Measles Panic

There have been measles outbreaks in New York and New Jersey, both in Orthodox Jewish communities.

As a result of the ensuing panic, the religious exemption from vaccinations that allows students to attend school unvaccinated has been revoked.

That's the only result.

This should, at a minimum, raise some questions among us, first being, why are the children who succumbed to measles not being looked at so we can find out why they got sick?

There are many other communities with high rates of unvaccination. They're all healthy - no outbreaks. Should we look at them to see how they've avoided measles without vaccination, while others have not? I would say it's worthwhile, but this research is not only not happening, it's on no one's radar anywhere, apparently.

If we really care to understand measles, and how to effectively protect against the illness, seems to me some research should happen within the populations now sick with measles, especially if measles was declared eradicated back in 2000 and with at least 95% of the rest of the population (herd immunity) vaccinated against measles.

Are there no researchers out there at all interested in looking at this? What might happen if we were to look at this? Maybe we'd understand the immune system and how to strengthen it a little better?

I guess there's not much money to be made from keeping people from getting the measles, unless it's by vaccines, in which case, there's plenty.

So, we have measles among us (or, among some of us), and no one cares to learn why, but the vaccine pushers are out in full force, and vaccinations are one more to add to the list of the don't-ever-speak-of-this-to-anyone-you-don't-know-how-they'll-react topics.

How has this become the state of our health care environment and our willingness to hear each other?