And here's the kicker: those areas in the United States are among the richest in the country.
"The Hollywood Reporter has a great investigation for which it sought the vaccination records of elementary schools all over Los Angeles County. They found that vaccination rates in elite neighborhoods like Santa Monica and Beverly Hills have tanked, and the incidence of whooping cough there has skyrocketed"
Parents in these schools are submitting a form called a "personal belief exemption," which states that they are not vaccinating their kids due to "a diffuse constellation of unproven anxieties, from allergies and asthma to eczema and seizures," reporter Gary Baum writes.
In some schools, up to 60 to 70 percent of parents have filed these PBEs, indicating a vaccination rate
as low as that of Chad or South Sudan. Unlike in Santa Monica, however, parents in South Sudan have trouble getting their children vaccinated because of an ongoing civil war.
And lo, it is these very same L.A. neighborhoods that are experiencing a resurgence of diseases like whooping cough, otherwise known as pertussis. Measles cases
have also hit a high in California this year."
The anti-vaxxer turn is a frustrating development for a city that's obsessed with health and fitness. There are very few things that we know prevent sickness without a doubt. The "Beaming" juice at L.A.'s
Cafe Gratitude, which consists of carrot juice, camu-camu, and astralagus, and which is surely delicious and beam-inducing, is not one. Vaccines are.
It's tempting to suggest, as some of Baum's L.A. sources do, that these are just concerned, well-meaning parents who, along with forbidding processed food and dragging their offspring to baby yoga, also avoid any medications that aren't strictly "natural." (Of course, vaccines
are natural—they're derived from the naturally-occurring pathogen itself.)
Full Article
https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/380252/?__twitter_impression=true
Yikes, science is being attacked from all sides in the US but this segment is coming from an area with the means and educational background to know better. Its one thing for yuppie housewives to think a coloured stone can bring healing properties; or that the arbitrarily defined positioning of stars during a birth month can determine your personality and future...but to actually defy the logic and science proven for over a century to work, thus outing your kids in easily avoidable risk, is just batshit crazy.
Edit- my bad, article is from 2014 and Cali has addressed the issue. For some reason the Atlantic posted this on twitter today and i just assumed it was recent. Keeping it up because its still pretty wild
Recent addressing of issue
https://www.sfchronicle.com/health/...rvives-13047905.php?__twitter_impression=true