Anti-Vaxxers and Vaccine Misinformation / Lies

[goldenvalley]

May 31, 2022 21:08:55 GMT LFC said:

Monkeypox already has the anti-vax "truthers" melting down. These people are ignorant, superstitious, overwrought, irrational, emotional, and dumb as rocks.

Public health experts and most mainstream media outlets have spent much of the last week or two assuring people that monkeypox is not the new COVID-19.

Sure, the global outbreak of a couple hundred cases of a disease usually confined to clusters in Africa is odd and not yet well understood, and after two years of COVID, news of a virus potentially doing something new inevitably has people on edge. But unlike the novel coronavirus, several experts on the disease told The Daily Beast, monkeypox is a known entity. It doesn’t spread all that easily between humans, nor, to experts’ current understanding, asymptomatically. So few see any cause for widespread concern—and no actual experts or officials of any note appear to be calling for COVID-style control measures.

As Grant McFadden, a poxvirus expert at Arizona State University, put it, “For a virologist, this transmission is worth study, and it’ll probably teach us a few new things about monkeypox. But for the average person, on a worry meter from 0 to 10, it’s probably below a 1.”

But over in the bizarro world of pandemic truthers and far-right conspiracy theorists, many folks have been spreading a drastically different message: Monkeypox is clearly “Covid 2.0.” Naturally, this crowd baselessly believes, global elites will soon enact a new wave of supposedly inane and harmful mass lockdowns, vaccinations, and more.

“Soon: Just 2 weeks to flatten the monkeypox curve,” a member of a conspiratorial Reddit group with over 1.7 million users posted last week. “Msm [mainstream media] will push monkeypox lockdowns within the next month……….here we go again,” reads another post from Monday.

Or, as one recent article in a popular truther publication put it, “We might be in for an epic summer of scare-mongering, panic-buying & bucket loads of cringe…”

The contrast between experts’ measured accounts of the realities of this strange—yet likely manageable—outbreak and the conspiracists’ frenzied predictions about a pandemic repeat is striking. But according to several experts on anti-vaxxers, pandemic truthers, and conspiracy theorists The Daily Beast spoke to for this article, it’s hardly surprising. After all, these communities have spent years now arguing that the pandemic is the centerpiece of a grand (if vague) sinister plot, and finding ways to shoehorn anything and everything they find suspicious or distasteful into those narratives.

These folks aren't happy unless they are busy spinning conspiracy theories.  Doesn't life present enough challenges in reality?  Maybe they're bored with the mundane lives they lead.  And somewhere, somehow somebody is making a bit of money doing this.

[indy]

As a species, we really are doomed.

Polio is spreading in Britain for the first time in nearly 40 years, health officials have warned, as they declared a national incident, and urged people to make sure they are vaccinated.

Britain was proclaimed polio-free in 2003 with the last wild case detected in 1984, making the new outbreak the first transmission event since the 1980s.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/06/22/polio-back-national-incident-declared-uk-disease-spreads-first/

[LFC]

Jun 23, 2022 1:19:03 GMT indy said:

As a species, we really are doomed.

I don't know about that. I certainly believe Mother Nature will shed a fairly large percentage of us at some point but I suspect the species will survive.

[indy]

Maybe so, but it'll still be the same bell curve of people...just fewer of them.  At some point, you have to wonder what difference it makes if they do or don't.

[LFC]

Jun 23, 2022 20:59:16 GMT indy said:

Maybe so, but it'll still be the same bell curve of people...just fewer of them.  At some point, you have to wonder what difference it makes if they do or don't.

Agreed. All I'm predicting is that humans will continue to exist, even if in a cesspool of brutish stupidity.

[LFC]

A study published in Lancet details just how bad COVID could have been if the anti-vaxxers had won. And obviously it could have been better if they hadn't won the battles they did for easily lead hearts and minds.

Official figures show COVID-19 killed more than 5.4 million people through 2021, but the real toll may have been closer to 15 million. And the pandemic remains far from over. But a powerful new study suggests that were it not for the miracle of vaccines, COVID-19 would have taken about 20 million more lives from early December 2020 through early December 2021—the first year that vaccines were available—alone.

That represents about half the people killed during the entire span of World War II.

Yet the scientific prowess of vaccines—developed in a record time of less than 12 months after COVID-19 was first reported—could have saved millions more lives were it not for extremist politicians, conspiracy theories, and gross inequality across the planet.

