Oakland was my least favorite place to live for a reason. The “don’t tread on me” flag looks ridiculous on a jacked up current model year truck with luxury interior packages.
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A declaration of martial medical law.
In a declared public health emergency, the chief county medical officer probably has the authority to order forced vaccinations. That would be unwise for so many reasons, but those old laws exist because we used to need them, and maybe will again.
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I had basically this conversation with my father a few years ago.
DadS: When I was at school, none of the kids had food alergies. What’s up with parents these days?
JonS: Yes, they did. It’s just that they all died. Parents care about their kids now.
DadS: …
We haven’t had that conversation again.
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That was a big question after they set this up. And they announced how enforcement is going to work.
Basically if parents ignore the ban, and their unvaccinated kids come down with measles they will be charged. There’s not gonna be any checking people in public spaces or charging anyone who’s kids don’t get sick.
It’s a fairly interesting approach. Essentially a soft ban to protect unvaccinated kids, and a way to punish parents who negligently let their kids get measles.
A lot of these things in the ultra orthodox and especially Hasidic communities seem to be more about keeping the community closed than actual religious dictates.
Aside from trying to keep fire fighters and EMTs out some of the NYC communities have a long history of rejecting law enforcement, social work, even Con Ed and city workers. I remember post Sandy there was a lot of problems on that front, don’t reconnect our power and save our children from drowning, religious freedom.
And there’s a similar avoidance of outside medical care. They don’t go to the ER, they don’t get regular checkups, they don’t seek treatment for serious illness or injury. An old man without a medical degree comes by the house. If there’s a religious dictate behind it, it’s less an ani-medicine one than strictures about limiting or eliminating contact with non-jews and members of the opposite sex. And the lack of vaccination seem to be more of that, rather than a full buy in on anti-vax claims. Seems to predate the modern anti-vax movement too. From what I understand these particular communities (and it’s not all Hasids, and just a handful of Ultra Orthodox) have had low vaccination rates for decades. Apparently it was a thing during the polio epidemic.
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while I agree with the sentiment, I’m not so sure this is really true. More kids have severe allergies then they did 20, or 30 years ago. Something in the environment or our diets seems to be causing more allergies. https://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/09/allergies-are-on-the-rise-and-here-are-three-reasons-why.html
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We’ve pretty much figured out what that “something” is.
Recent research has pretty much confirmed an exposure theory of allergy development. A shift in medical advice in the late 80’s and early 90’s where it was recommended that parents avoid exposing kids to common food allergens until later ages seems to be the culprit. And studies have regularly found that earlier exposure to things like peanuts and eggs correlates with far lower incidence of allergies.
So the more recent medical advice has been to expose kids early, and regularly to prevent serious allergies. There was a serious fad for an Isreali snack food called Bamba, since one of the early definitive studies on the subject fingered the popularity of the snack for babies in Isreal as the reason serious peanut allergies were significantly rarer there.
It’s only been about 5 years or so since that approach has been wide spread so it hasn’t really impacted the population yet.
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My 9 year old has had allergies since before she could eat solid food (around 4 months) and I can tell you this, every 6 months to a year, when we see the allergist they have a different theory about what is causing it and how to help reduce it…and it changes every time. they are still trying to figure it out, from what i can tell. but it is apparent that something is causing more allergies.
Well yeah. There are always people who had allergies since before they could eat solid food. And peanut and egg allergies existed before we started telling parents to delay exposure. It’s why we started delaying exposure. But that hasn’t accounted for the increase, and doesn’t seem to be where the increase lives. That increase is well established, and has a defined start point. And it’s increasingly tied to delayed exposure, and exposing kids earlier has lead to an identifiable fall in allergy rates and severity in populations where that strategy has been tried.
It’s got no bearing on people that already have allergies. And allergies often do not have a cause in that sense, often having a genetic components. My grandmother, mother and I are all allergic to scallops as an example.
Or some things not in our environment:
I know, it’s a Wikipedia ref and all, but there are more sciency references available as well.
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Every detrimental thing we do to the planet comes back to harm us, eventually.
Lack of a natural build up of immunity is very likely a factor too.
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That’s one of the other ends of it is that’s panning out in some surprising ways.
Some interesting stuff in terms of microbiome and gut flora too.
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Off topic, I know, but still:
As @Ryuthrowsstuff said
“So the more recent medical advice has been to expose kids early, and regularly to prevent serious allergies. There was a serious fad for an Isreali snack food called Bamba, since one of the early definitive studies on the subject fingered the popularity of the snack for babies in Isreal as the reason serious peanut allergies were significantly rarer there.”
This study has changed how we approach food allergies entirely. In the short period of time it has been in place, the preliminary results are encouraging. Emphasis on preliminary, but avoidance certainly was not working.
On an even more unrelated tangent, this is the difference between science and dogma. In science, if new information comes along that requires you to change how you understand things to work, you change. It is hard, and requires a lot of evidence to change well established systems, but it is done and has happened. Pseudoscience just suppresses facts that conflict with their beliefs. Lecture over. 
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Useful info acquired.
I don’t mind the occasional unsolicited “lecture” when the intent is actually to inform, and not just to show off how much ‘smarter’ someone is than everyone else in the thread.
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I flatter myself that I have enough insight not to fall into that particular trap. And fully expect to be called out should I do so!
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And it’s really pretty amazing that we figured something like that out because some one noticed that Isreali kids gnaw on peanut flavored Cheetos while they’re teething.
Weird, regional truck stop food saved the day.
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You do seem to; I wouldn’t have mentioned it otherwise.
There are scores of intelligent, insightful people in this community whose posts increase general knowledge and positively advance the conversation… but some of them are completely overshadowed by their own off-putting attitudes and needlessly condescending tone.
It’s always appreciated when someone can share good info without talking down to others.
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We used to have quarantine. We should bring it back
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If things keep going the way they are, we may not have a choice.
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Why should measles have all the fun? We had a similar outbreak here last year centered on James Madison University. Fun stuff!
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