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Vaccination:Clark County Washington, Failing the rest of the state Since Inception

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Posts

  • MadicanMadican No face Registered User regular
    Waldorf: Great on salads, terrible on vaccines.

    Ironic considering he's a prick along with Statler

  • Inquisitor77Inquisitor77 2 x Penny Arcade Fight Club Champion A fixed point in space and timeRegistered User regular
    I got my second HPV booster shot recently. Just a friendly reminder that men can get the vaccine and there was some recent news about how efficacious it has been, particularly the newer ones.

  • NobeardNobeard North Carolina: Failed StateRegistered User regular
    Jragghen wrote: »
    In less good news for CA, Kindergarten rates have dropped back below 95%

    https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-vaccination-rates-drop-20190701-story.html

    2000
    The school districts with the most medical exemptions were L.A. Unified, Capistrano Unified and San Diego Unified. The rate of medical exemptions in Capistrano Unified — a smaller district in Orange County — was 10 times higher than that of L.A. Unified’s.

    About 1,500 schools in California had kindergarten vaccination rates below 95%.

    At 117 schools, 10% or more of the kindergartners were not immunized because their doctors had excused them from vaccines. At 17 schools, 30% or more of the kindergarten class had medical exemptions on file.

    Which goes to show that the law cited above is probably needed, given some schools have vaccination rates below 70%!

    SacBee has a telling chart about these "medical exemptions"

    https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article231748198.html#storylink=mainstage_lead

    fwnjih6xueaj.png

    Waldorf schools are the ones under a lot of scrutiny because it looks like 12 of those 17 schools are Waldorf. Ugh.

    What fucking doctors are doing this? How do you even have the mental capacity to finish med school yet beleive in anti-vaxx bullshit? If someone falls for anti-vaxx propaganda, then I would expect that person to not have the intelligence to be a doctor.

    So I guess the next question is if these doctors are not stupid, what ulterior motive do they have to do this? Do they somehow get money for it?

    Is the system to blame? Are parent's able to doctor shop until they are able to fool one? Is all of medical education somehow flawed to allow the gullible and naive through?

  • 38thDoe38thDoe lets never be stupid again wait lets always be stupid foreverRegistered User regular
    The likely line of thinking is some sort of: You keep them coming back to you if you grant their exception/prescribe their drugs/etc. Otherwise they'll find another doctor to go to who will do it and at least you'll keep an eye on them unlike that other doctor.

    38thDoE on steam
    🦀🦑🦀🦑🦀🦑🦀🦑🦀🦑🦀🦑🦀
    
  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    Medical school doesn't require you to have a science degree or be science oriented

    As long as you can memorize shit you can become an MD (assuming you impress the board during your interview for acceptance or have lots of money). I know plenty of anti-vax doctors and PAs who would put their license on the line for this kind of shit thinking they're immune to action. They're mostly right, they'll get 1-2 strikes for something like this unless some DA has it out for them and pushes for punitive punishments.

    I know a few that don't even believe in evolution. Theoretically you can get into med school by passing a test and having a degree in whatever you want.

    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • Rhesus PositiveRhesus Positive GNU Terry Pratchett Registered User regular
    Doctors are also prone to the same trap that many highly qualified people fall into: they assume that expertise in one field automatically confers expertise in all of them

    [Muffled sounds of gorilla violence]
  • AngelHedgieAngelHedgie Registered User regular
    Doctors are also prone to the same trap that many highly qualified people fall into: they assume that expertise in one field automatically confers expertise in all of them

    They're actually some of the worst examples of Dunning-Kruger, because of how our society treats medical doctors as a profession. My father was an IRS agent who worked in small group pension plans, and he would routinely have to deal with doctors mismanaging their pension plans because of that. It also doesn't help that doctors self-regulate (yes, there's a state board, but guess who staffs it?), which has had a number of issues because doctors refuse to properly manage their own.

    XBL: Nox Aeternum / PSN: NoxAeternum / NN:NoxAeternum / Steam: noxaeternum
  • Inquisitor77Inquisitor77 2 x Penny Arcade Fight Club Champion A fixed point in space and timeRegistered User regular
    My analogy is that doctors are mechanics of the human body. They have a great deal of expertise and knowledge, but by-and-large they are focused on application ("practice") rather than scientific study.

