Nearly half of the 131 cases so far this year involved unvaccinated children. Fourteen cases were reported in California through the first seven months of this year.
Comment: 131 cases out of a population of nearly 300 million that's almost an incidence of .00005%! Considering the amount of media attention this is getting don't you think there are more pressing concerns? For example, you have a better chance of dying in an Iraqi road side bombing than of getting a relatively harmless case of measles.
As you read the rest of this propaganda piece, though it has its moments of objectivity, consider the analogy of blaming the warm weather on the number of broken bones in children playing outside. While it may be true that vaccines can reduce the incidence of measles in some cases, perhaps ignoring the long term health consequences of vaccines is more damaging than the "cure."
Health officials worry that as vaccination rates decline, herd immunity is lost, increasing the chance of a mass outbreak. Some pediatricians, meanwhile, are frustrated that they have to spend so much time convincing parents that vaccines such as those for measles, mumps and rubella are safe.
Comment: Not proven. There has been no mass outbreak of measles that can be blamed on the unvaccinated simply from the mere fact that vaccinations don't provide 100% immunity.
Questioning in itself is not a bad thing, especially since the Internet has ignited an explosion of information - much of it inaccurate.
Comment: Including this piece. Note that the author does not list what is "inaccurate" just blankets "much of" the information from the internet as inaccurate.
It does, however, reflect a larger crisis of confidence in public health officials and policy, which has developed partly because so many new, seemingly unnecessary vaccines have been added to the schedule and because no one can explain what causes, how to prevent or how to treat the new childhood disorders: asthma, allergies, attention deficit disorder and autism.
The number of vaccines that children receive has tripled since the early 1980s. In 1982, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended 23 doses of seven vaccines for children up to age 6.
Today's typical 6-year-old has had 48 doses of 12 vaccines. (Toss in the flu shot, which may or may not be effective, and it boosts the number to 69 doses of 16 vaccines by age 18.)
Immunization against diseases that were once a childhood rite of passage and that conferred lifelong immunity, such as chickenpox, is now required for public school in many states. And the hepatitis B vaccine is routinely given to babies the day after they're born, even though the illness is contracted through blood transfusions and sexual activity. Parents wonder: "Why can't the hep B vaccine wait?"
But what really prompted questions was the 1997 decision by the Food and Drug Administration to remove the mercury-based preservative thimerosal from most vaccines as a precaution, due to concerns about the "theoretical potential for neurotoxicity" and the growing number of vaccines containing thimerosal.
Comment: This "decision" was only a request for the pharmaceuticals to remove it. It wasn't removed from vaccines until 2002 and it is still in the flu vaccines which is being recommended for all children from 6 months to age 18 as well as pregnant women. And "removal" is quite the euphemism since it is still put into vaccines and only removed later, leaving trace amounts of mercury, among other toxins, within the vaccines. After its removal the incidence of autism and other neurodevelopment disorders declined.
Though no evidence of harm has been shown, a mental link to thimerosal was made, a scarlet letter on vaccines that remains to this day.
Several recent developments have sparked other questions about vaccines.
Dr. Bernadine Healy, the former head of the National Institutes of Health, told CBS News that she thinks "public health officials have been too quick to dismiss the (autismvaccine) hypothesis as irrational."
In March, government health officials conceded that childhood vaccines aggravated a rare, underlying cellular disorder in a 9-year-old girl from Athens, Ga., that ultimately led to autismlike symptoms.
America might be overvaccinating its kids, and health officials might want to re-evaluate and adjust the immunization schedule, according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine.
But not because of health concerns; the vaccines might just be unnecessary and a waste of money.
A study in the journal Pediatrics found that 33 percent of pediatricians would strongly recommend the rotavirus vaccine if it were up to the doctor's discretion. But if it becomes an "official" recommendation by the American Academy of Pediatrics, that number goes up to 50 percent.
Last year, a week after CDC announced that the influenza vaccine was effective against only 40 percent of the season's flu viruses, it recommended that all children over 6 months get a flu shot.
Vaccination, considered to be one of medicine's greatest achievements, is a personal decision that is often forced on people for the greater good. Many parents who question vaccines are simply seeking information and advocating for their children.
Comment: And if you're concerned about getting diseases, then eat a healthy diet and take Vitamin A and D supplements, especially during the winter months.