Jenny McCarthy,
where are you now ?
This year, the U.K. has had more than 1,200 cases of measles,
after a record number of nearly 2,000 cases last year.
The country once recorded only several dozen cases every year.
It now ranks second in Europe, behind only Romania.
Public Health England
3/13
Quote:
The age distribution of the cases in the first quarter of 2013 shows a peak in the 10-14 year old age group
with an apparent shift in age, when compared to the previous 4 years <snip>
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NY Times
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
May 22, 2013
Aftermath of an Unfounded Vaccine Scare
Quote:
Britain is experiencing serious outbreaks of measles that look to be
a delayed consequence of a failure to vaccinate infants and young children more than a decade ago.
A prime cause of that failure was ill-founded fears among parents that
a widely used vaccine to combat measles, mumps and rubella might cause autism.
Because they shunned the vaccine, their children, now in their teens, are suffering the consequences.
Those fears had been fanned by Dr. Andrew Wakefield,
a British researcher, who claimed to have found a link between the vaccine,
gastrointestinal problems found in many autistic children and autism itself.
His work was subsequently discredited, and the BMJ, a British medical journal,
concluded that flaws in his scientific study were not honest mistakes but an “elaborate fraud.”
Even so, he has stalwart defenders who ignore the overwhelming consensus
of vaccine and infectious disease experts that the vaccine is safe and effective
and not a cause of autism.
It has a proven record of safety when given to hundreds of millions of people around the world.
<snip>
The most serious outbreaks this year have been in Wales,
where there are also signs that mumps may be increasing.
A vaccination campaign aimed mostly at young people ages 10 to 16
is now trying to fill a gap that should never have occurred.<snip>
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