    You can be a fantastic auto mechanic without being able to design a car; you certainly don't need to be a materials scientist to understand how brakes work or how to fix them, even though that science is now required to design and create them.
    Doctors are also prone to the same trap that many highly qualified people fall into: they assume that expertise in one field automatically confers expertise in all of them

    They're actually some of the worst examples of Dunning-Kruger, because of how our society treats medical doctors as a profession. My father was an IRS agent who worked in small group pension plans, and he would routinely have to deal with doctors mismanaging their pension plans because of that. It also doesn't help that doctors self-regulate (yes, there's a state board, but guess who staffs it?), which has had a number of issues because doctors refuse to properly manage their own.

    Yeah, lawyers are probably the worst when it comes to self-regulating bodies, but doctors are up there as well.

  • HevachHevach Registered User regular
    A LOT of doctors are just straight up crooked. From unnecessary ED/PE pills as performance enhancers to straight up drug dealing to opiate addicts to fudged insurance documents to get unneeded stuff covered you'll find just about anything you want if you shop around.

  • [Expletive deleted][Expletive deleted] The mediocre doctor NorwayRegistered User regular
    Doctors are also prone to the same trap that many highly qualified people fall into: they assume that expertise in one field automatically confers expertise in all of them

    Thank god I as an engineer is immune to that.
    :P
    I actually am a doctor, but PhD, not MD.

    Sic transit gloria mundi.
  • Rhesus PositiveRhesus Positive GNU Terry Pratchett Registered User regular
    Doctors are also prone to the same trap that many highly qualified people fall into: they assume that expertise in one field automatically confers expertise in all of them

    They're actually some of the worst examples of Dunning-Kruger, because of how our society treats medical doctors as a profession. My father was an IRS agent who worked in small group pension plans, and he would routinely have to deal with doctors mismanaging their pension plans because of that. It also doesn't help that doctors self-regulate (yes, there's a state board, but guess who staffs it?), which has had a number of issues because doctors refuse to properly manage their own.

    Oh god, flashbacks to when I was on HMRC's personal tax helpline

    There were multiple calls explaining how tax codes worked to doctors - concepts that they couldn't grasp but refused to just accept that some schmo on a quarter of their wage knew more about

    At least most people, if they didn't understand what was going on, pretended like they did and let me fix what was wrong

    [Muffled sounds of gorilla violence]
  • PaladinPaladin Registered User regular
    bowen wrote: »
    Medical school doesn't require you to have a science degree or be science oriented

    As long as you can memorize shit you can become an MD (assuming you impress the board during your interview for acceptance or have lots of money). I know plenty of anti-vax doctors and PAs who would put their license on the line for this kind of shit thinking they're immune to action. They're mostly right, they'll get 1-2 strikes for something like this unless some DA has it out for them and pushes for punitive punishments.

    I know a few that don't even believe in evolution. Theoretically you can get into med school by passing a test and having a degree in whatever you want.

    Most US medical schools require you to have completed a minimum set of scientific courses prior to applying. In actuality, the key skill required to succeed in medicine is not a pre-existing understanding of science, but the ability to utilize critical thinking skills, which you can learn in many fields. That and being able to talk to patients.

    There are lots of reasons why this problem exists, and to understand this problem, you'll have to accept some ugly truths about the medical profession and society's misperceptions of it. There's abundant blame to go around everywhere.

    Marty: The future, it's where you're going?
    Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    Paladin wrote: »
    bowen wrote: »
    Medical school doesn't require you to have a science degree or be science oriented

    As long as you can memorize shit you can become an MD (assuming you impress the board during your interview for acceptance or have lots of money). I know plenty of anti-vax doctors and PAs who would put their license on the line for this kind of shit thinking they're immune to action. They're mostly right, they'll get 1-2 strikes for something like this unless some DA has it out for them and pushes for punitive punishments.

    I know a few that don't even believe in evolution. Theoretically you can get into med school by passing a test and having a degree in whatever you want.

    Most US medical schools require you to have completed a minimum set of scientific courses prior to applying. In actuality, the key skill required to succeed in medicine is not a pre-existing understanding of science, but the ability to utilize critical thinking skills, which you can learn in many fields. That and being able to talk to patients.

    There are lots of reasons why this problem exists, and to understand this problem, you'll have to accept some ugly truths about the medical profession and society's misperceptions of it. There's abundant blame to go around everywhere.

    Most of those minimum courses are really just to prepare you for the MCAT though. They're not necessarily required in the same way.

