Tag: facts

Where Are All of the Vaccine Advocates?

With more outbreaks and increased talk of vaccine exemptions, one thing often gets lost.

Most people vaccinate and protect their kids because they understand that vaccines are safe, with few risks, and necessary.

Where Are All of the Vaccine Advocates?

Unfortunately, unlike the highly vocal minority of folks who are against vaccines, we rarely hear from vaccine advocates.

There are a lot of them out there though.

And we are finally starting to hear more about them!

“One woman took four of her kids for the M.M.R. that week.”

Amid a Measles Outbreak, an Ultra-Orthodox Nurse Fights Vaccination Fears in Her Community

Like the story of a nurse in Brooklyn who is educating vaccine-hesitant parents in the middle of a measles outbreak.

And how vaccine-hesitant parents in Oregon are attending vaccine workshops to learn about vaccines from medical professionals.

“The response has been overwhelmingly positive. In exit surveys, the vast majority of people who attend our workshops say they’ve decided to vaccinate their children as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics.”

How do you get anti-vaxxers to vaccinate their kids? Talk to them — for hours.

Had you heard their stories yet?

How about the story about the mom who started the group South Carolina Parents for Vaccines?

“Nelson tries to counter bad information online with facts. But she also understands the value of in-person dialogue. She organized a class at a public library and advertised the event on mom forums.”

A Parent-To-Parent Campaign To Get Vaccine Rates Up

Did you know that a mom in Colorado, who started the group Community Immunity, put up a billboard to help raise immunization rates in her community?

Or that a group of parents formed Vaccinate California and helped support the passage of SB 277 and improved vaccination rates in California?

Did you know that there are similar immunization advocacy groups in Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington?

Other communities have Immunization Coalitions and Facebook groups to help answer questions and educate parents about vaccines.

Are you ready to join these vaccine advocates?

More on All of the Vaccine Advocates

Vaccinated vs Unvaccinated – Measles Outbreak Edition

There are two big reasons that we are still having to talk about how it’s mainly unvaccinated folks that get sick in measles outbreaks.

Some folks keep spreading misinformation about measles, such as how most of the people who got sick in the Disney outbreak were vaccinated!?!

And other folks believe them!

Vaccinated vs Unvaccinated – Measles Outbreak Edition

Fortunately, misinformation about the number of vaccinated vs unvaccinated in an outbreak is among the easiest things to fact check.

Although folks will try to misrepresent this slide, as you can easily see, most of the folks in the Disneyland outbreak were unvaccinated.

That’s not how any of this works…

For example, if you wanted to assume that the 20 people who said that they were vaccinated really were, then you have to assume that the rest of those folks weren’t. And you also have to raise the number of folks who had their immunization status verified.

But you really shouldn’t make assumptions. All you can really say for sure from this data is that 15 (13 + 2) of the people, out of the 131 cases, were fully vaccinated.

What about the New York outbreak in 2011? Was it really started by someone who was fully vaccinated?

Surprisingly, it was!

“This is the first report of measles transmission from a twice-vaccinated individual with documented secondary vaccine failure. The clinical presentation and laboratory data of the index patient were typical of measles in a naive individual. Secondary patients had robust anamnestic antibody responses. No tertiary cases occurred despite numerous contacts.”

Rosen et al on Outbreak of measles among persons with prior evidence of immunity, New York City, 2011.

And it was a very big deal because it was the first time it had ever been reported as happening!

“During 2011, a provisional total of 222 measles cases were reported from 31 states. The median age of the patients was 14 years (range: 3 months to 84 years); 27 (14%) were aged <12 months, 51 (26%) were aged 1–4 years, 42 (21%) were aged 5–19 years, and 76 (39%) were aged ≥20 years. Most patients were unvaccinated (65%) or had unknown vaccination status (21%).”

Measles — United States, 2011

That’s in contrast to all of the other measles cases that year. Remember, there were a total of 222 measles cases in the United States in 2011. Few were vaccinated.

What about other measles outbreaks?

