Anti-vaxxer kids are rebelling against their parents by vaccinating themselves

Anti-vaxxer kids are rebelling against their parents by vaccinating themselves


By Nicole Lyn Pesce
Published: Feb 11, 2019 2:14 p.m. ET

Some teenagers are asking Reddit for help in getting their immunizations in defiance of their anti-vaxx parents

https://ei.marketwatch.com/Multimedi...a-ac162d7bc1f7AlexRaths/iStock

Some teens are questioning their parents’ antivaccination beliefs.Teens of anti-vaxxer parents are taking a shot at immunizing themselves.

At least three teenagers raised by parents who are against vaccinations have asked Reddit for help in getting themselves immunized, the Washington Post reports, after doing their own vaccination research online has led them to worry about their health.

They include Ethan Lindenberger, an 18-year-old from Norwalk, Ohio, who started a thread just before last Thanksgiving with the subject line, “My parents are kind of stupid and don’t believe in vaccines. Now that I’m 18, where do I go to get vaccinated? Can I get vaccinated at my age?”

He wrote that, “my parents think vaccines are some kind of government scheme,” and, “because of their beliefs I’ve never been vaccinated for anything, god knows how I’m still alive.”

His post was upvoted by more than 21.3K readers, and drew more than a thousand comments offering advice about navigating the health-care system, as well as recommendations for pharmacy chains and urgent-care centers that provide vaccinations, and the CDC’s recommended immunization schedule for kids and teens.

Lindenberger’s mother, Jill Wheeler, is part the antivaccination movement that has been calling the safety and necessity of immunizations into question for “religious reasons, personal beliefs or philosophical reasons, safety concerns, and a desire for more information from health-care providers,” according to a 2016 report.

Wheeler lamented to online science magazine Undark that her son’s Reddit post “was like him spitting on me, saying ‘You don’t know anything, I don’t trust you with anything. You don’t know what you’re talking about. You did make a bad decision and I’m gonna go fix it.’”

She believes that there are autism risks from vaccines a concern shared by many anti-vaxxers, and perpetuated by celebrities such as Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey, that is based on a 1998 study that has been widely discredited and was even retracted by Lancet last year.

Don’t miss:The share of kids who aren’t getting vaccinated has quadrupled in the past several years
Still, 17 states, including Washington, Oregon, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas, allow parents exemptions from vaccinating their children for philosophical or personal reasons, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, while another 30 states allow parents to opt out of the shots for religious reasons.

A minor in Washington who didn’t identify their name or gender also posted on Reddit last month that their mother “refuses to budge” on her anti-vaxx position, even though the teen wants to be fully vaccinated. “I don’t know what I am vaccinated against, and I don’t know what vaccines are currently available to me. All I know is that she declined any vaccine that contained mercury (which to my knowledge, is quite a few.)

I feel personally enraged by this,” the teen wrote, asking the community what options he or she has. The comments noted that under Washington state law, any minor 13 and older has the right to outpatient treatment -- such as getting vaccines -- without the consent of their parents.

And vaccines.gov also has an online search tool for finding where to go to get vaccinated.

And a Minnesota 15-year-old also asked Reddit for guidance in getting vaccinated without their anti-vaxxer mother’s consent.

The proportion of young kids who aren’t getting inoculations has roughly quadrupled over the past decade and a half, according to a recent CDC report. As a result, about 47,000 children (or 1.3%) born in 2015 hadn’t been vaccinated by 2017, compared with just 0.3% of kids in 2001 -- even though the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommends routine vaccination by age 2 against “14 potentially serious illnesses,” including polio, the measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis B and varicella.

Don’t miss: As measles outbreak spreads, one anti- vaxxer asks how to keep her child safe

Now measles outbreaks in the Pacific Northwest and Georgia have some families rushing their pediatricians and area clinics in search of the vaccines, Kaiser Health News reported, with orders for two types of measles vaccines in Clark County, Washington, up almost 500% in January compared with the same time last year after at least 56 cases of the highly contagious virus were reported in Washington and Oregon. The outbreaks have led to lawmakers introducing a bill that would no longer allow children to be exempted from vaccinations due to personal or philosophical reasons.

Lindenberger posted last month that he has since received his vaccines, although he is now concerned about his four younger siblings, who range in age from 2 to 16.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/th...ves-2019-02-11

9/25/14

The Anti-Vaccination Epidemic

NEW YORK MEASLES OUTBREAK: THOUSANDS OF UNVACCINATED KIDS EXCLUDED FROM SCHOOLS

2016 California Code
Family Code - FAM
DIVISION 11 - MINORS
PART 4 - MEDICAL TREATMENT
CHAPTER 3 - Consent by Minor
Section 6926.

Universal Citation: CA Fam Code § 6926 (2016)
6926. (a) A minor who is 12 years of age or older and who may have come into contact with an infectious, contagious, or communicable disease may consent to medical care related to the diagnosis or treatment of the disease, if the disease or condition is one that is required by law or regulation adopted pursuant to law to be reported to the local health officer, or is a related sexually transmitted disease, as may be determined by the State Public Health Officer.
(b) A minor who is 12 years of age or older may consent to medical care related to the prevention of a sexually transmitted disease.
(c) The minor s parents or guardian are not liable for payment for medical care provided pursuant to this section.
(Amended by Stats. 2011, Ch. 652, Sec. 1. Effective January 1, 2012.)

https://law.justia.com/codes/califor.../section-6926/

Wife of White House communications director pushes false anti-vaccination claims

By Kate Sullivan, Debra Goldschmidt and Ben Tinker, CNN
Updated 12:38 AM ET, Thu February 14, 2019

(CNN)The wife of White House communications chief Bill Shine said Wednesday that childhood diseases such as measles "keep you healthy & fight cancer."