Science led the way. But our political leaders, mostly on the political right, failed us badly. If they had the moral fortitude to place public welfare above their own self-interest—pushing their constituents to get shots they were skeptical of, and looking out for those abroad—many millions would be alive today. Parents. Grandparents. Children.

What did the study released on Thursday, and published in Lancet Infectious Diseases, find? Researchers at Imperial College, London, looked at excess mortality—how many people actually died compared to how many would have been expected to die in the absence of COVID-19—in a modeling study that, as such studies necessarily are, based on reasonable but not necessarily perfectly accurate assumptions. They found that nearly 20 million deaths were averted, and that more than 60 percent of those were in higher-income countries. Most deaths averted were due to vaccines’ ability to prevent severe disease, but also because they reduced transmission and relieved the strain on health systems.

In other words, despite the political rhetoric of populist leaders, vaccines have been spectacularly effective. This study highlights what we have known all along, yet with numbers of such magnitude, we can only hope they can move policymakers to heed some key lessons.

[LFC]

F***ing polio? F*** dipshits!

Polio’s first appearance in almost a decade in the U.S., confirmed late last week by health officials in New York, would play out quite differently.

In the U.S., public health agencies generally don’t test sewage for polio. Instead, they wait for people to show up sick in doctor’s offices or hospitals — a reactive strategy that can give this stealthy virus more time to circulate silently through the community before it is detected.

In New York, the first sign of trouble surfaced when a young man in Rockland County sought medical treatment for weakness and paralysis in June. By the time tests confirmed he had polio, nearly a month had passed.

Because the majority of polio infections cause no symptoms, by the time there’s a case of paralysis, 100 to 1,000 infections may have occurred, said Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, a professor of pediatrics at the Stanford School of Medicine who chairs the American Academy of Pediatrics’ committee on infectious diseases.

“You’re already chasing your tail if you’re going to wait for a case to show up,” she said.

High U.S. vaccination rates, topping 90%, made the risk of such diseases incredibly low, though there have long been pockets of population in which rates are far lower. Rockland County, a suburban area northwest of New York City, is one such place. It suffered an extended outbreak of measles, another vaccine-preventable disease, in 2018 and 2019 that was largely concentrated in its Orthodox Jewish community, where many opt out of vaccines. Several news organizations have reported that the polio patient is a member of that community.

[Bact PhD]

Jul 26, 2022 22:18:37 GMT LFC said:

F***ing polio? F*** dipshits!

Sigh. So close to eradication…and yet so far. And now, farther away still.

[LFC]

I Just Want to Scream, Episode 3,298

We have a neighbor who is nice and we like. We were chatting with her the other day and COVID came up. (I see you're cringing already.) She's not anti-vax and is, herself, vaccinated but she said one of her relatives had her 5-yr old vaccinated and now regrets it because "it doesn't work." Leaving that aside I asked what was the harm and she started on how the vaccine changes your DNA so you don't know what will happen to the child when they grow up. The punch line? She's a f***ing nurse. I was good and explained reality in a calm manner but I have no idea if it got through.

[Bact PhD]

Aug 2, 2022 16:42:35 GMT LFC said:

I Just Want to Scream, Episode 3,298

We have a neighbor who is nice and we like. We were chatting with her the other day and COVID came up. (I see you're cringing already.) She's not anti-vax and is, herself, vaccinated but she said one of her relatives had her 5-yr old vaccinated and now regrets it because "it doesn't work." Leaving that aside I asked what was the harm and she started on how the vaccine changes your DNA so you don't know what will happen to the child when they grow up. The punch line? She's a f***ing nurse. I was good and explained reality in a calm manner but I have no idea if it got through.

That banging sound you hear is my head hitting the wall again and again and again.

In all fairness, though, I doubt RN Continuing Ed goes into the details of the current state of molecular biology; her knowledge base on the subject is probably what it was whenever she took Microbiology as an undergrad…I would guess the late 1980s or so? Proof-of-concept of nucleic acid-based vaccines hit the literature in the late 1990s.

[LFC]

Aug 2, 2022 17:38:52 GMT Bact PhD said:

In all fairness, though, I doubt RN Continuing Ed goes into the details of the current state of molecular biology; her knowledge base on the subject is probably what it was whenever she took Microbiology as an undergrad…I would guess the late 1980s or so? Proof-of-concept of nucleic acid-based vaccines hit the literature in the late 1990s.

