What the fuck is it with the French? FOURTEEN thousand fucking cases of measles in less than a year. Vaccine your people, you assholes. Or don’t leave France.
Well, it’s tempting but unfair to say they DID get vaccinated, only they surrendered to the deactivated virus, but seriously, 14000 cases - that’s fucked up.
Huh ? I could have sworn it was one of those mandatory ones, but apparentlyit’s merely heavily recommended for both babes and future mothers.
That being said, your own cites claims: “The measles shot was tainted by now discredited research published by Andrew Wakefield in 1998 suggesting a possible link between autism and the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella. Parents abandoned the vaccine in droves and are still suspicious about its safety, even though repeated studies have shown no connection.”
It’s a very glowy feeling for a Frenchman, to be able to blame the fucking British :).
But why are the French so nuts about this issue?
I spent three weeks in France a few years ago. We went all over the country and had a very lovely time. The French people we met everywhere were charming – polite, kind, helpful, sweet and even tolerant of my excreable efforts to speak French. I adored the place. I’ll never forget Bastille Day in Amboise or the towers of Chambord or the view from Eze or the delightful streets of Avignon or the fabulous restaurants at Rue Moufftard in Paris and the sight of the Eiffel Tower at night. I’ll never eat cherries that pillowy soft, smell melons that bring to mind paradise or bread that perfect again.
France is a wonderful place. Why are they such lunatics on vaccines?
You live in Montreal, don’t you? I dare you to yell it on your street corner. In French, so the Quebecois can understand you. 
Bolding mine. The CDC recommends that the MMR be given at 12-15 months and then again at 4-6 years. Life-long immunity will not happen without that second “booster” shot. I assume that the French equivalent recommends something similar, but that for whatever reason, children aren’t getting that second shot. I don’t have any numbers, I just think it’s telling that most cases occur after the second shot was supposed to be given.
If they weren’t getting any shots, I’d expect most of the cases to occur in patients under five years of age, which is what is seen in unvaccinated populations. Instead we see the opposite of that. It’s like the French have a vaccination program in place, but that the implementation is half-assed.
Could it have something to do with high immigrant populations from places that don’t have effective immunisation programs for kids, like Francophone Africa?
The Quebs have about the same relationship and feelings towards the French as the Australians do toward the British. “Maudits Français!” is about as common as “bloody Pommies!”.
Insulting France is about as safe as insulting Canada among most Quebs. It’s almost as if they were neither French nor Canadian.
And I bet they are getting German Measles from contaminated Polish Sausage because their parents were too busy drinking Russian Vodka 
“Tabarnac! Ta gueule, Brian Équerres!”
Who is the MMR and why does he need shot? I thought the French used the guillotine?
Back in 1997, I was told that 90% of people have long-lasting immunity from the shot, and that the booster’s purpose was to get that up to 99%. Since it’s possible that my death (I got better) at 16 months was caused by a reaction to an MMR shot, I volunteered to be tested to see if I was immune, and I was. Thus I was allowed in the seventh grade without my MMR booster.
I wonder if having the booster earlier raises the long term immunity rate above 99%. Mine was the first class that was required to have the booster shot, so I’m sure knowledge has progressed since then.
Through bad planning, beaurcracy, paperwork problem, and dire need to get things done I ended up with 3 (or was it 4?) MMR shots. I did not react well the final one…but I should be one immune motherfucker now.
You are correct. I was mistaken a bit in my earlier post and it turns out that 95% (not just 90) develop immunity after the first dose and the second brings it up to 99.7% cite. Because of this, I take back my idea that the outbreaks in France may be caused by failure to receive the second shot, so I’m just left scratching my head as to why the demographics skew older than expected. Hmmm.
Some of it may be people who were made resistant but not immune by the first shot (and who should have received the second shot), and some what MrDibble mentioned, unvaccinated immigrants. I don’t know about measles specifically (although Spain was one of the countries listed as also getting outbreaks), but I know that we’ve had “mini-outbreaks” of several immunizable diseases where the children affected were all unvaccinated immigrants. Our system will do everything anybody has thought of to get children vaccinated at the listed times, but current protocols don’t include “if you get Elbonian patients, verify that they’ve got all their vaccines and, if they can’t prove it, vaccinate the hell out of them.” Not necessarily Africans: Romanians don’t seem to get vaccines for anything.
I’m baffled and angered by anti-vaxers in general. It pisses me off that people are willingly putting their children at risk for all but eradicated diseases because of misinformation and/or willful ignorance. An acquaintance of mine is an anti-vax, alt-med person and it takes everything in me not to take her to task on that shit. She has five kids who are all unvaccinated and she treats their illnesses with homeopathy and chiropractors. I hope none of them ever get an actual disease because she thinks all western medicine is a conspiracy perpetuated by “big pharma.”
Then, you might be interested to know that Robert T. Carroll (the man behind The Skeptic’s Dictionnary has launched a blog based on his book Unnatural acts and his first subject is the book Melanie’s marvelous measles and how antivaxxers delude themselves and others.
Just in time for Xmas - a new and wonderful Hitler “Downfall” parody with an anti-HPV vaccine theme.
(bonus points for using different movie scenes than the usual “Downfall” parodies).
Thank you both for the wonderful Christmas links
Are we talking about unvaccinated illegal immigrants? Because in order to get my student visa for Spain, I had to get nine different vaccinations, including the MMR booster.