In a series of tweets echoing anti-vaccination views she's espoused publicly for years, Darla Shine lamented the fact her children had received the MMR vaccine, which guards against measles, mumps and rubella. She added that people of her generation -- the Baby Boomers -- were healthier now because they had measles as children.

"I had the #Measles #Mumps #ChickenPox as a child and so did every kid I knew - Sadly my kids had #MMR so they will never have the life long natural immunity I have," Shine tweeted, adding, "Come breathe on me!"

"The entire Baby Boom population alive today had the #Measles as kids," Shine tweeted later. "Bring back our #ChildhoodDiseases they keep you healthy & fight cancer."

Shine's husband, Bill Shine, is the White House deputy chief of staff for communications and was a former Fox News president. He exited his position at Fox News amid allegations he had mishandled reports of sexual harassment at the network. He accepted the senior position in President Donald Trump's White House last summer.

Darla Shine's comments come as a measles outbreak sweeps across the country, disproportionally affecting those who were not vaccinated against the disease. Shine dismissed the reports as "#Fake #Hysteria."

As of February 7, more than 100 cases of measles had been diagnosed this year in 10 states, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Washington state is facing a massive outbreak that is mostly affecting children who did not receive vaccines against the disease. On Wednesday, officials reported 53 cases of measles in just one county, Clark.

Measles is one of the leading causes of death for children, according to the World Health Organization. It is a contagious virus that is spread through the air through coughs and sneezes, and symptoms include high fever, full-body rashes, runny nose and reddened eyes.

The measles vaccine was developed in 1963 and the disease was declared eliminated in the US in 2000 as a result of a successful vaccination program, according to the CDC.

Measles outbreaks in the US now occur when the illness is brought here by others who are unvaccinated or under vaccinated, when they visit the US from a place where the virus is circulating or are visiting such a place from the US and return home infected. That is the case with the current ongoing outbreaks in New York and Washington state.

Many of those who are against vaccinations believe vaccines cause autism, a theory that has been debunked by multiple studies.

Darla Shine continued to defend her stance throughout the day as she faced criticism on social media.

"I had the measles that was the whole point of my tweet. I have life time natural immunity," she tweeted.

The CDC reports nearly all children in the decade before 1963 had measles by the time they were 15 years old and about 3 to 4 million people were infected each year.

While people who contract measles do have a lifelong immunity, so do nearly all of the people who receive the MMR vaccine. The CDC recommends that children get two doses of the MMR vaccine: one at 12-15 months old and another at 4 to 6 years old. After one dose, the vaccine is 93% effective; after two doses, it is 97% effective -- for the duration of someone's life.

She argued at one point that the "many" of the people contracting the disease in Washington had received the MMR vaccine.

"People texting I'm spreading lies about #vaccines. I'm retweeting physicians, scientific studies, and questioning why #Media covers #MeaslesOutbreak one-sided. Many of the kids w/ #Measles in #Washington WERE #Vaccinated Go ask their #Governor," Darla Shine tweeted.

According to information from Clark County, Washington's Public Health Department just one of its 53 cases involved someone who had received the MMR vaccine. Forty-seven of those suffering from measles were unvaccinated and vaccination was unverified in five cases.

In her tweets extolling the benefits of having measles, Shine pointed to a 2014 CNN story where a woman who reportedly had incurable cancer was treated with a highly-concentrated measles virus that sent her cancer into remission in a procedure at the Mayo Clinic. The science behind the Mayo Clinic report hinged on a genetically engineered measles virus, designed to kill a particular kind of cancer known as multiple myeloma.

The concept, known as virotherapy, does not extrapolate to the general population.

Shine hosted a radio show in 2008 and 2009, and a CNN KFile review found she devoted a significant amount of time on the show spreading unfounded and debunked conspiracy theories about vaccinations. On her show, Shine suggested a flu pandemic could be a "setup" by the government. Shine also regularly hosted members of the anti-vaccination movement on her show.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/13/polit...ion/index.html

Facebook says it may remove anti-vaccine recommendations, conspiracy theories

Texas lawmaker says he’s not concerned about measles outbreak because of antibiotics

BY OWEN DAUGHERTY - 02/28/19 08:43 PM EST 642

5,960

A Texas state lawmaker suggested that he is not worried about the recent outbreak of measles across the country because antibiotics can treat the virus.

Texas state Rep. Bill Zedler (R) made the comments Tuesday to the Texas Observer and said he had a case of measles when growing up, before a vaccine for it was developed.

"They want to say people are dying of measles," he told the Observer. "Yeah, in third-world countries they're dying of measles. Today, with antibiotics and that kind of stuff, they're not dying in America."

Since their invention, vaccines for measles have been largely effective. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates only about 2 to 5 percent of children who get the vaccine within the first 12 months contract measles.

Antibiotics, which are used to treat bacterial infections, are not effective against viruses.

Measles outbreaks in recent months have gained national attention, with dozens of cases being reported in Washington state.

The growing anti-vaccine movement which finds space in several social media circles is being pegged as one of the reasons for an increase in measles outbreaks.

There have been eight reported cases of measles in Texas this year, according to the Department of State Health Services.

The Texas legislature is currently considering a bill that would give parents easier access to vaccine exemptions for their children in schools. Zedler is reportedly in support of the bill.

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-w...eak-because-of