A couple of days ago, a friend sent me a link to a health-related FB page that had published a post from a homeopathist, offering homeopathic “vaccination”¹ against measles (using something called a “Morbillinum nosode” at a “potency” of 200C, which I’ll explain shortly). I followed the link, left a comment asking for evidence that […]
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On Monday this week, Seven Sharp carried the story of a Whangārei school where so many of the students are immunised that the school has attained herd immunity against measles. This is an enviable achievement – tautoko, Hora Hora Primary School! Most of the comments are strongly supportive at the moment, but – predictably, not […]
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I’ve written previously about an anti-vaxx plague enthusiast claim that measles can cure cancer (it doesn’t). However, it seems that the search for positive attributes for a measles infection knows little bounds. Thus a friend shared this with me – it’s something posted by an antivaxxer in a FB thread: Presumably this is an example […]
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Recently I came across the claim that cystic fibrosis (CF) can be cured by diet. This was news to me, given that the mutation that causes CF is well-documented, as are the necessary treatments, and I wasn’t aware of any evidence that diet alone would correct the faulty membrane pump involved. So I said so. […]
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One of the things that strikes me about the commenters actively opposing vaccinations – e.g. on the many news stories about NZ’s measles outbreak – is their continued readiness to state and repeat mistruths and inaccuracies. You see it all the time, & I have to wonder – is there just this underlying assumption that […]
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New Zealand’s measles outbreak keeps on ticking along. So do the media stories about it. (The FB posts associated with each article aren’t moderated and I suspect this is partly because they generate so many clicks.) A couple of days ago, TVNZ’s Breakfast show carried an interview with a doctor, on the importance of Gardasil, […]
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Measles infection has a couple of longer-term sequelae. One, SSPE, is thankfully rare (although for infants with measles the odds of subsequently developing SSPE are considerably higher than for other age groups). The other, “immune amnesia”, is also strongly associated with having had measles, though this doesn’t stop those opposed to vaccination claiming otherwise. In […]
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UNICEF estimates that in the period 2010-2017, 169 million children missed their first dose of the measles vaccine – that’s around 21 million children each year. Sadly, this has simply set the conditions for the measles outbreaks we’re seeing around the world, in high- and low-income countries alike. In the first three months of 2019, […]
Continue readingI never thought I’d need to write that title for a post. We’re continuing to hear of new measles cases in New Zealand, most recently in this Stuff story about 4 new cases in Auckland (with the possibility that up to 1600 people may have been exposed). One of those ill with the disease is a […]
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A story about essential oils being used in classrooms hit the headlines this week. It described how an Auckland primary school had put diffusers into 20 classrooms, using oil blends that would supposedly “stop the spread of viruses and keep children focused at school.” A parent subsequently used the threat of a legal injunction to […]
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