Religious Objections to the Measles Vaccine? Get the Shots, Faith Leaders Say

"Religious authorities...have ruled that [measles vaccines] do not violate Jewish, Islamic or Catholic law." So much for the rules of science, public health, common sense and now, the religious authorities. The no-vaccine folks are, it seems to me, committing child abuse and that should be against the law.

Congrats, antivaxxers, on coming up with a whole new resolution to the Fermi paradox.

Most “religious” concerns about vaccines come from spiritual communities that qualify as cults, and as such are not deserving of religious exemptions.

There is a national vaccine injury compensation program which the Federal government runs and funds. It is very difficult to navigate the system and even more difficult to win a case. Nonetheless, since 1988 over four billion dollars has been paid out to Americans who have been injured by vaccinations. In 2005, in response to complaints from vaccine manufacturers who were afraid of the large number of suits against them for their products injuring and killing people, Bush signed a law that prohibited Americans from seeking legal action against Big Pharma vaccinations. Sen. Edward Kennedy, speaking to NPR said,what ended up in the bill is far broader than what had been discussed in the negotiations. Kennedy said the final language in the bill provides "a basic blank check for the industry, not only on pandemic flu, but just about any other kind of, quote, epidemic that anyone can think of." Those who favor compulsory vaccination are doing everything possible to vilify their opponents, Americans who are justly concerned about the police state tactics of compulsory vaccination. https://childrenshealthdefense.org/news/4-billion-and-growing-u-s-payouts-for-vaccine-injuries-and-deaths-keep-climbing/ I am waiting for the NY Times to run an opinion piece that opposes compulsory vaccination.

Look, you can believe whatever you want. That is your right. But when your actions endanger other people's kids OR YOUR OWN, because of those beliefs, then you have lost the right to act out your belief. When I was kid they taught us this is school: "Your right to swing your arm ends where my [kid's] face begins". When I was a kid you had to show your smallpox vaccination scar to get enrolled in school. Period. End of story.

Not inherently a religious issue! Except that preventing suffering should be a universal value, and not preventing suffering, a moral defect.

This is one of the worst outcomes of Facebook's fake news. Everything the antivacers hold near and dear has been thoroughly debunked. Mark do a search using the word vaccination on your site and delete everything you find. You'll do the world a service.

Parents who do not vaccinate their children are not "devout', they are stupid...and possibly criminally so.

There is little evidence that misinformation is a primary driver of the current measles outbreaks in the U.S. Instead, global outbreaks are linked to American cases through international travel. The U.S. is experiencing some of its highest rates of childhood vaccination. In New York City and New York state, the rate of MMR vaccination for kindergartners was over 97%, over the rate expected for herd immunity. Nationally, the median rate for children the same age was over 94%. Readers deserve better, more accurate journalism. It's easy to finger misinformation and its purveyors, but the truth is more complicated, and the problem of susceptibility to measles outbreaks more difficult to solve than blaming antivaxxers.

Autism and severe allergies have been dramatically increasing along with immunizations. It's not illogical for divergent thinking parents to be very cautious before subjecting their children to such risks. The most significant public health success of the last 100 years is the dramatic improvement in personal hygiene and access to safe, running water. In the West, other diseases for which there are no effective vaccines, such as scarlet fever and cholera, have all but disappeared. The numbers of cases of childhood diseases and consequent deaths were already plummeting before the mass introduction of vaccines.

Wow, in an article strongly supporting vaccinations, with support from important religious leaders, the NYTimes has confirmed that some vaccines actually do contain up to 3% pork-derived gelatin. The origins of other vaccines are derived from aborted fetuses. Although I am a strong believer in mandatory vaccination (except for specific medical reasons), I fear that this article may harden the pro-plaguers (aka anti-vaxxers) into even more staunch resistance.

Religious exemptions are a violation of the separation between church and state. I am deeply concerned that the Supreme Court has been ruling otherwise. You don't get to disobey a law because of your religion. Human sacrifice being an obvious example.

There are always those who, out of pride or a misguided sense of piety or both, feel they must be more Catholic than the Pope.

What would the anti-vacc community say to treating a person for possible exposure to rabies? Like Yiddishamama, I'm appalled at the intentional misinformation out there. In fact, this Lutheran (me) was in Boston last weekend where she attended a community Chabad (one of the highest levels of Jewish orthodoxy) Passover seder in which the Rabbi encouraged all to be vaccinated - and, in almost the same breath, to support the strikers of the grocery chain Stop & Stop.

Does anyone know whether and how much Russian or other anti-American misinformants are/we're behind the promotion of anti-vacs propaganda? What about white supremacists?

Had the City stuck to its guns and outlawed the controversial oral suction administered during the circumcision ritual by many Ultra-Orthodox Jews, we may have been spared this recent measles outbreak in Brooklyn. By caving into pressure and allowing the dangerous oral suction practice to continue, it sent the message that following the guidance given by the NYC Health Department is optional. Shame on Mayor DeBlasio for putting his bloc vote ahead of the welfare of defenseless children. Rabbi Joseph Newfield Brooklyn, NY

I too am deeply offended by the misappropriation of Holocaust symbolism. The utter lack of sensitivity or, likely, willful ignorance of those protesters is deplorable. It is particularly so given that vaccines are, with rare exception, life-saving, and Judaism teaches that all but three specific rules ("mitzvot") of the 613 listed in the Bible (Torah) may be temporarily broken if it is to save a life. Shame on these people for misleading others on the facts about and value of even long-used and -effective vaccines, and for misrepresenting the nature of genocide and of the Holocaust in particular, and of the profound and multifaceted and multigenerational suffering it caused -- and which their callousness continues.

"Vaccines are made from viruses, which are just protein shells containing short stretches of DNA or RNA and can multiply only when grown in broths of live cells. Those cells are unusual in that they must be “immortal” — that is, able to replicate for decades without suffering “cell death,” the aging process." To be clear, this is only true for some vaccines, definitely not all, and probably not even most. As noted in the article, flu vaccine is grown in eggs, not immortal cells, and vaccines for bacterial diseases (as opposed to viral) are made from bacteria grown in fermenters without the need for any other cells, and others are synthesized chemically. Vaccines are certainly not all the same in how they are made or what manufacturing residuals may be present.