My opinion isn't based on what she was trained on but rather that working in the medical field I would hope that when somebody heard something as drastic as "it changes your DNA" they'd do a tiny bit of due diligence, like maybe asking a doctor. Instead it's just accepted without question.

[LFC]

Jul 26, 2022 22:18:37 GMT LFC said:

F***ing polio? F*** dipshits!

The New York county with the polio outbreak has a 60.5% vaccination rate. UGH! They were also the site of an earlier measles outbreak. They're basically a real-time low vaccination test case and are proving what we already knew; vaccines f***ing work!

The vaccine-derived poliovirus that left an unvaccinated US resident with the country's first case of paralytic polio in nearly a decade has been genetically linked to spread in two other countries: the United Kingdom and Israel. Now that it has been detected in the US, health officials fear it has spread to hundreds or even thousands of people in a poorly vaccinated New York county.

On Monday, officials in New York urgently encouraged unvaccinated residents to get vaccinated "as soon as possible" to prevent further spread of the virus.

"Polio is very contagious, and an individual can transmit the virus even if they aren't sick," the New York State Department of Health said in a news release today. The virus spreads easily via a fecal-oral route through poor hygiene and sanitation. The virus transmits through direct contact with an infected person or contaminated food or water. "Symptoms, which can be mild and flu-like, can take up to 30 days to appear, during which time an infected individual can be shedding virus to others," the health department added.

About 1 in 200 people infected with poliovirus develop paralysis, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That means for the one case of paralytic polio to have arisen in New York—which was not linked to any international travel—hundreds of others were likely already infected.

Pockets of risk

Most Americans have been vaccinated against poliovirus, making them safe from the dangerous virus. The three-dose inactivated polio vaccine (IPV), given in the first 24 months with a fourth-dose booster between the ages of 4 and 6, is part of the CDC's standard immunization schedule. According to CDC data from 2015, nearly 93 percent of US children received their three doses of IPV by the age of 2.

But, the paralytic polio case in New York was found in Rockland County, a northern suburb of New York City, which has pockets of low vaccination rates. In fact, in 2019, the county struggled with an explosive measles outbreak due to the same problem.

According to the state health department, Rockland County currently has a polio vaccination rate of just 60.5 percent among 2-year-olds, compared to the statewide average of 79 percent.

The paralytic case in Rockland, which occurred in an unvaccinated young adult, was first reported by authorities on July 21, but the person's symptoms began in June. Since then, transmission likely continued, with epidemiologists now saying that thousands could be infected.

[LFC]

The COVID vaccine disinformation was vast, sustained, and organized by people who profited from the sickening and death of others because they were peddling snake oil.

Even before the COVID-19 vaccine was authorized, there was a plan to discredit it.

Leaders in the anti-vaccination movement attended an online conference in October 2020 — two months before the first shot was administered — where one speaker presented on “The 5 Reasons You Might Want to Avoid a COVID-19 Vaccine” and another referred to the “untested, unproven, very toxic vaccines.”

But that was only the beginning. Misinformation seeped into every corner of social media, onto Facebook feeds and into Instagram images, pregnancy apps and Twitter posts. Pregnant people emerged as a target. A disinformation campaign preyed on their vulnerability, exploiting a deep psychological need to protect their unborn children at a moment when so much of the country was already gripped by fear.

“It’s just so powerful,” said Imran Ahmed, the founder and chief executive officer of the U.S. nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate, which tracks online disinformation.

A majority of the disinformation came from a group of highly organized, economically motivated actors, many of them selling supplements, books or even miracle cures, he said. They told people the vaccine may harm their unborn child or deprive them of the opportunity to become parents. Some even infiltrated online pregnancy groups and asked seemingly harmless questions, such as whether people had heard the vaccine could potentially lead to infertility.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate found that nearly 70% of anti-vaccination content could be traced to 12 people, whom they dubbed The Disinformation Dozen. They reached millions of people and tested their messaging online, Ahmed said, to see what was most effective — what was most frequently shared or liked — in real time.

A May 2022 Kaiser Family Foundation poll found more than 70% of pregnant people or those planning to become pregnant believed or were unsure whether to believe at least one of the following popular examples of misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine: that pregnant people should not get vaccinated; that it’s unsafe to get vaccinated while breastfeeding; or that the vaccine has been shown to cause infertility. None of which are true.

Dr. Laura Morris, a University of Missouri, Columbia family physician who delivers babies, has heard all those falsehoods and more from her patients. She has long relied on science to help encourage them to make well-informed decisions.