    Here's what the medical school by me requires:

    cnd7ZvU.png

    Most liberal arts degrees will hit 50% of that in the first year. So if you've got an english degree and you tack on biochem and and ochem you will probably meet the minimums (though unlikely to be accepted).

    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • delf4delf4 Registered User regular
    bowen wrote: »
    Paladin wrote: »
    bowen wrote: »
    Medical school doesn't require you to have a science degree or be science oriented

    As long as you can memorize shit you can become an MD (assuming you impress the board during your interview for acceptance or have lots of money). I know plenty of anti-vax doctors and PAs who would put their license on the line for this kind of shit thinking they're immune to action. They're mostly right, they'll get 1-2 strikes for something like this unless some DA has it out for them and pushes for punitive punishments.

    I know a few that don't even believe in evolution. Theoretically you can get into med school by passing a test and having a degree in whatever you want.

    Most US medical schools require you to have completed a minimum set of scientific courses prior to applying. In actuality, the key skill required to succeed in medicine is not a pre-existing understanding of science, but the ability to utilize critical thinking skills, which you can learn in many fields. That and being able to talk to patients.

    There are lots of reasons why this problem exists, and to understand this problem, you'll have to accept some ugly truths about the medical profession and society's misperceptions of it. There's abundant blame to go around everywhere.

    Most of those minimum courses are really just to prepare you for the MCAT though. They're not necessarily required in the same way.

    Here's what the medical school by me requires:

    cnd7ZvU.png

    Most liberal arts degrees will hit 50% of that in the first year. So if you've got an english degree and you tack on biochem and and ochem you will probably meet the minimums (though unlikely to be accepted).

    My good friends lab partner in med school was a poetry major. She said there was period of time where it was easier to get accepted to med school if you met the requirements, but didn't necessarily have a science background because they wanted more diversity in the pre-med area.

  • evilmrhenryevilmrhenry Registered User regular
    Jragghen wrote: »
    In less good news for CA, Kindergarten rates have dropped back below 95%

    https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-vaccination-rates-drop-20190701-story.html

    2000
    The school districts with the most medical exemptions were L.A. Unified, Capistrano Unified and San Diego Unified. The rate of medical exemptions in Capistrano Unified — a smaller district in Orange County — was 10 times higher than that of L.A. Unified’s.

    About 1,500 schools in California had kindergarten vaccination rates below 95%.

    At 117 schools, 10% or more of the kindergartners were not immunized because their doctors had excused them from vaccines. At 17 schools, 30% or more of the kindergarten class had medical exemptions on file.

    Which goes to show that the law cited above is probably needed, given some schools have vaccination rates below 70%!

    SacBee has a telling chart about these "medical exemptions"

    https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article231748198.html#storylink=mainstage_lead

    fwnjih6xueaj.png

    Waldorf schools are the ones under a lot of scrutiny because it looks like 12 of those 17 schools are Waldorf. Ugh.

    On the plus side, it looks like removing the philosophical exemption had the desired effect of dropping exemptions back to mostly sane levels. This will likely need tweaking, but it's a good sign that this works.

    As for the tweaking...
    The way SB 277 was set up, parents submit medical exemptions directly to their child’s school. If the school nurse or someone else on campus reaches out for guidance, health officials may weigh in. Otherwise, the matter is out of their hands.

    This was a major source of frustration to officials interviewed in the study. Here’s how one participant from an urban health district put it: “The law didn’t give the health officer any role, and I’ll tell you how ridiculous this is. … I get to see medical records of dogs and I have the authority to disapprove requests for exemptions for rabies vaccines … and for people, we don’t have that authority.”

    (Also, I will point out that at least some of the increase is going to be legit; some people who would have qualified for medical exemptions would presumably be using a personal belief exemption simply because there's less paperwork. In schools hitting 70% vaccination levels that's not what's happening, just keep that in mind.)

  • PaladinPaladin Registered User regular
    bowen wrote: »
    Paladin wrote: »
    bowen wrote: »
    Medical school doesn't require you to have a science degree or be science oriented

    As long as you can memorize shit you can become an MD (assuming you impress the board during your interview for acceptance or have lots of money). I know plenty of anti-vax doctors and PAs who would put their license on the line for this kind of shit thinking they're immune to action. They're mostly right, they'll get 1-2 strikes for something like this unless some DA has it out for them and pushes for punitive punishments.