Only 4% of people in the Rockland County measles outbreak have been fully vaccinated.
Only 4% of people in the Rockland County measles outbreak have been fully vaccinated.

As much as folks try and report that most of the people in recent outbreaks are vaccinated, they aren’t.

Only one person, out of 53 cases of measles, is known to have had a dose of MMR in the Clark County measles outbreak.

What about other measles outbreaks?

OutbreaksYearVaccinatedUnvaccinatedUnknown
California – 24 cases2017–24–
Minnesota – 75 cases20175682
Tennessee – 7 cases201616–
Ohio – 383 cases2014534038
California – 58 cases2014112518
Texas – 21 cases2013–165
Florida – 5 cases2013–5–
Brooklyn – 58 cases2013–58–
North Carolina – 23 cases20132183
Minnesota – 21 cases2011–183
San Diego – 12 cases2008–12–

We don’t even have to do the math.

“The majority of people who got measles were unvaccinated.”

Measles Cases and Outbreaks

It is easy to see that most folks in these outbreaks are unvaccinated!

Get vaccinated and stop the outbreaks. Vaccines are safe, with few risks, and necessary.

More on Vaccinated vs Unvaccinated – Measles Outbreak Edition

Fact Checking Sharyl Attkisson on the Measles Outbreaks

Breaking News!

Erin Elizabeth and Sharyl Attkisson reporting on measles outbreaks. What could go right?
Erin Elizabeth and Sharyl Attkisson reporting on measles outbreaks. What could go right?

Anti-vaccine folks are spreading fake news and propaganda from Sharyl Attkisson again.

Fact Checking Sharyl Attkisson on the Measles Outbreaks

While that’s probably not really news to anyone, let’s see what we got here…

“Bottom line is that they say that 31 of the 124 are not vaccinated. So guess what that means? You do the math, the rest are vaccinated.”

Erin Elizabeth

Her source?

An abc7NY article, Health Alert: 124 cases of measles now confirmed in Rockland County, which apparently was talking about both the outbreak in New York and another outbreak in Washington.

There are 35 cases in Washington, and “officials confirm that 31 of those confirmed patients had not been vaccinated against measles.”

What about in New York?

When this was published, there were 96 cases in Rockland County, 50 cases in Brooklyn, and 6 cases in Orange County. Almost all cases were unvaccinated.
When this was published, there were fewer cases in the outbreak, but still, almost all cases were unvaccinated.

Although the case counts have gone up – 128 in Rockland County and 64 in Brooklyn, it is unlikely that the percentages of unvaccinated to vaccinated have changed that much.

You do the math, even with the extra cases, you can’t get to 93 vaccinated people in the outbreak.

Bottom line, as in every other measles outbreak, the kids in the New York measles outbreak are almost all unvaccinated.

At it's worst, measles causes encephalitis or kills you! What's wrong with these people?
At it’s worst, measles causes encephalitis or kills you! What’s wrong with these people?

Anti-vaccine folks are panicking over the outbreaks and are putting out misinformation in overdrive.

“This is a very big article for us.”

Erin Elizabeth

Erin apparently thought she had a scoop. She “found” the first measles outbreak in which most kids were vaccinated! Except she didn’t… If she had done a little research and checked the outbreak stats on the health department website, she would have seen that.

Or she could have just read the article…

The 31 unvaccinated folks in the abc7NY article are clearly from the Oregon/Washington Outbreak.
The 31 unvaccinated folks in the abc7NY article are clearly from the Oregon/Washington Outbreak.

Don’t let them scare you into keeping your kids unvaccinated and at risk, especially when measles is on the rise.

More on Fact Checking Sharyl Attkisson on the Measles Outbreaks

Propaganda Busting Confirms Anti-vaccine Sites Photoshop Images

Spend a few minutes going through our list of anti-vaccine PRATTs, and you will quickly realize that they just push misinformation and propaganda.

Propaganda Busting Confirms Anti-vaccine Sites Photoshop Images

How easy is it to refute their claims?

Consider this “article” about measles outbreaks…

It shows an infant with chicken pox.