But when officials rolled out the vaccine, she found herself without her most powerful tool, data. The disinformation didn’t have to completely convince people that the vaccine was dangerous; creating doubt often was sufficient.

“That level of uncertainty is enough to knock them off the path to accepting vaccination,” Morris said. “Instead of seeing vaccines as something that will make them healthier and improve their pregnancy outcomes, they haven’t received the right information to make them feel confident that this is actually healthy.”

Before COVID-19, Morris typically saw one stillbirth every couple of years. Since the pandemic started, she said she has been seeing them more often. All followed a COVID-19 diagnosis in an unvaccinated patient just weeks before they were due. Not only did Morris have to deliver the painful news that their baby had died, she also told them that the outcome might have been different had they been vaccinated. Some, she said, felt betrayed at having believed the lies surrounding the vaccine.

“You have to have that conversation very carefully,” Morris said, “because this is a time where the people are feeling awful and grieving and there’s a lot of guilt associated with these situations that’s not deserved.”

[goldenvalley]

Aug 4, 2022 16:59:14 GMT LFC said:

The COVID vaccine disinformation was vast, sustained, and organized by people who profited from the sickening and death of others because they were peddling snake oil.

Even before the COVID-19 vaccine was authorized, there was a plan to discredit it.

Leaders in the anti-vaccination movement attended an online conference in October 2020 — two months before the first shot was administered — where one speaker presented on “The 5 Reasons You Might Want to Avoid a COVID-19 Vaccine” and another referred to the “untested, unproven, very toxic vaccines.”

But that was only the beginning. Misinformation seeped into every corner of social media, onto Facebook feeds and into Instagram images, pregnancy apps and Twitter posts. Pregnant people emerged as a target. A disinformation campaign preyed on their vulnerability, exploiting a deep psychological need to protect their unborn children at a moment when so much of the country was already gripped by fear.

“It’s just so powerful,” said Imran Ahmed, the founder and chief executive officer of the U.S. nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate, which tracks online disinformation.

A majority of the disinformation came from a group of highly organized, economically motivated actors, many of them selling supplements, books or even miracle cures, he said. They told people the vaccine may harm their unborn child or deprive them of the opportunity to become parents. Some even infiltrated online pregnancy groups and asked seemingly harmless questions, such as whether people had heard the vaccine could potentially lead to infertility.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate found that nearly 70% of anti-vaccination content could be traced to 12 people, whom they dubbed The Disinformation Dozen. They reached millions of people and tested their messaging online, Ahmed said, to see what was most effective — what was most frequently shared or liked — in real time.

A May 2022 Kaiser Family Foundation poll found more than 70% of pregnant people or those planning to become pregnant believed or were unsure whether to believe at least one of the following popular examples of misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine: that pregnant people should not get vaccinated; that it’s unsafe to get vaccinated while breastfeeding; or that the vaccine has been shown to cause infertility. None of which are true.

Dr. Laura Morris, a University of Missouri, Columbia family physician who delivers babies, has heard all those falsehoods and more from her patients. She has long relied on science to help encourage them to make well-informed decisions.

But when officials rolled out the vaccine, she found herself without her most powerful tool, data. The disinformation didn’t have to completely convince people that the vaccine was dangerous; creating doubt often was sufficient.

“That level of uncertainty is enough to knock them off the path to accepting vaccination,” Morris said. “Instead of seeing vaccines as something that will make them healthier and improve their pregnancy outcomes, they haven’t received the right information to make them feel confident that this is actually healthy.”

Before COVID-19, Morris typically saw one stillbirth every couple of years. Since the pandemic started, she said she has been seeing them more often. All followed a COVID-19 diagnosis in an unvaccinated patient just weeks before they were due. Not only did Morris have to deliver the painful news that their baby had died, she also told them that the outcome might have been different had they been vaccinated. Some, she said, felt betrayed at having believed the lies surrounding the vaccine.

“You have to have that conversation very carefully,” Morris said, “because this is a time where the people are feeling awful and grieving and there’s a lot of guilt associated with these situations that’s not deserved.”

My daughter was an unvaccinated pregnant person.  She kept hearing from moms of her students who were nurses (in a very red area) that the vaccine was untested in pregnant women and therefore a big risk.  Combine that with the current strictures on what pregnant women can eat and drink during pregnancy...even deli meat is on the no list these days unless heated up to 160 just before eating...that many were understandably worried about a new vaccine against a new disease.  DD paid the price and had Covid in the last month but it was a mild case and she and baby were unscathed. 

