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Additional Comments: What the hell is this coming to? A quote from the article:

"While no one can say exactly how R. was infected with the potentially deadly disease, he is fairly sure of the reason why.

“Someone who wasn’t vaccinated infected me or other people who infected me,†R. said."

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There was no evidence presented to indicate "R"'s reasoning. What B.S. is this?

A Shot Felt Around The Country

by Michele Chabin

Published on: Aug 27, 2008

Jerusalem — Two-and-a-half years after undergoing a successful bone marrow transplant to treat Hodgkin’s disease, R., a 40-something Jerusalemite, was feeling pretty good. He was back at work, having fun with his family, when he suddenly developed a horrible cough that just wouldn’t quit.“It was January 2008 and I was doing my best to take care of myself when I developed a classic whooping-cough cough,” R., who requested anonymity, recalled this week from his home in Jerusalem. “A blood test came back positive for whooping cough.”R’s cough was so bad that he couldn’t sleep lying down, “so I slept on the sofa for a month.” Once, he said, he actually passed out because he couldn’t stop coughing.“If you cough long enough, the heart slows down, your blood pressure drops and you faint. I lost a month of work because of this,” R. said.Although R. was at high risk of developing pneumonia and other complications from whooping cough, “fortunately, they didn’t develop,” he said gratefully. “But it still took time for me to recover.”While no one can say exactly how R. was infected with the potentially deadly disease, he is fairly sure of the reason why.“Someone who wasn’t vaccinated infected me or other people who infected me,” R. said.Though the overall rate of vaccination in Israel is about 95 percent — on par with the U.S. and most Western countries — the fact that some Israeli parents either refuse to have their children vaccinated or are overwhelmed by the logistics associated with vaccinating a large family, is creating a health risk not only for Israelis but those who come into contact with them.Even when the contagion comes from outside Israel, as is often the case, the fact that 5 percent of the population isn’t vaccinated (up to 20 percent are at risk in the haredi community) means that epidemics are inevitable.The threat, which has remained more or less constant in recent years despite Israel’s modernization, looms particularly large as children around the country prepare to return to school next week.Just before Passover this year, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control warned Americans flying to Israel and Switzerland about the threat of contracting measles in these countries. The CDC asked people to ensure that their vaccinations were up to date.“Travelers who develop fever and other symptoms of measles while still in Israel should get prompt medical attention before returning to the United States,” the warning added. Measles is potentially fatal, especially in very young children.Several Israeli cases of the measles originated in Europe, says Dr. Stuart Ditchek, a pediatrician and clinical assistant professor at New York University.“There is a great deal of cross travel between Israel and England where, unfortunately, the rate of vaccination is down. A lot of Brits stopped vaccinating their kids after Professor [] Wakefield published his report linking autism to vaccinations in the 1990s.”Wakefield was the lead author of a 1998 article that suggested a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Ten of the 13 co-authors later distanced themselves from the theory.Israeli health officials suspect that two Londoners who attended an Israeli wedding with 2,000 guests started an epidemic that swept through the haredi community — and eventually beyond — like wildfire.“There are pockets of problems in the haredi population, but there are also non-haredi parents who refuse to vaccinate their children for a variety of reasons,” says Dr. Slater, director of the Ministry of Health’s epidemiology department, referring to fears that vaccinations can cause autism and other health problems. Slater insists that religion is not what’s keeping haredi children from getting vaccinations.“I’ve never heard of any rabbi being opposed to immunization,” Slater says. “Rather, it’s a question of logistics. Haredi mothers may be just too busy to keep to the vaccination schedule with a bunch of children. Things may be neglected, that’s all. And there is a degree of ignorance on the importance of the subject. There aren’t many haredi doctors spreading the information.”Though Health Ministry statistics do not distinguish among varying degrees of religious observance, Slater estimated that up to 20 percent of haredi children aren’t vaccinated. That, he says, is the reason a measles epidemic infected about 3,000 Israelis, 2,000 of them haredim, in Jerusalem and the fervently religious community of Ramat Beit Shemesh from the summer of 2007 through last Passover. Cohen, a nurse who works in the personnel office of the Ministry of Health, agrees that most haredi rabbis support vaccination. But distrust of the government is an issue.“Even in the Satmar and Neturei Karta communities the decision not to vaccinate stems from not recognizing the authority of the state’s institutions, not from halacha,” Cohen says. Not long ago, Cohen relates, the communities’ rabbis permitted male nurses to enter a large school and vaccinate hundreds of children, “once we assured them we would wear the uniforms of a nonprofit organization.”Distrust runs so deep, Cohen says, that one haredi family in Jerusalem failed to register the birth of a child who, not long afterward, developed diptheria and died in a Jerusalem hospital because she had not been vaccinated.Cohen, who works in the religious Jewish and Arab sectors, places much of the blame on the shoulders of the health authorities, “for failing to employ enough male nurses and for employing secular nurses who are disdainful of the haredi way of life.”During home visits to haredi homes, Cohen says, mothers shared stories of unpleasant visits to the country’s network of Well Baby clinics, where all early-childhood inoculations are given.“They said that nurses had scolded them for having so many children. What mother would subject herself to such ridicule?”In response, Slater says he “can imagine this could have happened in isolated instances, but the haredi population is a very emotionally powerful one that should be able to tell a nurse to mind her business.”Regardless of the reason for the relatively low level of haredi vaccination, the problem affects everyone, says Chevy Weiss, a haredi mother of four who has her children vaccinated.“The problem is a very select group of parents, one of which allowed her contagious child to ride on a bus, and the fact that there’s a huge waiting list at Tipat Chalav [the Well Baby clinic]. The population here has grown dramatically but the services haven’t,” Weiss says.R., who spent months recovering from whooping cough, said his wife no longer permits even close friends to enter the house unless they and their children have been vaccinated.“It has meant turning away some friends, but you can’t be too careful,” R. said.

To view article on The Jewish Week website, click here.