Measles: Hasidic community is braced
Hasidic groups in Brooklyn have been the site of a recent measles outbreak, so with Passover visitors expected here, the local communities are bracing for trouble.
The item doesn’t explain where anti-vaxx ideas intersect with Orthodox Judaism.
Passover this year coincides closely with Easter i.e. this upcoming weekend.
Ephraim 08:37 on 2019-04-17 Permalink
This is a second case. There was a case earlier, but the measles never transferred to Montreal because they vaccinate here. The reason is simple… it’s free. A lot of the Haredi community doesn’t have full healthcare in the US… where you have to pay for it. And in Israel, fully socialized medicine is only from 1995, so those older generally didn’t have coverage. Of course, since you have to buy it, not everyone follows the law…
Kate 08:51 on 2019-04-17 Permalink
How much can an MMR shot cost? (I’m prepared to believe it’s hundreds of bucks, in the United States.)
Brett 09:39 on 2019-04-17 Permalink
Just over 21 bucks a dose c.f. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/programs/vfc/awardees/vaccine-management/price-list/index.html
Ephraim 10:20 on 2019-04-17 Permalink
@kate – See https://www.walgreens.com/topic/healthcare-clinic/price-menu.jsp it’s $99.99 for MMR per dose (and this is given at the pharmacy… it’s even more at the hospital, doctor or clinic in the US) and you need 2 doses. Incidentally, if you wonder what the maximum the RAMQ pays for a medication is, it’s all published online at http://www.ramq.gouv.qc.ca/en/publications/citizens/legal-publications/Pages/list-medications.aspx but standard vaccines aren’t there, because you don’t buy them with the pharmacare program, they government buys them in bulk. But it’s much cheaper to vaccinate than to deal with the medical costs of not vaccinating… never mind the coffins for the 1 in 1000 that dies of measles.
Ian 11:15 on 2019-04-17 Permalink
“When asked why people are opting out of vaccines, the New York city health department said anti-vaccine propagandists are distributing misinformation in the community.
The fearmongerers include a group called PEACH — or Parents Educating and Advocating for Children’s Health — which appears to be targeting the Jewish community with misinformation about vaccine safety, citing rabbis as authorities, through a hotline and magazines. Brooklyn Orthodox Rabbi William Handler has also been proclaiming the well-debunked link between the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism. Parents who “placate the gods of vaccination” are engaging in “child sacrifice,” he told Vox.”
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/11/9/18068036/measles-new-york-orthodox-jewish-community-vaccines
Each community follows the advice of its own rabbis, presumably the Montreal Hasidim aren’t on board with this particular line of thought.
Ian 11:16 on 2019-04-17 Permalink
But important to note, that is a small group –
“Some Jewish community leaders are not wild about New York City’s new, shall we say, vaccination edict, but they, their organizations, and the overwhelming majority of local doctors are resolutely pro-vaccination.
Ezras Nashim, the women’s ambulance corps that serves observant Jewish women in Borough Park and the surrounding area, issued the strongest of statements encouraging vaccination, citing, among other things, the Talmud’s declaration that “all of Israel are responsible for each other.”
Rabbi David Niederman, director of United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg and North Brooklyn (UJO), a Satmar community-service group, was equally emphatic about the Halachic demand to vaccinate children. He stressed that those who opposed it are part of a fringe group, much like the anti-vaxxers in the United States as a whole.”
https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/283472/hasidic-community-health-emergency
Chris 14:24 on 2019-04-17 Permalink
Kate, there’s this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccination_and_religion
I could imagine a correlation between religiosity and vaccination hesitancy. Both groups are prone to believing in things without evidence. (i.e. if virgins can bear children, then vaccines can cause autism.) Not sure if anyone has studied that…
Kate 15:14 on 2019-04-17 Permalink
Ian, Ephraim, thanks for the research.
Chris, you don’t see it. Because a person or group of people is religious it does not necessarily open them to new irrational ideas. I was curious where anti-vaxxers had found an opening into Orthodox Jewish culture, which is in most ways pretty realistic about medical care.
Mark Côté 15:50 on 2019-04-17 Permalink
The anti-vax stuff I’ve seen has had very little, if any, religious content, unless you count “new age” viewpoints.
thomas 16:45 on 2019-04-17 Permalink
@Mark It seems anti-vax proponents will make up any argument if they think it will stick to a target audience. There was a nytimes article over the weekend where an evangelical family objected to vaccinations because they are made from human abortion DNA.
Chris 22:56 on 2019-04-17 Permalink
Kate, of course. I did not say it _necessarily_ does, I said I suspect a correlation/overlap between groups. Religion is the ultimate fake news, if one can fall for it, one could be more likely to fall for another kind. A quick search reveals there is at least some data supporting my suspicion: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3906279/#R147
jeather 13:59 on 2019-04-18 Permalink
Wealth correlates negatively with religion but positively with anti-vaccine, so I wouldn’t think “those crazy people who believe in god probably don’t believe in vaccination” follows. (Historically vaccination and earlier variolation were invented and taken up by religious people as well-.)
Raymond Lutz 20:12 on 2019-04-18 Permalink
Wealth correlates negatively with vaccination? That’s not what Gapminder shows for vaccination rate VS GDP/capita
jeather 21:24 on 2019-04-18 Permalink
Wealth correlates positively with anti-vaccine in North America, the context of vaccinations is very different in other cultures and also not particularly relevant to the question of how it correlates with religion.
Chris 10:41 on 2019-04-19 Permalink
Correlation is not causation. I don’t think there’s a causal relationship like: religiosity -> anti-vax. I suspect it’s more like: predisposition to ignoring evidence -> anti-vax, predisposition to ignoring evidence -> climate change denial, predisposition to ignoring evidence -> religiosity.
jeather 17:17 on 2019-04-19 Permalink
Correlation is not causation, no. But your argument doesn’t even have the grace of actually fitting the evidence.
Chris 14:10 on 2019-04-20 Permalink
jeather, please reread my posts. I’m not even making an argument, I’m stating some suspicions that I indeed do not know are true, but merely suspect. I repeatedly used words like “suspect”, “could imagine”, etc. I shared two links showing that religion is indeed one (of many) reasons given by some for vaccination hesitancy. You’ve just asserted, showing nothing. Raymond already contradicted one of your assertions with data. How about you show something instead of just asserting? Show me a study showing no correlation, I’d genuinely like to know if there is or isn’t.
jeather 12:42 on 2019-04-21 Permalink
Low vaccination rates in Sudan are due to entirely different factors than North American or European rates and not relevant, as I mentioned.
Here are two links that show a correlation between wealth and lower vaccination rates in the US:
https://www.cnn.com/2015/02/03/health/the-unvaccinated/index.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4695929/
Here is one link that shows an inverse correlation between wealth and religious belief:
https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/income-distribution/
Feel free to imagine all sorts of new ways to dislike religious people. I’m not going to change your mind.