I read the whole ProPublica article.  Some medical authorities prior to the onset of Covid were recommending that pregnant women not be exempted from any trials of medications/vaccinations...especially in light of the Zika virus but that recommendation was ignored.  Maybe it will be reconsidered and implemented now.  The diseases are worse than the possible side effects of the trials. Medical science and understanding of pregnancy and immune systems have advanced

[goldenvalley]

Thanks anti-vaxxers...Polio has been detected in NYC wastewater.

In New York City, the overall rate of polio vaccination among children 5 and under is 86 percent, and most adults in the United States were vaccinated against polio as children. Still, in some city ZIP codes, fewer than two-thirds of children 5 and under have received at least three doses, a figure that worries health officials.

The state Health Department said in a statement the discovery of the virus underscored “the urgency of every New York adult and child getting immunized, especially those in the greater New York metropolitan area.”

What is with parents these days?  Of course I'm an old and as one I have specific memories of people in my childhood who had polio.  My god mother's twisted back, my kindergarten teachers built up shoe are part of those memories, as is my 6th grade teacher's story of how her daughter was in an iron lung for months...all due to polio.  Do we have to trot out photos of people like them to show to parents of newborns?

[Bact PhD]

Aug 15, 2022 17:51:37 GMT goldenvalley said:

Thanks anti-vaxxers...Polio has been detected in NYC wastewater.

In New York City, the overall rate of polio vaccination among children 5 and under is 86 percent, and most adults in the United States were vaccinated against polio as children. Still, in some city ZIP codes, fewer than two-thirds of children 5 and under have received at least three doses, a figure that worries health officials.

The state Health Department said in a statement the discovery of the virus underscored “the urgency of every New York adult and child getting immunized, especially those in the greater New York metropolitan area.”

What is with parents these days?  Of course I'm an old and as one I have specific memories of people in my childhood who had polio.  My god mother's twisted back, my kindergarten teachers built up shoe are part of those memories, as is my 6th grade teacher's story of how her daughter was in an iron lung for months...all due to polio.  Do we have to trot out photos of people like them to show to parents of newborns?

(Bold in quote mine)
Even if we did, the hard-core would swear it was all a hoax, that polio really wasn’t all that awful… smh

[LFC]

Another quack with a medical degree.

“Widow Tells the Story How Her Husband Died From the Jab.”

“Musician Loses Livelihood After Taking the Shot.”

These are just a sampling of the headlines that make up Mercola.com, the website of Florida-based anti-vax quack Joseph Mercola. Its success allowed the former doctor to stop seeing patients in 2009 and focus full-time on peddling unfounded treatments for mystery illnesses to his desperate following.

The site’s tone will be familiar to anyone who’s ever closed out 15 pop-ups to watch a movie on a shady website. It’s exaggerated and pessimistic, with fearmongering about 5G cellphone towers sharing space with alluringly simple solutions, like an $87 vitamin compound. This is the formula that’s made Mercola $100 million, according to a 2017 affidavit obtained by The Washington Post.

One of his recent headlines slams The New York Times for engaging in “classic Orwellian doublespeak” in a new “hit piece documentary.” That would be Superspreader, the latest episode of The New York Times Presents premiering on FX and Hulu on Aug. 19.

The hour-long doc, based on a New York Times article from 2021, traces Mercola’s rise from well-meaning osteopath, defined by the Mayo Clinic as a licensed doctor who “focuses on the body’s interconnected system of nerves, muscles and bones,” to a conspiracy hawker who came in at No. 1 in last year’s “Disinformation Dozen” list from the Center for Countering Digital Hate.

[goldenvalley]

Aug 22, 2022 18:27:22 GMT LFC said:

Another quack with a medical degree.

“Widow Tells the Story How Her Husband Died From the Jab.”

“Musician Loses Livelihood After Taking the Shot.”

These are just a sampling of the headlines that make up Mercola.com, the website of Florida-based anti-vax quack Joseph Mercola. Its success allowed the former doctor to stop seeing patients in 2009 and focus full-time on peddling unfounded treatments for mystery illnesses to his desperate following.

The site’s tone will be familiar to anyone who’s ever closed out 15 pop-ups to watch a movie on a shady website. It’s exaggerated and pessimistic, with fearmongering about 5G cellphone towers sharing space with alluringly simple solutions, like an $87 vitamin compound. This is the formula that’s made Mercola $100 million, according to a 2017 affidavit obtained by The Washington Post.

