In The Politics of Autism, I look at the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism.
Dealing a blow to vaccine opponents, a California appellate court upheld a 2016 state law repealing the personal belief exemption to California’s immunization requirements for schoolchildren.
Four California parents and a California anti-vaccine group called A Voice for Choice, Inc. sued the state’s education department over the statute last year, claiming it violated their rights to due process, privacy, a public education and free exercise of religion under the California Constitution.
But in an unpublished opinion issued Tuesday, the Sacramento-based appellate court rejected each of their claims as unsupported by case law.
“Plaintiffs’ arguments are strong on hyperbole and scant on authority,” Associate Justice Ronald Robie wrote for the court’s three-judge panel, adding, “Plaintiffs’ failure to cite or even acknowledge the seminal cases (Abeel or Zucht) directly on point and counter to their argument in their opening brief violates counsel’s duty to the court.”A release from Buncombe County, NC:
The varicella (chickenpox) outbreak at Asheville Waldorf School has grown to 36 students. Health officials continue to monitor the situation and strongly encourage everyone in the community to do their part to reduce the spread of this outbreak.Deena Yellin at The North Jersey Record reports on a measles outbreak in the NY/NJ area:
The best way to prevent becoming infected with chickenpox is to be fully immunized.
Chickenpox is easily passed from one person to another through the air by coughing or sneezing or through the fluid from a blister of a person who has chickenpox. Although it is usually not a serious illness, it often causes children and their parents to miss days at school and work. Most cases of chickenpox in healthy children are treated with bed rest, fluids, and fever control.
The measles outbreak has continued to spread, with additional cases reported throughout New York and New Jersey. The majority of people infected with measles were not vaccinated, health officials said.
The largest outbreak is in Rockland County, which had 75 confirmed cases and 11 suspected cases as of Monday morning, the Rockland County Department of Health said.
New Jersey has 14 confirmed cases, with most of them in Lakewood in Ocean County, the New Jersey Department of Health reported.
And Brooklyn, New York, has 24 confirmed cases, the New York City Department of Health said.
Medical experts have called this the largest outbreak of the disease in decades, with measles reported in 26 states, including California, Florida, Nevada and Texas.
The illness has also been responsible for 33 deaths in EU countries in 2018, according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.
The recent outbreaks in New Jersey, Brooklyn and Rockland County are linked to people who traveled to Israel and returned with the infection. In Rockland County, the cases have spread beyond the Orthodox community, where they originated. Health officials say a mix of adults, teens and children have been affected.