While that could be a simple mistake, it is actually a Photoshopped stock image of an infant with chicken pox that adds a big scary needle and syringe, that I guess is supposed to represent a vaccine.

Where's the syringe and needle?
Where’s the syringe and needle?

The thing is, neither the chicken pox nor MMR vaccine look like that and neither would be given with such a long needle!

In fact, that needle is about twice the size as any needle that would be used on an infant or toddler, which is why they had to Photoshop a separate photo of a big syringe and needle onto the infant with chicken pox.

It's just a stock image of a big syringe and needle...
It’s just a stock image of a big syringe and needle…

Now that you know that the photo is make-believe, you shouldn’t be surprised that their “article” is too.

This erroneous thinking has led the public, media and government alike to attribute the origin of measles outbreaks, such as the one reported at Disney in 2015 (and which lead to the passing of SB277 that year, stripping vaccine exemptions for all but medical reasons in California), to the non-vaccinated, even though 18% of the measles cases occurred in those who had been vaccinated against it — hardly the vaccine’s two-dose claimed “97% effectiveness.”

Government Research Confirms Measles Outbreaks Are Transmitted By The Vaccinated

By itself, the number of cases in an outbreak doesn’t exactly tell you a vaccine’s effectiveness. You also have to know something about how many people were vaccinated and unvaccinated and the attack rate, etc.

“Among the 110 California patients, 49 (45%) were unvaccinated; five (5%) had 1 dose of measles-containing vaccine, seven (6%) had 2 doses, one (1%) had 3 doses, 47 (43%) had unknown or undocumented vaccination status, and one (1%) had immunoglobulin G seropositivity documented, which indicates prior vaccination or measles infection at an undetermined time.”

Measles Outbreak — California, December 2014–February 2015

Anyway, in the Disneyland outbreak, if you do the math correctly, you can see that only 8 of 110 were fully vaccinated, or about 7%.

What does that tell you about vaccine effectiveness?

Not much!

Again, we don’t know how many vaccinated vs unvaccinated folks were exposed and didn’t get measles.

We can guess though…

Most folks are vaccinated, even in California. So the fact that only 7% of the people that got measles in the outbreak were fully vaccinated actually says quite a lot about how effective the MMR vaccine really is.

What about the idea that vaccinated people are starting outbreaks and spreading measles?

While the vast majority of measles outbreaks are in fact traced to someone who is unvaccinated, there was one outbreak in 2011 that was “started” by someone who was vaccinated.

“She had documentation of receipt of MMR vaccination at 3 years and 4 years of age. There was no travel during the incubation period and no known sick contacts. However, the index patient worked at a theater frequented by tourists.”

Outbreak of Measles Among Persons With Prior Evidence of Immunity, New York City, 2011

Since even the MMR vaccine isn’t 100% effective, is it really so surprising that occasionally, someone who received two doses of the vaccine could get measles and pass it to others, especially considering that around 220 people got measles in the United States that year?

“During 2011, a provisional total of 222 measles cases were reported from 31 states… Most patients were unvaccinated (65%) or had unknown vaccination status (21%). Of the 222, a total of 196 were U.S. residents. Of those U.S. residents who had measles, 166 were unvaccinated or had unknown vaccination status, 141 (85%) were eligible for MMR vaccination, 18 (11%) were too young for vaccination, six (4%) were born before 1957 and presumed immune, and one (1%) had previous laboratory evidence of presumptive immunity to measles.”

Measles — United States, 2011

Is the MMR vaccine a failure because there were some still some outbreaks in the 1980s, before we started to give kids a second dose? The attack rate in many of these school outbreaks, in which many kids had one dose of MMR, was still only about 2 to 3%.

It is safe to blame a failure to vaccinate and intentionally unvaccinated kids for most of the recent measles outbreaks.

Is the MMR vaccine a failure because we still have outbreaks among intentionally unvaccinated kids and every once in a while, in someone who is fully vaccinated who gets caught up in an outbreak?

Of course not!

It is easy to do a little research, consider what disease rates looked like in the pre-vaccine era, and know that vaccines work and that they are necessary.

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