    I know a few that don't even believe in evolution. Theoretically you can get into med school by passing a test and having a degree in whatever you want.

    Most US medical schools require you to have completed a minimum set of scientific courses prior to applying. In actuality, the key skill required to succeed in medicine is not a pre-existing understanding of science, but the ability to utilize critical thinking skills, which you can learn in many fields. That and being able to talk to patients.

    There are lots of reasons why this problem exists, and to understand this problem, you'll have to accept some ugly truths about the medical profession and society's misperceptions of it. There's abundant blame to go around everywhere.

    Most of those minimum courses are really just to prepare you for the MCAT though. They're not necessarily required in the same way.

    Here's what the medical school by me requires:

    cnd7ZvU.png

    Most liberal arts degrees will hit 50% of that in the first year. So if you've got an english degree and you tack on biochem and and ochem you will probably meet the minimums (though unlikely to be accepted).

    Actually, humanities majors have a greater chance of being accepted than people from the biological sciences, and they perform better on the MCAT. There are several reasons for this, but a big reason is that if you're a humanities major, you have to make a conscious choice to decide to be a doctor, whereas people in biology majors don't necessarily need to have thought seriously about designing their own career path to be funneled into applying to medical school (which is why their acceptance rates suffer). Being from a less common major helps you stick out for that reason.

    That's beside the question though. The real underlying topic is: how do you make sure that the doctors we produce (to say nothing of doctors that come in from outside our common medical education system) share the same ideals, abide by the same guidelines, and attain some sort of minimum standard of decisionmaking? That's really, really, really tough, especially when it comes to something as politically charged as this, because we simply don't have the time and resources to monitor every doctor's decisionmaking. In fact, we abuse CMS billing requirements (the minimum standard of documentation needed to charge medicare for services) as some sort of actual medical standard, despite the fact that it is often not built on good medical evidence, is checked over by people with a high school education, and can be fudged by the provider with almost no accountability because, like the Social Security Number, it was absolutely not designed to standardize quality medical care.

    Medical school and residency aren't magic wands you can wave over people to magically make them good doctors, and medical school admission can never be good enough to only admit people who are going to be good doctors. How, during the entire matriculation and training period for a doctor, could you ensure that they would believe in vaccines - or in anything?

    Marty: The future, it's where you're going?
    Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    I would hazard a guess that requiring a stronger focus on the sciences, even though a humanities doctor might be a better fit, would weed out many of the "believers", but we also need to focus teaching on learning and understanding rather than rote memorization (which is what a lot of doctors rely on).

    This is something we need to start young on though, we're talking 1st and 2nd grade to get children interested in STEM and learning/discovering and more importantly how to use the scientific method to make sense of the world around them. Like most things, you can remove most ignorance by teaching.

    Unfortunately something like this is highly political at all steps because it doesn't produce the results 1/3 of America wants and a lot of people have this chip on their shoulder with people who are "smarter" than them.

    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • JragghenJragghen Registered User regular
    https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/07/03/five-california-doctors-now-under-investigation-over-student-vaccine-exemptions/
    Two more doctors are being investigated by the California Medical Board over allegations they signed unnecessary vaccine exemptions for students, according to court records filed by the board.

    The inquiries into Sacramento-area physicians Kelly Sutton and Dr. Michael Fielding Allen raise the number to four doctors who are now the subject of ongoing medical board investigations over their exemption practices. A fifth, Dr. Kenneth Stoller, is being investigated by the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office.

    Together, the five — including Dr. Bob Sears of Orange County and Dr. Ron Kennedy of Santa Rosa — wrote a third of all exemptions reviewed by this news organization as part of a report on exemptions in eight Bay Area school districts.

    Last month, the medical board requested a court order to enforce a subpoena filed to Kaiser Permanente, asking the HMO to turn over copies of medical exemptions signed by Sutton and Allen, as first reported by Kaiser Health News.

    The board opened its investigation in response to a tip from the assistant chief of pediatrics at Kaiser’s Roseville Medical Center, who was concerned by medical exemptions the two doctors had signed for the clinic’s pediatric patients, according to court filings.

    Kaiser members sought exemptions from Allen and Sutton, neither of whom work for the HMO, and then gave them to their primary care doctors. The medical board initially subpoenaed Kaiser for the records, but the healthcare provider refused to hand over any records that would identify patients. The board is now requesting a court order for the unredacted exemptions.

