Bill Moyers totally misled on vaxs - write and inform him

[Guest guest]

I love Bill Moyers and always have since the ph

interviews.

But he is totally misled on vaccines...................we need to nicely,

politely, write to him to help him to see - post comments at the article

AND on his contact page on his webpage

http://billmoyers.com/contact-us/ brief and to the point,

remembering that this is to educate

Probably this was written by Winship and Moyers name added for

effect

http://www.alternet.org/health/154342/moyers:_how_fear_of_science_can_destroy_us_/?akid=8322.256853.Et_Aex & rd=1 & t=1

By Bill

Moyers and

Winship

11 COMMENTS

Moyers: How Fear of Science Can Destroy UsParents are

increasingly opting out of vaccinating their kids. Here's why that's

dangerous for the world.

February 29, 2012 |

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We haven’t even turned the page on the controversy over contraceptives,

health care and religious freedom when another thorny one arises

involving personal conscience and public health. A flurry of stories over

the past few days coincided with seeing a movie that inspires more than

passing interest in their subject.

Soderbergh’s film Contagion came out a few months ago and

was inexplicably and completely frozen out of the nominations. But

it is the most plausible experience of a global pandemic plague you’re

likely to see until the real thing strikes. With outstanding performances

from an ensemble cast that includes Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Gwyneth

Paltrow and ce Fishburne, Contagion is stark, beautiful in

its own terrifying way, and all-too-believable. The story tracks the

swift progress of a deadly airborne virus from Hong Kong to Minneapolis

and Tokyo to London -- from a handful of peanuts to a credit card to the

cough of a stranger on a subway. Rarely does a film issue such an

inescapable invitation to think: it could happen; that could be us. What

would we do?

With Contagion making such a powerful impression, for several days

news articles seemed to keep popping up about contagious disease and the

conflict between religious beliefs and immunization. There was nothing

new about the basics: All fifty states require some specific vaccinations

for kids, yet all of them grant exemptions for medical reasons – say, for

a child with cancer. Almost all of them grant religious exemptions. And

twenty states allow exemptions for personal, moral, or other

beliefs.

According to the February 15 edition of The Wall Street Journal, a

number of pediatricians are

dropping families from their practices when the parents refuse

immunization for their kids. “In a study of Connecticut pediatricians

published last year,” the paper reported, “some 30% of 133 doctors said

they had asked a family to leave their practice for vaccine refusal, and

a recent survey of 909 Midwestern pediatricians found that 21% reported

discharging families for the same reason. " They add:

“By comparison, in 2001 and 2006 about 6% of physicians said they

‘routinely’ stopped working with families due to parents' continued

vaccine refusal and 16% ‘sometimes’ dismissed them, according to surveys

conducted then by the American Academy of Pediatrics.”

But some parents still fear a link between vaccinations and autism, a

possibility science has largely debunked. Some parents just want to be in

charge of what’s put into their children’s bodies, as one West Virginia

politician puts it. And some parents just don’t trust science, period --

a few have even been known to fake religion to avoid vaccinating their

kids. So there are many loopholes. But now seven states are considering

legislation to make it even easier for mothers and fathers to spare their

children from vaccinations, especially on religious grounds.

In Oregon, according to a story by in The Portland

Tribune,

the

number

of kindergartners with religious exemptions is up from 3.7 percent

to 5.6 percent in just four years, and continuing to rise. This has

public health officials clicking their calculators and keeping their eye

on what’s called “herd immunity.” A certain number of any population

group needs to have been vaccinated -- 80% for most diseases, 92 percent

for whooping cough – to maintain the ability of the whole population --

“the herd” -- to resist the spread of a disease.

Ms. offers the example of what used to be called “the German

measles” – rubella. All it takes are five unvaccinated kids in a class of

25 for the herd immunity to break down, creating an opportunity for the

disease to spread to younger siblings and other medically vulnerable

people who can’t be vaccinated. If you were traveling to Europe between

2009 and 2011, you may remember warnings about the huge outbreak of

measles there, brought on by a failure “to vaccinate susceptible

populations.”

Here in the United States, several recent outbreaks of measles have been

traced to pockets of unvaccinated children in states that allow personal

belief exemptions. The Reuters news service recently reported

13 confirmed cases of measles in central Indiana. Two of them were

people who showed up to party two days before the Super Bowl in

Indianapolis. Patriots and Giants fans back east were alerted. So far, no

news is good news.

But this is serious business, made more so by complacency. Older

generations remember when measles killed up to 500 people a year before

we started vaccinating against them in 1963. The great flu pandemic of

1918 killed ten times more Americans than died in the Great World War

that ended that year and took the lives of as many as forty million

globally. Our generation was also stalked by small pox, polio, and

whooping cough before there were vaccinations.

In a country where few remember those diseases, it’s easy to think,

“What’s to worry?” But as the movie Contagion so forcefully and

hauntingly reminds us, the earth is now flat. Seven billion people live

on it, and our human herd moves on a conveyer belt of perpetual mobility,

so that a virus can travel as swiftly as a voice from one cell phone to

another.

When and if a contagion strikes, we can’t count on divine intervention to

spare us. That’s when you want a darn good scientist in a research lab.

We’ll need all the help we can get from knowledge and her

offspring.

Veteran journalist Bill Moyers is the host of the show “Moyers &

Company.” More at

www.billmoyers.com. Winship is senior writing fellow at Demos

and a senior writer of Moyers & Company, airing on public

television.