Meningitis is very, very scary. I’m glad that many colleges are requiring vaccination for it as well.
News from CA:
https://www.yahoo.com/parenting/vaccine-bill-clears-major-legislative-hurdle-in-122441522747.html
Parents still have a choice- use the public school system and be a decent human being and vaccinate your kids or continue to wear your tinfoil hat but don’t expose other kids in the process- which means no public school.
There are lots of things that kids (and parents) can’t choose to do in schools. They can’t come to school naked. They can’t pee wherever they want. Among other things, this is for public health reasons. This whole “choice” thing is such a load of crock.
We also isolate people with active TB. We don’t offer them a choice about whether to endanger others.
@romanigypsyeyes said:
And is deliberately disingenuous, imo.
Crackpot doctor… I mean anti-vax scammer… I mean “autism research” Jeff Bradstreet is dead of what is being called a gunshot suicide. Of course, anti-vaxxers say it’s all a conspiracy and that he was killed by the government to cover up the truth.
Personally, I don’t care how he died and I don’t have an ounce of sympathy.
Apparently, some FDA agents paid a visit to his clinic last week… Interesting.
Breaking news: A woman in Washington State has died of the measles - it’s the first confirmed measles death in the U.S. since 2003. It looks like this woman, who had a weakened immune system, contracted the disease while visiting a medical facility that a measles patient had visited.
http://q13fox.com/2015/07/02/woman-in-washington-died-from-measles-becoming-first-u-s-death-from-disease-in-12-years/
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2015/07/02/measles_first_us_death_from_the_disease_in_over_a_decade.html
Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.
This is one of my biggest fears, having a mother with an autoimmune disease (and knowing that I have a very high likelihood of developing the same one later in life).
I was actually just looking for this thread to post this story: 25 cases of whooping cough in 3 different Michigan counties.
http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2015/07/whooping_cough.html#incart_river
(I wouldn’t read the comments.)
In other news, California Governor Brown signed SB 277, which eliminates the religious and personal belief exemptions for immunizations required to attend schools.
http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article25834726.html
http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article25909216.html
A protest by antivaxxers closed off the Golden Gate Bridge today. The traffic was a nightmare. Even some folks who were somewhat sympathetic to their cause were ticked off!
The GGB is a favorite target for many a protest. It ticks off people and actually loses support for the Cause du Jour.
I have avoided Woody Harrelson movies every since that idiot helped close the bridge for hours in the lat 90’s. And it was great to see those UCSC students who recently shut down the freeway spend some time as guests of the State. L-)
Same for the antiwar protestors in 2006.
People…get a job…or at least get out of the way of those trying to do theirs .
Sorry for those who have to live near such a place.
Well, the Golden Gate Bridge is where commuters to Marin County drive over to get home after work in San Francisco. Marin County seems to be a hotbed of vaccine-refusal, so perhaps the anti-vaccine protesters are inconveniencing many of their own, as well as giving their other neighbors more reasons to dislike them.
Here is an article about the protest: http://www.marinij.com/health/20150703/vaccination-law-critics-hold-protest-at-golden-gate-bridge
I would take a few bridge closures to GET to live near such a place 
In my next life I will be rich and live on a hilltop in San Francisco!
. . . with a summer place in Seattle
I was being silly. Of course in my next life I will live in several West Coast cities. The little cottage in Laguna Beach, the spot up the hill in Kailua-Kona, the townhouse with a view of GG bridge, the home in wine country, and the waterfront spot on Lake Washington.
^^Only U.S. locations?
I can’t believe the tin hats some people are wearing in that article! And the journalist does nothing to counter any crazy facts, just interviews other people so it all just seems to be a sea of opinions.
Why is the Nation of Islam against vaccines? Are they trying to pick up converts? The man claimed that autism has been rising with the MMR vaccine. It would be so easy to prove him wrong and no one tries.
I suppose now that schools are starting up again, more unnecessary illnesses will be diagnosed.
I live near Chicago, and one student in a HS there has been diagnosed with mumps.
My D is in a Ph. D. program at UIUC, and classes began on Monday. Already there are 100 confirmed cases of mumps there. Officials suspect most are due to parents not having their angels vaccinated.
Fortunately for my D, she is not teaching, nor does she live on campus, but it is really frustrating.