One of his recent headlines slams The New York Times for engaging in “classic Orwellian doublespeak” in a new “hit piece documentary.” That would be Superspreader, the latest episode of The New York Times Presents premiering on FX and Hulu on Aug. 19.

The hour-long doc, based on a New York Times article from 2021, traces Mercola’s rise from well-meaning osteopath, defined by the Mayo Clinic as a licensed doctor who “focuses on the body’s interconnected system of nerves, muscles and bones,” to a conspiracy hawker who came in at No. 1 in last year’s “Disinformation Dozen” list from the Center for Countering Digital Hate.

Not a quack...a grifter.  He's not practicing medicine he's making money.  He and Dr Oz and who knows how many others.  

[LFC]

Not anti-vax but the same mentality.

A garden-variety herbal remedy led to the abrupt and untimely death of Lori McClintock, the 61-year-old wife of US Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.), according to a report from Kaiser Health News, which recently obtained documents from the coroner, the autopsy reports, as well as the amended death certificate.

Tom McClintock, who represents a district in Northern California, found his wife unresponsive at their home in Elk Grove on December 15, 2021, after he returned from Washington, DC. The coroner's report indicated that she had complained of an "upset stomach" the day before her death, but McClintock said that his wife was otherwise fine. He said she was "counting down the days to Christmas," wrapping presents, planning a family Christmas, and had recently joined a gym.

According to the coroner's documents, Lori McClintock's death resulted from "adverse effects of white mulberry leaf ingestion." Ingestion of the tree leaves caused gastroenteritis (inflammation of the stomach and intestines) that led to dehydration, which caused her death. The coroner's documents noted that McClintock's body had elevated levels of nitrogen, sodium, and creatinine, which independent pathologists confirmed to KHN were signs of dehydration. The cause of death listed on her death certificate was updated from "pending" to an accident.

Like many herbal remedies, white mulberry is said to be useful in treating a wide variety of health conditions—with little to no evidence. The most common is diabetes. Studies have suggested that the tree, native to China, contains anti-diabetic compounds that can lower blood glucose levels in diabetic mice. But white mulberry is also said to help with high cholesterol, high blood pressure, obesity, weight loss, the common cold, joint pain, and arthritis, among other conditions.

Lingering questions

It's unclear why McClintock was ingesting white mulberry leaves—or how, exactly. Tom McClintock mentioned that his wife was "carefully dieting," which might indicate she was taking the leaves for weight loss. Common ways to consume mulberry leaves include extracts, powders, and teas. But, according to the coroner's report, McClintock had a "partially intact" white mulberry leaf in her stomach at the time of death, suggesting she had ingested fragments or whole leaves.

It's also unclear why she had such a severe reaction to the leaves. KHN notes that no deaths linked to white mulberry have been reported to poison control centers in the last 10 years. While there have been nearly 150 poison control reports of ingestion in that time, most were related to accidental intake by children.

[LFC]

They won't be convinced until a child of theirs is dead or permanently disabled, and even then maybe not. I guess Ohio is going redder in more ways than one. F***wits.

Amid declining vaccination rates nationwide, an outbreak of measles has erupted this week among unvaccinated children at a childcare facility in Columbus, Ohio.

The outbreak has sickened at least four children so far, all of whom are unvaccinated with no history of travel, meaning they contracted the highly contagious virus locally, according to Columbus-area health officials. An investigation into the outbreak is ongoing. Health officials are notifying parents and tracing contacts. The childcare facility is cooperating and has temporarily closed.

Columbus CBS affiliate WBNS-TV reported that one of the four cases had been hospitalized in intensive care. Officials also told the outlet that they expect additional cases will be identified in the coming days.

The representative did not have current or past information on vaccination rates in the area because it is not reported to the city health department. Ars also reached out to the state health department for that information, but a spokesperson said the information was not readily available. We'll update this post when they come through.

But previously published data on vaccination rates statewide and nationwide show clear declines amid the pandemic. Earlier this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published an analysis finding that vaccination coverage among kindergarteners declined by one percentage point between the 2019-2020 school year and 2020-2021, falling from approximately 95 percent to 94 percent.

In Ohio, the decline was sharper statewide. In the 2019-2020 school year, 92.4 percent of kindergarteners had been vaccinated for measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR). But in the 2020-2021 school year, coverage fell to 89.6 percent.

[LFC]

Cases of the flu and similar or related respirator illnesses are skyrocketing, especially in the South.

