injected AT ONCE into an 18 month old? Why not let the immune system recover a little?
And why are there anecdotes of children who, for whatever reason, received multiple vaccines in one day who were never the same afterward?
And why was Autism almost unknown a generation ago when now it is big business?
I think an open mind is the best policy, regardless of what you are compelled to do.
So how do all you geniuses answer 3:14? If you go for the vaccine and get the disease anyway….
In our house we had the vaccines AND the measles. I guess we are immune now.
My sister’s kids had the vaccine and the whooping cough. So did every child in her daughter’s play group.
My husband has had the mumps twice, that is on both sides twice. And he was also vaccinated as a child.
Here are the facts regarding the measles vaccine and autism:
Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) Vaccine and Autism Fact Sheet
Basic Information
* The MMR vaccine protects children against dangerous, even deadly, diseases.
* Because signs of autism may appear at around the same time children receive the MMR vaccine, some parents may worry that the vaccine causes autism.
* Carefully performed scientific studies have found no relationship between MMR vaccine and autism.
* CDC continues to recommend two doses of MMR vaccine for all children.
Additional Facts
* MMR is a combination vaccine that protects children from measles, mumps, and rubella (also known as German measles). The first dose of the vaccine is usually given to children 12 to 15 months old. The second dose is usually given between 4 and 6 years of age.
* In 1998, a study of autistic children raised the question of a connection between MMR vaccine and autism.
* The 1998 study has a number of limitations. For example, the study was very small, involving only 12 children. This is too few cases to make any generalizations about the causes of autism. In addition, the researchers suggested that MMR vaccination caused bowel problems in the children, which then led to autism. However, in some of the children studied, symptoms of autism appeared before symptoms of bowel disease.
* In 2004, 10 of the 13 authors of the 1998 study retracted the study’s interpretation. The authors stated that the data were not able to establish a causal link between MMR vaccine and autism.
* Other larger studies have found no relationship between MMR vaccine and autism. For example, researchers in the UK studied the records of 498 children with autism born between 1979 and 1998. They found:
o The percentage of children with autism who received MMR vaccine was the same as the percentage of unaffected children in the region who received MMR vaccine.
o There was no difference in the age of diagnosis of autism in vaccinated and unvaccinated children.
o The onset of “regressive” symptoms of autism did not occur within 2, 4, or 6 months of receiving the MMR vaccine.
* Groups of experts, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, agree that MMR vaccine is not responsible for recent increases in the number of children with autism. In 2004, a report by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) concluded that there is no association between autism and MMR vaccine, or vaccines that contain thimerosal as a preservative.
* There is no published scientific evidence showing that there is any benefit to separating the combination MMR vaccine into three individual shots.
Source:
http://www.cdc.gov/od/science/iso/concerns/mmr_autism_factsheet.htm
Note that most of the original authors of the tiny study retracted their findings. Chas v’shalom that we would follow a psak after the rabbi retracts the psak; kol v’chomer when a decision involves a life or death matter!
VACCINATE YOUR KIDS! You may save their lives and the lives of others.
Not only have various studies shown no evidence that the vaccines caused autism or Asperger’s but the (mercury-based) chemical that people claimed was the cause has been removed from the vaccine.
Moreover, the vaccine is not fool-proof. Many who have taken it lose their immunity. However, in a society where everyone has taken the vaccine the rate of such loss is so low that they have an extremely low rate of getting infected. However, when people never get the vaccine, the risk to this group who lost immunity rises dramatically.
People who don’t have their children take the vaccine are not only endangering their children but those of others as well.
Let’s have some information now. This is from Wikipedia’s article on measles.
Complications
Complications with measles are relatively common, ranging from relatively mild and less serious diarrhea, to pneumonia and encephalitis (subacute sclerosing panencephalitis), corneal ulceration leading to corneal scarring[5] Complications are usually more severe amongst adults who catch the virus.
