Chickenpox in the US cause vaccine opponents

Chickenpox is considered a nearly defeated disease in the US. But now several dozens of children have contracted at a private school in North Carolina - the biggest outbreak in the state for decades.

Almost a quarter of the students

Almost a quarter of students at Asheville Waldorf School in Asheville, N.C. fell ill, the infected are between four and eleven years old. The first showed symptoms in mid-September.

Chickenpox is considered a classic childhood disease. They can lead to serious complications. Image: Dan Race / fotolia.com)

Religious vaccine opponents

The onset of the disease is no coincidence. The Waldorf School is in the tradition of anthroposophist Steiner, and these esotericists reject vaccinations for religious reasons.

Exception for vaccinations

Most of the 152 children at the school are excluded from compulsory education for religious reasons.

Danger of spreading

The disease is likely to spread even more, because in school there are many more students who do not vaccinate their parents because of their world view. Now there is a risk that the chickenpox will spread in the city.

Vaccination - A disease risk

On the one hand, the US is leading the world in combating diseases such as chickenpox and measles through systematic vaccination programs; On the other hand, the vaccination opponents are also strong here. However, the more people do not have their children vaccinated, the more infectious diseases can spread.

The problem religion

Vaccination opponents romp in America in religious milieus. These include fundamentalist Christians, but also anthroposophists who deny scientific facts and believe that diseases have spiritual causes.

Illness as knowledge?

The followers of Anthroposophy believe that diseases generally result from negative karma that needs to be removed. Vaccinations would be one cognitive process To block.

conspiracy mania

Vaccinators suggest that scientists conceal the supposed side effects of vaccines, they make vaccines responsible for (often supposedly) diseases that occur in time for the vaccines, and they assume that doctors deliberately want to "poison" people.

UFO believers and climate skeptics

On the one hand, vaccine opponents overlap with fundamentalist religions, on the other hand with the milieu of conspiracy ideologists, in which it is also claimed that the CIA conceals the existence of UFOs, or that there is no global warming.

facts Resistant

Vaccination opponents in the US and elsewhere are fact-resistant. Doctors show their argumentative fallacies, they see themselves as "lone fighters against the Pharmamafia". Doctors and health politicians accuse the conspiracy ideologists of wanting to vaccinate the population for the pharmaceutical industry to make a profit.

A droplet infection

Chickenpox is transmitted by droplets, the causative agent is the varicella-zoster virus. Most children are affected, who once got the disease is immune for a lifetime.

Fever and rash

The syndromes are a typical itchy rash with clear blisters, plus fever. Possible complications include brain and lung infections as well as bacterial superinfections.

prophylaxis

In Germany vaccination since 2004 is generally recommended. Since 2006, there is a multiple vaccine against the four classic childhood diseases chickenpox, measles, mumps and rubella.

risks
In children, the chickenpox is usually harmless, not so in adults. In pregnant women, illness can cause the child to become deaf, dumb or deaf-mute. Brain damage to the child is also possible.

beneficiary

On the one hand, the vaccination objectors not only endanger themselves, but also other people, but on the other hand they benefit from the group immunity of vaccinations. The more people are vaccinated, the lower the risk for the vaccine opponents to become infected.

Why vaccinations?

Vaccinations are by far the most successful method of medicine in human history. Vaccination against epidemics saved the lives of millions of people. For example, around 50 million people died of smallpox each year in the middle of the 20th century. In the 1980s, the smallpox was completely eradicated - by vaccinations. (Dr. Utz Anhalt)