    The medical board recently won a similar court battle to review exemptions signed by Kennedy. In June, just days after Sears argued against stricter student vaccine regulations at a State Assembly hearing, the medical board accused him of writing unnecessary exemptions. His license has been on probation since last year for the same reason.

  • PaladinPaladin Registered User regular
    bowen wrote: »
    I would hazard a guess that requiring a stronger focus on the sciences, even though a humanities doctor might be a better fit, would weed out many of the "believers", but we also need to focus teaching on learning and understanding rather than rote memorization (which is what a lot of doctors rely on).

    This is something we need to start young on though, we're talking 1st and 2nd grade to get children interested in STEM and learning/discovering and more importantly how to use the scientific method to make sense of the world around them. Like most things, you can remove most ignorance by teaching.

    Unfortunately something like this is highly political at all steps because it doesn't produce the results 1/3 of America wants and a lot of people have this chip on their shoulder with people who are "smarter" than them.

    Just as much as clinical thinking skills, being able to improve patient satisfaction is a big part of being a successful doctor, which can be at stake for as much as 30% of the CMS reimbursement in addition to likelihood of malpractice lawsuits. Behind closed doors, doctors wonder whether it's better to follow established guidelines and have the patient hate you vs. almost kill the patient with incompetence but leave them with a favorable impression. The high fiduciary standard to which we place this profession is almost entirely propped up by cultural traditions, which is why humanities scholars will always have a place.

    As for early STEM and a focus on developing scientific thinking early ... well, it puts our memorization and standardized testing public education system to shame, and I fear it will reduce the diversity of incoming medical classes if made a requirement prior to being able to deliver this quality of education to underserved communities.

    Marty: The future, it's where you're going?
    Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
  • Drake ChambersDrake Chambers Lay out my formal shorts. Registered User regular
    The surprise that people have when they learn that doctors can be idiots is a result of an ages-old misconception conflating intelligence with level of education. If you have high levels of both, hooray! That's a fantastic combination! That said, it's entirely coincidental.

    That misconception is partly to blame for the shitty state of affairs that we're in today. "This man is a neurosurgeon! I'm going to listen to what he says." Nice work, now Ben Carson is a person of authority.

  • rndmherorndmhero Registered User regular
    Without getting too far afield, pockets of doctors are not writing exemptions due to insufficient amounts of STEM training. This is just a farcical critique for a field with more STEM requirements than any outside of some research-based PhDs.

    Doctors are writing these for two reasons:

    1) "Doctors" are not a homogeneous group of people. People go into medicine for lots of different reasons, and in any group that large, you're going to capture small numbers of people with all kinds of fringe beliefs. Conspiratorial thinking cuts across all kinds of educational and socioeconomic groups, and "people who earned an MD somewhere" is no exception. As the above story from California points out, it's a very tiny number of doctors who are responsible for an outsized portion of the bad faith actions.

    2) Medical practice has almost no effective regulation. I mean, sure, there are some boundaries put in place by the FDA and other federal/state agencies, but actual patient-level medical decision making is almost wholly deferred to individual practitioners. State medical boards get involved with malpractice suits and DUIs, but they effectively never oversee things as granular as individual vaccine exemptions.

    Unless state regulations recognize this and stipulate guidelines for what is a valid medical exemption or who is qualified to make that determination, you will continue to have pockets of fringe elements within the medical community who are willing to subvert the requirements out of personal belief or financial motivations.

  • CalicaCalica Registered User regular
    bowen wrote: »
    Medical school doesn't require you to have a science degree or be science oriented

    As long as you can memorize shit you can become an MD (assuming you impress the board during your interview for acceptance or have lots of money). I know plenty of anti-vax doctors and PAs who would put their license on the line for this kind of shit thinking they're immune to action. They're mostly right, they'll get 1-2 strikes for something like this unless some DA has it out for them and pushes for punitive punishments.

    I know a few that don't even believe in evolution. Theoretically you can get into med school by passing a test and having a degree in whatever you want.

    My mom is a retired doctor who is outraged by anti-vaxxers and wholeheartedly supports evidence-based medicine, and never practiced with any agenda other than her patients' well-being.

    "Medicine" is in italics there because she's also a fundamentalist Christian who doesn't believe in evolution (but does support abortion rights). She's just... very good at compartmentalizing.

