How an Anti-Vaccine Safety Handbook Has Caused the Longest Measles Outbreak in Recent History

Can you believe that there were only 37 measles cases in 2004?

This year, we sometimes get reports of 37 cases in a week.

What happened?

A rise in measles cases all over the world happened. And since folks do travel, that led to outbreaks in any community that doesn’t have high rates of vaccination.

How an Anti-Vaccine Safety Handbook Has Caused the Longest Measles Outbreak in Recent History

And that’s where the PEACH Vaccine Safety Handbook comes into play.

Since at least 2014, the PEACH project folks and have been distributing their magazines filled with misinformation about vaccines in Orthodox Jewish communities.

In addition to Lakewood, the PEACH magazine was sent to “a mailing list that included a comprehensive directory of Pittsburgh families affiliated with various branches of Orthodoxy.”

And it found its way to Brooklyn and other Orthodox communities. Many of the same communities where we are now seeing the largest measles outbreaks in recent history, although there are plenty of outbreaks in other places too.

Surprisingly, PEACH is pure PRATT – anti-vaccine points refuted a thousand times.

The cartoons were a nice touch, but should have been a tip-off that none of it was true! There is even a cartoon about the HAZMAT myth.

It all does look very official and sounds scary though, so it is easy to see how parents could be mislead by the magazine, especially when they seem to cite references for all of their “facts.”

But let’s look at some of the facts in the above timeline:

• is there any reason why Germany might have seen a rise in diphtheria cases in 1945?
• Ghana was not declared measles-free in 1967. Unfortunately, Ghana is still not measles-free…
• while the SV40 virus did contaminate some polio vaccines, it has not been associated with causing cancer or any other problems
• whooping cough cases rose in Sweden and the UK because they stopped using the DPT vaccine in the late 1970s and 80s over fears of side effects. Of course, we now know that these fears were unfounded and many kids suffered because those fears were hyped by a few doctors, the media, and players from the start of the modern anti-vaccine movement
• frivolous lawsuits over DPT side effects is what led to the rise in DPT prices
• Jonas Salk testified that “mass inoculation against polio was the cause of most polio cases in the USA since 1961” because the Salk and Sabin polio vaccines had already controlled wild polio in the United States!!!
• What about the idea that “the February 1981 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association found that 90% of obstetricians and 66% of pediatricians refused to take the rubella vaccine?” That’s actually kind of true. But it was just a survey of a small number of employees at Los Angeles County University of Southern California Medical Center, most of whom believed that they actually were immune because they had likely been exposed to rubella so much in the past.

The rest of the magazine continues with the same kind of propaganda, trying to make folks think that vaccines don’t work, vaccines aren’t necessary, and that vaccines are dangerous.

Their experts?

From Russell Blaylock and Mark Geier to Tim O’Shea and Sherri Tenpenny, it is a who’s who of the worst folks in the modern anti-vaccine movement. They are certainly not the kind of folks you should be turning to for advice about vaccines, or anything else.

As we have seen with these growing measles outbreaks, although it makes a catchy slogan, you can’t always vaccinate later. You can wait until it is too late.

“I can only conjecture. But it has to be a combination a propensity towards conspiracy theories and religiosity gone awry based on bad information and in my view a gross misunderstanding of Halacha.”

AntiVaxxers – Religious Views Gone Awry

And that’s how you end up with the longest lasting measles outbreak in the United States in nearly 20 years.

More on How an Anti-Vaccine Safety Handbook Has Caused the Longest Measles Outbreak in Recent History

• How Orthodox Jewish Nurses Are Fighting ‘Anti-Vaccination Propaganda’ Targeting Their Community
  