The US continues to see a dramatic and early surge in respiratory illnesses, which is hitting young children particularly hard and setting records for the decade.

The Southeast region is the most affected by the surge, which is driven by cases of flu, RSV (respiratory syncytial (sin-SISH-uhl) virus), and other seasonal respiratory viruses. Seven southern states—Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Virginia—have reached the highest level of respiratory-illness activity on the scale from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The states are colored a deep purple on the national map, representing the highest sub-level of "Very High" activity.

Overall, 25 states are experiencing "High" or "Very High" levels of respiratory illness activity, while six have reached the moderate category.

Outpatient cases and hospitalizations are climbing and have not (yet) surpassed the peaks of all past seasons. However, the levels they've reached at this point in the flu season—week 44 of the year—are higher than levels seen at this point in every year since 2010, the CDC notes. The agency estimates that, so far this season, there have been at least 2.8 million illnesses, 23,000 hospitalizations, and 1,300 deaths from flu. This week, the agency tallied three pediatric flu deaths, bringing the season's total to five.

We have a good flu vaccine match this year. It doesn't matter.

In the CDC's surveillance of the circulating flu strains, the season seems to be driven by an H3N2 strain of influenza virus, which is well-matched for the season's flu shot. However, the uptake of flu shots is behind where it normally is for the season, even though circulation is ahead of normal patterns, the CDC noted.

"Flu vaccine uptake has lagged compared to prior seasons," CDC Director Rochelle Walenksy tweeted from her verified CDC account Friday. "It is time to get your flu vaccine as well as your updated COVID19 vaccine if you have not yet done so."

[goldenvalley]

Nov 14, 2022 22:20:08 GMT LFC said:

Cases of the flu and similar or related respirator illnesses are skyrocketing, especially in the South.

The US continues to see a dramatic and early surge in respiratory illnesses, which is hitting young children particularly hard and setting records for the decade.

The Southeast region is the most affected by the surge, which is driven by cases of flu, RSV (respiratory syncytial (sin-SISH-uhl) virus), and other seasonal respiratory viruses. Seven southern states—Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Virginia—have reached the highest level of respiratory-illness activity on the scale from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The states are colored a deep purple on the national map, representing the highest sub-level of "Very High" activity.

Overall, 25 states are experiencing "High" or "Very High" levels of respiratory illness activity, while six have reached the moderate category.

Outpatient cases and hospitalizations are climbing and have not (yet) surpassed the peaks of all past seasons. However, the levels they've reached at this point in the flu season—week 44 of the year—are higher than levels seen at this point in every year since 2010, the CDC notes. The agency estimates that, so far this season, there have been at least 2.8 million illnesses, 23,000 hospitalizations, and 1,300 deaths from flu. This week, the agency tallied three pediatric flu deaths, bringing the season's total to five.

We have a good flu vaccine match this year. It doesn't matter.

In the CDC's surveillance of the circulating flu strains, the season seems to be driven by an H3N2 strain of influenza virus, which is well-matched for the season's flu shot. However, the uptake of flu shots is behind where it normally is for the season, even though circulation is ahead of normal patterns, the CDC noted.

"Flu vaccine uptake has lagged compared to prior seasons," CDC Director Rochelle Walenksy tweeted from her verified CDC account Friday. "It is time to get your flu vaccine as well as your updated COVID19 vaccine if you have not yet done so."

There has always been a bunch of people who didn't take the flu vaccinations each year.   I suspect it's the same bunch that isn't interested in Covid boosters.  Not much fear of the disease and willing to gamble that if they get it, it won't be serious.

[LFC]

How long before kids just die or become permanently disabled from what was once a defeated disease in the U.S.?

A measles outbreak in Ohio has swiftly expanded, spreading to seven childcare facilities and one school, all with unvaccinated children, according to local health officials. The outbreak highlights the risk of the highly contagious but vaccine-preventable disease mushrooming amid slipping vaccination rates.

On November 9, the health departments of the city of Columbus and Franklin County, which encompasses Columbus, announced an outbreak at one childcare facility, which had sickened four unvaccinated children. Officials reportedly expected that more cases would follow.

As of Wednesday morning, there have been 18 confirmed cases from seven childcare facilities and one school. All of the cases are in unvaccinated children, and at least 15 cases are in children under the age of 4. At least six have required hospitalization, Kelli Newman, spokesperson for Columbus Public Health, told Ars.