  • PaladinPaladin Registered User regular
    I must say I am heartened by the statistics requirement. It really helps to understand how much the average human judges a grey world in black and white.

    Marty: The future, it's where you're going?
    Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
  • HevachHevach Registered User regular
    rndmhero wrote: »
    Without getting too far afield, pockets of doctors are not writing exemptions due to insufficient amounts of STEM training. This is just a farcical critique for a field with more STEM requirements than any outside of some research-based PhDs.

    Doctors are writing these for two reasons:

    1) "Doctors" are not a homogeneous group of people. People go into medicine for lots of different reasons, and in any group that large, you're going to capture small numbers of people with all kinds of fringe beliefs. Conspiratorial thinking cuts across all kinds of educational and socioeconomic groups, and "people who earned an MD somewhere" is no exception. As the above story from California points out, it's a very tiny number of doctors who are responsible for an outsized portion of the bad faith actions.

    2) Medical practice has almost no effective regulation. I mean, sure, there are some boundaries put in place by the FDA and other federal/state agencies, but actual patient-level medical decision making is almost wholly deferred to individual practitioners. State medical boards get involved with malpractice suits and DUIs, but they effectively never oversee things as granular as individual vaccine exemptions.

    Unless state regulations recognize this and stipulate guidelines for what is a valid medical exemption or who is qualified to make that determination, you will continue to have pockets of fringe elements within the medical community who are willing to subvert the requirements out of personal belief or financial motivations.

    Yep. This is no different than the doctors who wrote the phony prescriptions for Hoverround or Forhims, or the ones that fudge disability papers, or the ones that peddle prescriptions to addicts, or who write questionable medical marijuana cards, and so on and so on.

    There's certainly going to be some quacks that actually believe this stuff. But for every one, I'm willing to bet you'll find five or ten that don't but for a standard paperwork fee will shrug and sign a form letter.

  • [Expletive deleted][Expletive deleted] The mediocre doctor NorwayRegistered User regular
    Being in the Democratic Republic of Congo is no picinic, what with the never-ending cycles of civil wars, mass rape, poverty, etc.

    Also, now ebola.

    Which it turns out they shouldn't worry too much about; measles kill a lot more of them. Funny, considering it's a "harmless childhood disease".

    "Frankly, I am embarrassed to talk only about Ebola," WHO Director-General says.

    Sic transit gloria mundi.
  • lonelyahavalonelyahava Call me Ahava ~~She/Her~~ Move to New ZealandRegistered User regular
    We now have had 210 confirmed measles cases in my city this year.

    We had just wiped out the endemic strains about three years ago.

    All of these cases are from elsewhere, but we might be back to getting another endemic strain.

    I am so angry about this.

  • JragghenJragghen Registered User regular
    https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article234700697.html
    Despite clearing the Legislature on Wednesday, a bill to restrict vaccine medical exemptions for California schoolchildren faces one last hurdle: winning the support of a governor who has publicly wavered on the proposal.

    Although he said in June he would sign Senate Bill 276, Newsom has since reversed course and one of his top advisers now says his signature on the measure isn’t guaranteed.

    Newsom would “only put his signature on a bill that reflects his values,” the governor’s chief strategist Daniel Zingale told reporters.

    Zingale spoke shortly after the Senate passed the measure 28-11, sending it to Newsom’s desk. That passage followed months of testy hearings where protesters chanted loudly and attempted to disrupt proceedings. Lawmakers also negotiated with Newsom’s office and took amendments to the bill to win his support after he voiced concern that it would give government officials too much power over medical exemptions.

    Now his office says he wants more changes through separate, not yet public legislation. SB 276 currently requires doctors to certify under penalty of perjury that their medical exemptions are accurate. It also mandates scrutiny of doctors who have issued more than five exemptions, including exemptions made before the bill takes effect.

    The changes Newsom wants would eliminate the penalty of perjury for doctors and retroactive counting of a doctor’s medical exemptions.

    Newsom’s office says the governor wants to clarify that the medical exemption forms will not be releasable under public records laws and that doctors can present additional evidence to a review panel should their decision be questioned. He also wants to clarify that the Department of Public Health will begin a reviews of schools and doctors starting in 2020.

    Newsom, I've been mostly pleasantly surprised by you, but this was a bill that you expressed issues with, the legislature came to you, and you worked out an agreement on it that DID water it down. It's been passed in the form you already approved of, the legislator who wrote it and met with you for that agreement has been assaulted and gotten death threats. This is fucking ridiculous. Sign the damn bill.

