In Rockland County, New York, a federal judge has joined the heating debate over measles vaccination. As the number of cases rising, the judge prevented 50 unvaccinated students from returning to the Green Meadow Waldorf School for about three weeks.
Beatrice Burgis, a parent, has agreed with the judge’s decision that would keep unvaccinated children at home. She said, “I believe that he’s trying to mitigate a potential further outbreak and he’s trying to keep everybody safe.”
On Tuesday, a new confirmed measles case in Rockland County has brought the figure to 146. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported 228 cases across 12 states this year. It has been noticed that the Rockland County measles outbreak was centered in an Orthodox Jewish community.
Most states allow vaccine exemptions for religious beliefs, while 17 states allow parents to opt out for personal or philosophical reasons, and one of those states is Oklahoma.
Dr. Ervin Yen, the former Oklahoma state legislator, said, “A lot of the legislators think that mandating vaccinations is big government.” Yen tried to ban the non-medical vaccine exemption law in his state.
Yen added, “In Oklahoma, I think it’s going to take an outbreak of something like measles where somebody dies unfortunately.”
Prior to the introduction of the measles vaccine in 1963, more than 500,000 cases of measles were diagnosed each year, resulting in hundreds of deaths due to complications. Since 1963, the number of measles cases has dropped dramatically.
The former state legislator also said, “They don’t know that measles can cause encephalitis, which of course, is inflammation of your brain. I don’t know about you but I don’t want my brain inflamed.” Last week, New York State Senator Liz Krueger introduced a bill allowing any kid who is 14 and above should get vaccinated without parental consent. A similar bill has already been introduced in other states such as Oregon and South Carolina.
