Interesting article as Samoa is my medical school home country. It brings up many points about vaccines in general. There is such a pronounced anti-vaxxer push especially here in the USA, and what is happening in Samoa is a prime example of the consequences of not having a vaccinated population. Unnecessary deaths. How’s that anti-vaxxer rhetoric working out for people? Tell that to the 32 families in a population of 200,000 whose child just died. The total number sick including the deaths is over 2400. That’s an attack rate of 1.2% where it could be 0. “Samoa has some of the lowest vaccination rates in the world, with only 31% of infants receiving the measles vaccine in 2018, according to the World Health Organization.” I think parents around the world need to take heed as according to U.S. Food and Drug Administration, just two doses of the MMR vaccine are 97% effective in preventing measles.
REFERENCES:
- https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2019/11/27/cdc-send-experts-samoa-death-toll-measles-outbreak-grows/
- https://www.fda.gov/news-events/fda-brief/fda-brief-fda-reiterates-importance-vaccines-such-measles-mumps-and-rubella-mmr-vaccine
- https://www.cdc.gov/measles/vaccination.html
The mortality in well-nourished children is about zero; in malnourished children very high.
But I don’t get the logic: Some children died somewhere; therefore, we should cancel the need for informed consent and allow the increasingly powerful and unaccountable government to force virtually everybody to take a vaccine in a country where the risk of getting measles is about 3 in a million, and the death toll from measles is zero but deaths likely from the vaccine are >100.
There are some who believe government has no role in healthcare.
Vaccination is a good example of the importance of government public health policy.
Anti-vaccers do broad harm to society, not just themselves.