It’s 2011, Do you know where Mumps and Measles are? Canada
Posted by Ethan Clow on June 23, 2011
The worst outbreak of mumps since 2008 has hit the BC lower mainland recently, with confirmed cases numbering 77 between January 2nd and June 8th. About 50 of those cases occurred in Whistler and Squamish with an age range between one and fifty-four.
The outbreak in 2008, which resulted in 200 infections, stemmed from a religious sect in the Fraser Valley that opposes vaccinations.
This is precisely why skeptics continually oppose the anti-vaccination movement. It only takes a small population for a virus to find shelter in and spread. As the group immunity levels drop, the virus has more potential targets to infect. The more it spreads the greater the chance it can outbreak into a larger population.
The more the virus spreads the greater chance it might mutate and become either more infectious or deadly or even resistant to available treatments.
To add insult to injury, protection from mumps is freely available in the MMR vaccine. Children should receive two doses in the vaccine to provide maximum protection.
Aside from the foolishly misguided religious sects that turn down vaccinations, blame can be laid squarely in front of British Columbia’s own anti-vaccination lobby. People like Sonya McLeod, who operates a local homeopathy shop and routinely encourages parents to not vaccinate their children suggesting instead homeopathic alternatives. For a long while, McLeod spouted this from the pulpit given to her by the Georgia Straight, which also shares much of the blame as the editors there have frequently given space to anti-vaxers like Chris Shaw. (See my previous posts on McLeod and Shaw for information)
What’s additionally frustrating about the whole thing is that we, the public, pay the price for the bad decisions of a small group of people. As the vaccination rates drop, the lives and health of the people around us is put at risk and the health care system, which has bigger fish to fry, has to deal with people getting sick from an easily preventable illness that is very contagious and potentially dangerous.
Sadly, British Columbia isn’t alone in suffering outbreaks of easily controllable illnesses. A measles outbreak in Quebec has health officials worried. Consider that there have been 208 cases of measles reported in Quebec since May 1. 208 cases in almost two months!! There have been a total of 254 since the beginning of the year.
Measles
In the 1990′s, Canada virtually eradicated measles.
Well…they’re back.
Alma Miller said
Hello Ethan
I cannot agree with you, nor am I frightened by the recorded numbers cropping
up that you have stated.
Nor can I repeat all that I have read on the subject. Too much to remember.
This kind of talk, putting fear into the masses, is how the pharmacuetical
companies stay in business. Governments commonly use fear, withhold
information, and talk in big numbers to control us. I know people who have
stopped vaccinating their children. Some are nervous. But they say if
vaccinated children still get the disease, and reactions to the vaccines
are deadlly or permanet, that is good enough reason for them not to do it.
For me, I would definitly get a chicken pox vaccine in the hope that I do
not get Shingles but it is not offered in Canada. Small pox and polio updates,
I might consider.
However, the statistics being offered, by world wide anti-vaccine believers
shows compelling results of the dangers of vaccine reactions, and even
though those that had been vaccinated , still contracted diseases they had
been vaccinated for.
The number of cases of Autism are rising in a frightening amount. The study
of the religious sects that stay within themselves, show Autism to be rare in
these groups.
In England, a VERY LARGE, group of girls that had been vaccinated for the
sexually transmitted desease had severe reactions and/or death. This has also
been documented in Canada and U.S.
Did you know, according to study on the closed
religious sects, that the rate of autisum in their children , who are not
vaccinated, is rare.
I had not heard of Sonya.
Polio and small pox are said to be erradicated and vaccines are not
available here in Ontario.
But Polio exists off continent.Smallpox foolishly exists in Desease Control in
united states and in europe. Sitting in a lab, a serious, deadly,
event just waiting to happen, WITH ALMOST NO VACCINE’S AVAIABLE.
NOW THAT IS SOMETHING TO BE AFRAID OF. I was born in 1954. I think were were
vaccinated for small pox, definitly Polio. We contracted, measles, mumps,
chicken pox. My children had Chicken Pox, and one of them had Scarlet Fever
right after.
If measles had been totally eraticated. Why is quebec had this small outbreak?
Please tell us the population of quebec per # of measle cases. etc.
On facebook a link I subscribed to gives very good information on statistics.
Their statistics have not been challenged to my knowledge and they seem to
print both sides.
I have stopped getting my flu and pnemonia shots. Perhaps too late. Why has
there been an increase in Epilepsy in seniours. Myself included, I was
diagnosed with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy Complex Partial Seizures in 2007.(look
that up for a ride. I am certainlly not impressed.)
Thanks for the information provided. Is there a better way to communicate than
this way?
alma :>]
Kate Hemenway said
I was born in 1949. I remember the time before vaccines.
I remember Ross, a grade 3 boy in crutches from polio, and I remember not being allowed to go swimming in summer for fear of polio. I remember getting mumps and how yucky it was, and a friend who had his testicles swell up like balloons when he was a grown up with mumps. I remember my mother’s fear when pregnant that she would have a deaf or brain damaged baby if a rubella outbreak occurred. I also remember quarantine flags on doors (red for big danger and yellow for little danger) and fear in the communities where children were.
I remember the fear. I was just a little kid but I remember the fear. We could die. We could get crutches. We could have a brother or sister who would be deaf. Examples were around us.
Most of all I remember the relief of getting my first vaccination and a collective feeling of joy that we were going to be free of some of the horrors.
Now a new fear is in the air; a fear of the very thing that saved thousand, probably millions of lives around the world. There seems to be a sense of conspiracy in the air. That somehow a big collective lie has been constructed to defraud us of our money and destroy our health. I can understand that. Greed is a real and dangerous part of human nature. Pharmaceutical companies want to make money. But to leap to the conclusion that therefore vaccinations are dangerous is not logical.
I’ve attended an anti-vaccination lecture. I saw for myself the bad science on display, the statistics being distorted, the conspiracy theorists in the crowd. The stuff they believe, that comes out of their mouths, may seem like honey, but it is lies that feed the crowd of believer in a nasty cabal of evil-doers.
Please take a look at the science side before dismissing it. Check out the cause and rates of death children a few hundred years ago. Find out what solid science has to say about why the cases of autism seem to be increasing. Does changing the diagnostic criteria of autism have anything to do with increase? Are there other factors? What do the doctors who treat our families say? What is herd immunity? What sorts of people can’t get immunized and need herd immunity? It’s more work, but it gets us closer to a truth that helps humanity rather than hurts it.
Ethan Clow said
There’s not really much I can add to what Kate said.
What I can say is that suggesting things like:
“This kind of talk, putting fear into the masses, is how the pharmacuetical
companies stay in business. Governments commonly use fear, withhold
information, and talk in big numbers to control us.”
Is just a tactic to shut the conversation down and oppose critical thinking. I don’t defend “big pharma” I don’t agree with the way drugs are sold or marketed but right now, this is the system we have and we need to work with it and hopefully encourage some change. But the notion that drug companies are secretly in bed with “big government” and they’re trying to control us is just paranoid fear mongering. The the idea that just because someone might have a motive to deceive is not evidence of a deception. If that was true, our law system would be guilty until proven innocent.
In addition, the notion that autism rates are rising, if true, sounds like an issue of correlation vs causation. There are many reasons why autism rates might appear to be going up. Namely, we’ve gotten a whole lot better at detecting autism! We’ve also radically changed the definitions and parameters of what autism is. That’s why its called Autism Spectrum Disorder, because the cases appear on a spectrum.
Again, Kate said it best. Please take a look at the science.