Today, from News of the Stupid: Anti-Vaccine Movement is Giving Diseases a Second Life. Excerpt:
Recent measles outbreaks in New York, California and Texas are examples of what could happen on a larger scale if vaccination rates dropped, says Anne Schuchat, the CDC’s director of immunizations and respiratory diseases. Officials declared measles, which causes itchy rashes and fevers, eradicated in the United States in 2000. Yet this year, the disease is on track to infect three times as many people as in 2009. That’s because in most cases people who have not been vaccinated are getting infected by others traveling into the United States. Then, Schuchat says, the infected spread it in their communities.
The 189 cases of measles in the U.S. last year is small compared with the 530,000 cases the country used to see on average each year in the 20th century. But, the disease — which started to wane when a vaccine was introduced in 1967 — is one of the most contagious in the world and could quickly go from sporadic nuisance to widespread killer.
But here’s the real kicker from this story:
Such measures offend Sarah Pope, a Tampa mother of three, and Shane Ellison, a father of three in Los Angeles. They both decided against vaccinating their kids because they fear the potential side effects.
In 2006, all three of Pope’s children — now 9, 11 and 15 — contracted whooping cough, the same disease that killed Brady. Seven years earlier, Pope had decided against vaccinating any of her children. After seven weeks of coughing, and with treatment by a holistic doctor and natural supplements, all three recovered without complications, she says.
There’s a word for people like Sarah Pope – and it’s “moron.” Her children are lucky to be alive, and owe no thanks to their idiot mother for their survival – not with her horseshit New Age “holistic doctor” and “natural supplements.”
Fortunately her kids had decent immune systems. But that doesn’t excuse Pope’s overweening stupidity in subjecting her kids to a potentially fatal disease – and what’s worse, possibly spreading that disease to who knows how many other kids?
Charlatans like these “holistic doctors,” more accurately described as liars and purveyors of snake oil, should be reviled and ridiculed, not held up as authorities. And Mrs. Pope is – let’s make no mistake about it – a careless and stupid parent. She should be ashamed of herself, and hopefully her example will serve only as a deterrent.
In sudsier news, here is a tidbit on the Geography of Beer. Enjoy.
