Disneyland
oracknows | January 29, 2015
Imagine, if you will, a time machine capsule going all the way back to the earliest days of this blog, back in 2005 and 2006. Now consider the antivaccine movement, which somehow I became very interested in very early, an interest that continues to this day. Do you remember one theme that I kept hitting again and again? Besides the pseudoscientific quackery often promoted by antivaccinationists, that is? That theme was false balance. Back when I first started blogging, no matter what the angle of the story, when the press reported about the topic of vaccines—or the topic of autism, for…
oracknows | January 27, 2015
Here we are, into a new week, and the Disneyland measles outbreak continues to grow, the total number of cases now having topped 100 and the disease attributed to someone visiting Disneyland now having reached my state. More than ever, given the high proportion of victims who weren't vaccinated, antivaccinationists are feeling the heat. Rober, "Dr. Bob" Sears, MD might have been the most petulant one trying to downplay the seriousness of measles and then letting out a whole bunch of antivaccine dog whistles to his patients to let them know that, despite his assertion that the measles vaccine…
oracknows | January 21, 2015
In the wake of antivaccine-pandering pediatrician "Dr. Bob" Sears' attempt to paint the measles as no big deal, so much so that it totally escaped his notice that it might not be a bad idea to recommend that the unvaccinated get the MMR vaccine in the midst of an outbreak, the bad news about the Disneyland measles outbreak just keeps coming in. Hot off the presses yesterday:
There are now 67 confirmed cases of measles in an outbreak centered in California, health officials said.
The California Department of Public Health said there are now 59 cases in the state – 42 that have been directly…
oracknows | January 21, 2015
Poor, poor, pitiful Dr. Bob.
For those of you not familiar with him, I'm referring, of course, to Robert "Dr. Bob" Sears, MD, the antivaccine-sympathetic (or, more appropriately, antivaccine-pandering) pediatrician in Capistrano Beach, CA (between Los Angeles and San Diego in Orange County) known for his Vaccine Book, a veritable font of antivaccine misinformation gussied up as a "reasonable" middle ground. Too bad it's not.
In any case, in the wake of the Disneyland measles outbreak, Dr. Bob has found himself under a lot of criticism, along with our "good buddy," the other famous…
tsmith | January 15, 2015Measles has come to the happiest place on Earth. As of this writing, a total of 32 cases of measles have been linked to Disneyland visits that took place between December 17th and 20th. About 75% of the cases identified to date were not vaccinated, either because they chose to forgo vaccines or because they were too young, and at least 6 have been hospitalized.
A measles outbreak is a public health disaster, which can cost into the millions of dollars in health resources. You can be sure that public health workers in California and beyond are working overtime trying to identify cases, educate…
oracknows | January 14, 2015
Brief Orac follow up note, January 21, 2015: Antivaccine pediatrician "Dr. Bob" Sears responds to his patients' parents' concerns about the Disneyland measles outbreak. Hilarity ensues.
Last week, the self-proclaimed "happiest place on earth" wasn't so happy.
You've probably figured out that what I'm referring to is the latest measles outbreak. Some of you have been talking about it in the comments, and I keep seeing news about it. Finally, I couldn't resist applying a bit of not-so-Respectful Insolence to the whole situation. I realize that some of you might have seen this at a certain…