Measles case diagnosed in Wellesley; state officials say person got around the area

Rhetorical question, I know the answer.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-anti-vaxxer-disease-is-now-a-republica...

"What was once the provenance of a few fringe weirdos—mostly on the loony left—has now migrated into the mainstream. At least three Republican candidates for governor—in Oklahoma, Oregon, and Connecticut—are now open skeptics of requiring vaccinations for school kids."

https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/2019/03/20/matt-bevi...

"In the interview, Bevin also suggested that the government stay out of mandating vaccines. In Kentucky, varicella (chickenpox) is among vaccines mandated for all children entering kindergarten, though parents may seek religious exemptions or provide medical proof that a child has already had the disease."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/03/01/arizona-lawmaker...

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/13/politics/darla-shine-measles-anti-vaccina...

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

https://www.newsweek.com/republican-lawmakers-arizona-want-make-it-easie...

"ARIZONA REPUBLICANS WANT TO MAKE IT EASIER TO SKIP VACCINES, DESPITE HIGH NUMBER OF UNVACCINATED CHILDREN"

https://www.wweek.com/news/2019/03/20/oregon-republicans-are-rallying-ar...

"Childhood vaccines have become a highly partisan issue in Oregon. The "vaccine choice" movement is now all but a plank of the Oregon Republican Party."

Just because you're an incel it doesn't mean you can't still keep up with current events.

Anti-vaxxers are one of those movements that aren't bound by political ideologies. They're driven by the belief that you're smarter than the experts, and that your 20 minutes of Googling + watching Jenny McCarthy make a bunch of dumb shit up on YouTube is equivalent to the medical degree that doctors have. The big groups withholding vaccines from their kids that you usually hear about are hardcore religious conservatives (who admittedly keep to themselves, and are less likely to be the victim/cause of an outbreak) and Doterra-peddling upper-middle-class white people. It's also a belief driven by a persecution complex, not unlike the one you seem to have about Bolsheviks hiding in your washroom.

All of which is to say, might wanna check to see if you were in a Braintree Target or a Waltham Staples last week, big fella. Measles doesn't have quite the cancer-curing powers the anti-vax movement would have you believe.

Healthy young child goes to doctor, gets pumped with massive shot of many vaccines, doesn't feel good and changes - AUTISM. Many such cases!

- known lefty Donald Trump

Must we inject politics into absolutely every situation? Why must an insufferable mouthpiece like you always show up to spew whatever your partisan hate is all over an issue that has nothing to do with politics? It's a national crisis, and we should be addressing the issue without people like you trying to derail the conversation. I'm sure you're a joy at social gatherings. And I'm sure most people roll their eyes when you finally do them the favor of leaving.

Here's the most recent disaggregated data I can find; feel free to correct me if you have something newer than 2016. BPS is hovering around 84% coverage, as of the Herald article published last week. Ain't no way 1 out of 6 kids in BPS has a medical exemption, and state law says you can opt out with a "sincerely held belief," and so we get periodic measles outbreaks like this.

Yeah, I wasn't referring to "vaccines attending schools"...I was referring to my personal experience of attending Boston Public Schools.

You are not acquitting your alma mater very well.

What makes up that 16% is another discussion worth having. Especially in populations like Boston's, I have a hard time believing it's mostly hardline religious folks. Is it a cultural thing I don't know about? Lack of access to primary care? I wonder how many of those counting against full coverage are kids like my own (keep reading, I promise this gets better), whose immunization records I've sent in twice and who still gets periodic letters sent home saying "update your child's immunization records or we'll shake our finger sternly at you." (I'm way more offended at them not imposing dire consequences for non-vaxers than I am about them losing the paperwork, BTW) .

One of the kids in my daughter's kindergarten class is a pediatric cancer patient, who can't vaccinate because he's so immunocompromised by the chemo he's on. I want every anti-vaxxer parent in the school system to be required by the City to look that boy's mother in the eyes and tell them why they're risking the life of a 5-year-old who has already survived cancer.

Massachusetts law requires schools to require vaccination to attend. It also requires schools to accept religious or medical exemptions to vaccination requirements. Students absolutely can register for BPS claiming a religious or medical exemption to vaccination. If BPS does not accept the family's claim of religious exemption, they're in violation of state law.

I personally wish people wouldn't claim religious exemptions, and I wish the state would change its laws to no longer allow those, like CA, WV, and MS have, but the current law is that unvaccinated students who claim religious exemption are absolutely required to be included (absent an emergency mandate during times of outbreaks, which is going to become more of a thing if people keep not vaccinating their goddamned kids).