The fatality rate from measles for otherwise healthy people in developed countries is low: approximately 1 death per thousand cases. In underdeveloped nations with high rates of malnutrition and poor healthcare, fatality rates of 10 percent are common. In immunocompromised patients, the fatality rate is approximately 30 percent.
A scene from 1949’s Polka-Dot Puss, where Tom and Jerry are put in quarantine after getting the measles. The disease was common during the time when the cartoon was made.
Measles is a significant infectious disease because, while the rate of complications is not high, the disease itself is so infectious that the sheer number of people who would suffer complications in an outbreak amongst non-immune people would quickly overwhelm available hospital resources. If vaccination rates fall, the number of non-immune persons in the community rises, and the risk of an outbreak of measles consequently rises.
In developed countries, most children are immunized against measles by the age of 18 months, generally as part of a three-part MMR vaccine (measles, mumps, and rubella). The vaccination is generally not given earlier than this because children younger than 18 months usually retain anti-measles immunoglobulins (antibodies) transmitted from the mother during pregnancy. A “booster” vaccine is then given between the ages of four and five. Vaccination rates have been high enough to make measles relatively uncommon. Even a single case in a college dormitory or similar setting is often met with a local vaccination program, in case any of the people exposed are not already immune. In developing countries, measles remains common.
Unvaccinated populations are at risk for the disease. After vaccination rates dropped in northern Nigeria in the early 2000s due to religious and political objections, the number of cases rose significantly, and hundreds of children died.[6] A 2005 measles outbreak in Indiana was attributed to children whose parents refused vaccination.[7] In the early 2000s the MMR vaccine controversy in the United Kingdom regarding a potential link between the combined MMR vaccine (vaccinating children from mumps, measles and rubella) and autism prompted a comeback in the measles party, where parents deliberately infect the child with measles to build up the child’s immunity without an injection. This practice poses many health risks to the child, and has been discouraged by the public health authorities.[8] Scientific evidence provides no support for the hypothesis that MMR plays a role in causing autism.[9] Declining immunisation rates in the UK are the probable cause of a significant increase of cases of measles, 2006 being the highest on record, and 2007 already showing an increase on the previous year.[10]
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), measles is a leading cause of vaccine preventable childhood mortality. Worldwide, the fatality rate has been significantly reduced by partners in the Measles Initiative: the American Red Cross, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the United Nations Foundation, UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO). Globally, measles deaths are down 60 percent, from an estimated 873,000 deaths in 1999 to 345,000 in 2005. Africa has seen the most success, with annual measles deaths falling by 75 percent in just 5 years, from an estimated 506,000 to 126,000.[11]
The joint press release by members of the Measles Initiative brings to light another benefit of the fight against measles: “Measles vaccination campaigns are contributing to the reduction of child deaths from other causes. They have become a channel for the delivery of other life-saving interventions, such as bed nets to protect against malaria, de-worming medicine and vitamin A supplements. Combining measles immunization with other health interventions is a contribution to the achievement of Millennium Development Goal Number 4: a two-thirds reduction in child deaths between 1990 and 2015.”[11]
9:35 – You’re wrong. If you don’t get the vaccine you WILL get measles. The slimmer chance is that you’ll die from it. Slim though it may be, is it worth the risk? If I told you that a certain vaccine could protect you from 5% of the bombs, would you take it?
Tell the israelis that the chances of getting ht by a bomb are higher then getting measels. Oh and also dont cross the street cause you will get hit by a car.
There is no scientific evidence that vaccines cause autism or Asperger’s. All studies that tried to prove a correlation were significantly flawed in the methodology and are completely discredited by the scientific community. The autism-vaccine link is a spurious correlation pushed by parents who came to this conclusion as a result of having children regress into autism after the MMR shot. The reality is that most autistic children start developing autism symptoms around 18 months, which is the same period that the MMR shot is given. It’s a pity that children are ending up sick as a result of people’s ignorance. Either follow your doctor’s reccomendations, or learn how to analyze and study scientific literature to understand what is science and what is ignorance disguised as science. Chaval that there are idn who put their children’s life at risk as a result of their ignorance. Give your child vaccines!