All posts tagged "Measles Outbreak"

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s principal deputy director, Dr. Ralph Abraham, has stepped down from his role and left the agency effective immediately, according to reports released Monday.

Abraham reportedly decided to step down "to address unforeseen family obligations," according to a statement from the CDC. No further details were released.

"It has been an honor to serve alongside the dedicated public health professionals at the CDC and to support the agency's critical mission," Abraham said....

Anti-abortion protesters who travelled to Washington, D.C. for the March for Life ended up at a measles super spreader-event, according to health officials.

Thousands of pro-lifers came for the Jan. 23 march and concert at the National Mall and now the D.C. Department of Health has reported multiple cases of the potentially fatal disease reported in the weeks after, The New Republic reported.

"The march is a big event for religious conservatives, this year attracting politicians such as Vice President JD Vance, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, and Republican Representative Chris Smith," according to The New Republic. "Many on the right oppose vaccination, with some citing religious reasons, making the march a possible hotbed of measles infections." ...

Public health officials said Friday they were investigating the first suspected death from measles in Britain in five years, after an outbreak blamed on a campaign against vaccinations.

Well, not intentionally, but there is a reason to think that anti-vaccination ideologists could hurt women more than men, amongst other damage that they can do. I finally had a chance to listen to a recent "This American Life" that dealt with, amongst other things, an outbreak of the measles in San Diego that was caused by parents refusing to vaccinate their kids because they've been fed and believe the misinformation about how dangerous vaccines are. The show is sympathetic to the parents who are caught up in this panic, since obviously they're the same Whole Foods-shopping, over-anxious yuppies that make up the audience and staff of "This American Life". The reporter understands how you want to control everything your kid eats or is exposed to, and how obsessed some parents get with the concept of purity in their kids' input. (Which really is completely understandable, since you are what you eat.) Though I do have to wonder why the same people who refuse to trust the FDA, the CDC, the AMA, their own doctors, a multitude of scientists, and the entire medical community when it comes to vaccines happily trust a cardboard box at Whole Foods that says that the item inside is organic. If the FDA won't or can't control vaccine safety, then why on earth would they be able to ensure that organic food really is organic? There's a darkly funny moment on the show when the initial quarantine announcements warned people who shopped at Whole Foods and Trader Joe's that they were in the greatest danger of exposure.