  • JragghenJragghen Registered User regular
    Looks like Newsom got what he wanted. *sigh*

    https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article234897627.html
    Newsom approved the bills after a day of raucous protests at the Capitol, where opponents of the bills shut down both chambers of the Legislature and blocked entrances to the building, prompting at least seven arrests.

    Hundreds of protesters filled the hallways and drowned out legislative debate with their chants, but lawmakers in both chambers still passed the second of the two contested bills Monday.

    Chelsea Haley, a CHP officer, said three demonstrators were arrested around 10 a.m. for blocking lawmakers’ entrance to the parking area along the north driveway.

    Three more people were arrested at 11:45 a.m. because the CHP said they blocked entry to the south side of the building. An additional man was escorted out of the Senate gallery and arrested at 3:55 p.m. because he allegedly disrupted the session by shouting at lawmakers. All seven activists reportedly refused to leave when officers at the Capitol directed them to do so, the CHP said.

    ...

    Newsom negotiated some last-minute changes to the proposal through a separate piece of legislation that reduces liability for doctors and preserves some existing medical exemptions. But the changes haven’t satisfied opponents.

    Outside the governor’s office, many held signs criticizing SB 276 and waved upside-down U.S. flags, which vaccine opponents have adopted as one of their symbols. Some protesters brought children, some of whom played in the hall outside the governor’s office or were pushed in strollers through the building.

    “Veto the bill! Amendments are worse!” protesters chanted outside Newsom’s office.

    Lawmakers in the Assembly passed the supplemental legislation Senate Bill 714 on a 43-14 vote Monday afternoon. That prompted screaming from dozens of protesters in the gallery above the Assembly floor. Unable to convince them to be quiet, lawmakers broke for recess as the gallery protesters chanted, “We will not comply!”

    The protesters then shut down the state Senate, chanting and signing in the gallery until CHP officers told them to leave or face arrest. Later that afternoon, the Senate also passed the bill over objections from several Republican senators, who argued the rushed legislation didn’t face adequate public scrutiny.

    SB 714 now heads to Newsom, who has said he will sign both bills.

  • Stabbity StyleStabbity Style He/Him | Warning: Mothership Reporting Kennewick, WARegistered User regular
    Idk, the amendments aren't great, but it's still like, better than before, right?

    Stabbity_Style.png
  • JragghenJragghen Registered User regular
    Idk, the amendments aren't great, but it's still like, better than before, right?

    Yeah. It's definitely still an improvement. It's just frustrating that it got dragged out to that, too.

  • JragghenJragghen Registered User regular
    http://www.kake.com/story/41262155/anti-vax-mom-says-she-gave-out-lollipops-tainted-with-chickenpox-for-halloween-we-have-the-packaging-down-pat

    Australia has now taken this shit a step further than any other country, I think.
    The Australian mother, who identifies herself online as Sarah Walker RN, shared in the private Facebook group "Stop Mandatory Vaccination" that her son, whose name has been redacted, contracted chickenpox and that she planned to "help" other children in the community by spreading the virus through candy.

    "So my beautiful son [redacted] has the chickenpox at the moment and we've both decided to help others with natural immunity this Halloween!" Walker wrote. "We have the packaging open and closing down pat and can't wait to help others in our community."

    ...

    According to Yahoo News, Walker claims to be a registered nurse at the "Royal Children’s Hospital, Brisbane" on her Facebook page. However, Queensland Health, the parent company of The Royal Children's Hospital — which is actually located in Melbourne, not Brisbane — confirmed that she was never employed at any of its medical facilities.

    "There are no current or former employees by that name that have worked for Queensland Health as a registered nurse," a spokesperson wrote on Facebook. "This is a serious issue and has been referred to police, who are investigating."

    ...

    Thankfully, whether Walker went ahead with her scheme or it was entirely made up, Queensland Health told News.com.au that the risk of chickenpox transmission from such tainted lollipops would be extremely low, since the virus does not survive long on surfaces.

    However, if Walker were to be found guilty of food tampering, or making false claims to do so, she could be facing serious prison time.

    In September 2018, Australia's parliament increased the jail term to 15 years for anyone convicted of contaminating foodstuffs after an epidemic of needles being discovered in strawberries and other fruits terrified the country, Reuters reports.