Health officials are now working to curb the outbreak, including conducting contact tracing at affected facilities, coordinating with local health care providers on measles awareness efforts, and reaching out to families to educate them about and encourage vaccination with the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine.

[LFC]

Anti-vax grifters? Say it ain't so!

Scandal has reached a full boil at America's Frontline Doctors—the right-wing pseudo-medical group notorious for peddling bogus COVID-19 treatments and fear-mongering over vaccines and other safe, effective health measures.

The scandal has split the group—aka AFLDS—into warring factions, with its prominent founder, Simone Gold, accused of a slew of wrongdoing, including using the charity group's funds to buy a $3.6 million mansion for herself and her boyfriend. She's also accused of staging a hostile coup of the organization in the weeks since her release from federal prison for her role in the January 6, 2021, insurrection, which the group has defended.

The coup has left employees locked out of email accounts and other resources, according to a lawsuit filed by AFLDS against Gold on November 4. The lawsuit also claims Gold seized control of the group's bank accounts, which reportedly contain at least $7.3 million. For now, it appears Gold also has control over the AFLDS website, which has been pumping out fawning and indignant press releases on her behalf. It's in an extraordinarily sordid state, even for the ignoble group.

[LFC]

Floriduh, on track to be the next Mississippi. The idiots have taken power and they're going to idiot the place up at every turn.

Dr. Mobeen Rathore has spent the better part of his career trying to protect the children in his practice from contracting deadly diseases like measles, whooping cough, and polio. As chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases and Immunology at the University of Florida’s College of Medicine, Rathore remembers a time—just a few decades ago—when vaccination levels in Duval County, in the northeastern part of the state where he works, were lower than those in some of the poorest countries in the world: In 2002, just 77 percent of Duval County two-year-olds were up to date on their shots. So, he and his colleagues at the health department launched an all-out vaccination effort, deploying public health campaigns and training pediatricians to have persuasive conversations with parents. Over the years, they saw their hard work pay off: In 2019, the vaccination rate for two-year-old children in Duval was an impressive 98 percent.

But now, the progress that Rathore and his team made appears to be eroding. This year’s survey showed that the Duval vaccination rate has dropped to 92 percent. The pattern in Duval County appears to be even more pronounced for Florida at large. Before the pandemic, the state had been doing pretty well on its decades-long campaign to increase routine childhood immunization rates. An annual state health department survey released in January 2020 found that 93 percent of two-year-olds were up to date on their shots—a major improvement since the first survey of this kind in 2002, when the rate was just 73 percent. This year, the statewide rate had fallen to 81 percent.

In part, the dip can be explained by the pandemic itself. Early on, some parents may have decided to skip routine pediatrician appointments because they didn’t want to risk exposure to the virus. Indeed, though conclusive data from national childhood vaccination trends in the United States during the pandemic is not yet available, preliminary data from all over the world suggest that vaccination rates slipped in 2020. But Rathore believes that an ascendent anti-vaccination movement may have played a role in Florida’s downward trend over the last two years, as well. Among parents of his patients, he says, “We noticed that there are more questions” about routine immunizations. “And I think a lot of that, unfortunately, has to do with all the misinformation around the Covid vaccines.”

Many of the false narratives about Covid vaccines’ supposed deleterious effects—infertility, heart problems, AIDS, to name just a few of the most persistent myths—come from social media influencers, some of whom promote the work of anti-vaccine groups. But in Florida, there’s another important source of confusion: state leaders who have soured on Covid vaccines.

Bucking the advice of major medical organizations and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo has emphasized that the state doesn’t recommend Covid vaccines for any healthy children under age 16 because he believes the risks of the shots outweigh those of the disease itself. (They don’t.) In June, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said that the state was “affirmatively against” Covid vaccines for children under the age of five, and Florida was the only state that didn’t pre-order shots for the youngest children when they became available (though DeSantis eventually relented after heavy criticism from public health officials, including those in the White House). More recently, last month Ladapo rejected a recommendation from a CDC advisory panel to add Covid vaccines to the schedule of routine childhood vaccinations, tweeting, “Thanks to @govrondesantis, COVID mandates are NOT allowed in FL, NOT pushed into schools, & I continue to recommend against them for healthy kids.”

Rathore worries that public figures—be they social media influencers or politicians—are fomenting widespread distrust of the entire concept of immunization requirements for attending school. “Of all the things that government mandates, this is the simplest, and the most useful one,” he says. “I just don’t know why we have to politicize healthcare, especially for children.”