• Amid a Measles Outbreak, an Ultra-Orthodox Nurse Fights Vaccination Fears in Her Community
• Anonymous anti-vaxxers push propaganda on local Orthodox community
• Rav Moshe Sternbuch Writes Letter To Rav Malkiel Kotler About The Halachic Requirement To Vaccinate
• The Frum Nurses’ Association That Educates Anti-Vaxxers & Other Orthodox Jews in the News
• Why Do Some Ultra-Orthodox Jews Defy Their Rebbes And Refuse Measles Vaccines?
• As Measles Spread, Leading Charedi Rabbis Come Out Strongly Against Anti-Vaxxers
• The Anti-Vaccination Disgrace
• Halachic Aspects of Vaccination
• The Obligation to Vaccinate
• Vaccines in Halacha
• Vaccination in Halakhah and in Practice in the Orthodox Jewish Community
• AntiVaxxers – Religious Views Gone Awry
• N.Y. Measles Outbreak: Local rabbi condemns those who “hide behind religious exemptions”
• The Lakewood Suicide Squad
• New York’s Orthodox Jewish community is battling measles outbreaks. Vaccine deniers are to blame.
• Why Orthodox Jewish Communities Are at the Center of a U.S. Measles Outbreak
• An Outbreak Spreads Fear: Of Measles, of Ultra-Orthodox Jews, of Anti-Semitism
• Why Measles Hits So Hard Within N.Y. Orthodox Jewish Community
• When Vaccinations And Faith Collide
• Why I Love Rav Shmuel – And Will Advocate Vaccination Nonetheless
• Don’t Have Time for Your Nonsense
• VAXOPEDIA – The Rockland County Emergency Declaration
• VAXOPEDIA – What Do We Know About the Rockland County Measles Outbreak
• VAXOPEDIA – News on the Latest Measles Outbreaks of 2019
• VAXOPEDIA – Where Is Measles on the Rise?
• VAXOPEDIA – What Are the Signs and Symptoms of Measles?
• VAXOPEDIA – What to Do If Your Child Is Exposed to Measles
• VAXOPEDIA – More Measles Myths
• VAXOPEDIA – The Myth That Measles Isn’t Deadly
• VAXOPEDIA – Did New York Declare Medical Martial Law over a Measles Outbreak?
• VAXOPEDIA – Everything You Need to Know About the Measles Vaccine
• VAXOPEDIA – Why Are We Having Measles Outbreaks If MMR Vaccination Rates Are Not Declining?
• VAXOPEDIA – Ask 8 Questions Before You Skip a Vaccine
• VAXOPEDIA – This Is the Modern Anti-Vaccine Movement
  
• VAXOPEDIA – Why Are Anti-Vaccine Folks Panicking over the Measles Outbreaks?
• VAXOPEDIA – What Are Anti-Vaccine Folks Saying About the Measles Outbreaks?
• VAXOPEDIA – Vaccine Analogies and Metaphors
• VAXOPEDIA – Answers to Anti-Vaccine Talking Points
  
• VAXOPEDIA – 50 Ways to Get Educated About Vaccines
  
• VAXOPEDIA – Anti-Vaccine Points Refuted A Thousand Times
• VAXOPEDIA – 100 Myths About Vaccines
  
• VAXOPEDIA – Making Sense of Anti-Vaccine Arguments
  
• VAXOPEDIA – What Are the Pro and Con Arguments for Vaccines?
  
• VAXOPEDIA – News on the Latest Measles Outbreaks of 2019
• Rockland County Measles Information
• Measles Is Spreading in Orthodox Communities. Here Are 6 Things You Need to Know.
• Gal Gadot and Bar Refaeli Encourage Israelis to Get Measles Vaccine
• Parents Wanted Their Unvaccinated Children in Waldorf School, but a Judge Said No.
• What Does Jewish Law Say About Vaccination?
• Statement on Vaccinations from the OU and Rabbinical Council of America
• Vaccines, Hysteria, and Rabbinic Responsibility: A Plea from the Trenches
• Ending the current measles epidemic: Haredi rabbis get it right
• Senior haredi rabbis order followers to vaccinate their children
• Measles spike prompts letters from rabbis, government
• As Measles Spread, Leading Charedi Rabbis Come Out Strongly Against Anti-Vaxxers
• Vaccinations save lives
• Rubella Vaccine and Susceptible Hospital Employees
• WHO – Progress Toward Measles Elimination — African Region, 2013–2016