    The bill even criminalized making hoax claims about food tampering, an offense now punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

  • FencingsaxFencingsax It is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understanding GNU Terry PratchettRegistered User regular
    STOP GIVING US IDEAS

  • discriderdiscrider Registered User regular
    edited November 2019
    STOP GIVING US YOUR HOLIDAYS THEN
    I mean, we're in the opposite hemisphere and any harvest thingy should be 6 months removed at the very least...

    discrider on
  • discriderdiscrider Registered User regular
    Honestly though, that article invokes all the wrong feelings in me because it just illustrates what I find wrong with trick-or-treating.
    We had another incident this Halloween where a young person was hospitalised after eating received prescription drugs.
    And we've also had another needle-in-strawberry scare since those laws were enacted.

    I dunno, some people are jerks.
    And so I don't understand going from house to house soliciting food from them.

  • HacksawHacksaw J. Duggan Esq. Wrestler at LawRegistered User regular
    edited December 2019
    In news that should surprise no one, a massive Measles outbreak has killed a lot of children. Why aren't you hearing about it? Because it's happening in Samoa, and anti-vaxxers don't give a shit about brown people.

    Hacksaw on
  • lonelyahavalonelyahava Call me Ahava ~~She/Her~~ Move to New ZealandRegistered User regular
    Also because I couldn't find this thread the other day.

    62 dead. All but 8 have been children under 4.
    172 still in hospital, 19 are children in intensive care.
    Over 4200 cases reported since October.
    One family of 7 lost 3 out of their 5 children.

    Belle the outbreak the national vaccination rates were at 31%.

    The entire civil service and government has shut down today and tomorrow. The entire country has shut down. People were told to stay home, and if there was somebody in the house that needed a vaccine, to hang a red cloth or scarf outside the house. All of today civil servants who were not working today and tomorrow are in vans and cars and trucks driving around the islands, looking for red cloth and giving vaccines.

    So far today I believe they totaled giving out 2,000 vaccines. They are hoping to get more done tomorrow.

    The vaccination rate for children under 4, the highest at risk group, has now risen to over 80%, they're going to get that up to 90 by the weekend.

    Doctors and nurses from NZ are there and more are coming. Along with more vaccines. I heard a news bulletin today they the CDC is sending people as well.


    For some context, we were all freaking out about measles here in NZ earlier this year as our number of cases climbed into the two thousands for the year.

    Samoa is over 4000 since October.


    UNICEF is taking donations to help fund more vaccines. If you can help, please do.

  • MulysaSemproniusMulysaSempronius but also susie nyRegistered User regular
    Hacksaw wrote: »
    In news that should surprise no one, a massive Measles outbreak has killed a lot of children. Why aren't you hearing about it? Because it's happening in Samoa, and anti-vaxxers don't give a shit about brown people.

    Oh no, it's even worse than that. Anti-vaxxers are trying to get shipments of vitamins to Samoa (E and C I think?) because in their sick minds, measles is only deadly if you are malnourished or have vitamin deficiencies. I think the Samoan authorities have been stopping them- there's a bit of an outcry in anti-vax circles that the Samoans won't let them help.
    No outbreak will ever convince them, as they believe that measles isn't the problem, and is just a mild rash if you eat well.

    If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing
  • a5ehrena5ehren AtlantaRegistered User regular
    edited December 2019
    Also worth pointing out that the vax rate was down to 31% because of anti-vax propaganda.

    They had an incident where a nurse killed two kids getting their first MMR shot - it later came out (in her manslaughter trial) that she had accidentally mixed in something like a 10x dose of muscle relaxant and then covered it up. Anti-vaxxers money-bombed the island with propaganda based on the first part and never mentioned the actual facts of the case.

    a5ehren on
  • HacksawHacksaw J. Duggan Esq. Wrestler at LawRegistered User regular
    I hope Samoa passes a law requiring vaccination, after this. Anti-vaxxers are an irrational and dangerous lot, and the law must be employed to stop their fatal idiocy.

  • monikermoniker Registered User regular
    Hacksaw wrote: »
    I hope Samoa passes a law requiring vaccination, after this. Anti-vaxxers are an irrational and dangerous lot, and the law must be employed to stop their fatal idiocy.

    Murderous. It looks like several of the victims were too young to be able to be given the inoculation even if their parents wanted to.

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