California legislators voted a bill through a State Senate committee 6-2 on Wednesday that would eliminate parental ability to opt their school-aged children out of required vaccinations, despite a strong showing from parents opposed and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who condemned the bill as “anti-woman and anti-mother” at a rally in Sacramento.
The measles outbreak has provoked California lawmakers to back legislation that would reduce personal belief exemptions for some or all required school vaccinations–but Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., wants them to reconsider.
In the midst of the Disneyland measles outbreak, California legislators have been decrying the number of under-vaccinated children in schools in a push for legislation that would strip parents of the right to choose whether to vaccinate their children. However, California Department of Public Health (CDPH) statistics show that “personal belief” exemptions account for only 2.54% of under-vaccinated California school children.
Health officials report four cases of measles linked to a restaurant at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, where a staff member listed as “under-immunized” appears to have infected two other Emeril’s New Orleans Fish House staff members and a patrol.
Three more cases of measles have popped up in California since Monday, according to California Department of Public Health numbers released Wednesday–an increase after a hopeful weekend of no new cases. There has been a slowdown in new cases connected to the Disneyland outbreak, while passage of a California bill seeking to reduce parents’ options to exempt their school-age children from required vaccines has become more likely.
Between multiple public health agencies from the U.S. and Canada, at least 147 cases of measles have been documented between December 28, 2014 and February 19, 2015 in an outbreak that is believed to have started at California’s Disneyland theme park in mid-December. The outbreak has expanded to six other states, plus Mexico and Canada.
Furious debate has circled around the issue of parents vaccinating children since an outbreak began at Disneyland in mid-December last year. Whether or not teachers and school staff should be required to be vaccinated (again, in most cases), however, is a different story. Even records for those that are vaccinated have been found to be far out of date in some cases.
Measles continues to spread internationally, with ten cases now appearing in Quebec, Canada connected to a California outbreak, according to a Feb. 11 report by the Public Health Department (PHD) of the Agency for Health and Social Services of Lanaudière.
Hollywood’s famous Chinese Theater hosted the timely red carpet premiere of the anti-vaccine film Trace Amounts on Wednesday evening.The film challenges the safety of vaccines that may contain the potentially harmful preservative thimerosal. The film’s release comes in the middle of a measles outbreak that has put the debate over childhood vaccinations in the national spotlight.
Since the Disneyland measles outbreak began in December, public health officials have called upon parents to vaccinate to vaccinate their under-immunized children and for adults to obtain a booster shot to protect against the disease. Since then, the coastal, liberal enclave of Santa Cruz has seen a significant uptick in vaccination appointments, according to local news station KSBW and the Palo Alto Medical Foundation.
Disney stockholders can breathe a little bit easier. On Tuesday, CEO Bob Iger said that attendance at Disneyland theme parks in California has not been affected in the wake of a measles outbreak that is thought to have originated at the parks.
SAN DIEGO — Measles continues to sweep California, seeping into six other states and Mexico after an outbreak began mid-December at Disneyland, re-igniting controversy over parents under-vaccinating their children.
A new case of measles caused the shutdown of a Santa Monica High School day care center Monday after one of its infant attendees was diagnosed the disease. The current outbreak began in California’s Disneyland theme park with 74 of the 107 recent cases linked to the Magic Kingdom point of origin.
More measles cases are appearing by the day in an outbreak that began mid-December in the traveler-magnet Magic Kingdom in Anaheim, California. In numbers updated Friday, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) reports 91 cases confirmed within California and has reported 16 outside the state for a total 107 measles-infected persons.
The measles outbreak continues to spread in California and beyond, with a case confirmed Wednesday in Fresno County. Fresno health officials say the man visited the area recently and may have had contact with county residents in public locations, including an area medical center and its maternity ward, potentially exposing babies to the extremely contagious disease.
As an outbreak of measles linked to several California Disney theme parks mounts, other states are also seeing measles appear. This week, for instance, a suburb of Chicago has announced its first case of the year.
California and California-related cases of the measles now total 87, excluding any outside the state that have no known link to the December Magic Kingdom outbreak. California Department of Public Health officials have updated the known extent of the spread that now spans seven states and Mexico.
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The measles outbreak in California has hit 63 cases since it surfaced in Disneyland this past December, and several new cases have now surfaced in three Bay Area counties, resulting in a potential new spread of the highly-contagious disease there.
Public health officials are raising their measles intervention alert, urging adults to consider a measles vaccine booster as California now reports 59 cases of the disease.
Two dozen unvaccinated Huntington Beach High School students have been sent home over three weeks under threat of a measles outbreak. One had actually contracted the disease.
An outbreak of measles thought to have originated in Anaheim’s Disneyland amusement park earlier this week has now expanded throughout Southern California, with 45 cases now confirmed in the state and an additional six cases confirmed in three other states and Mexico.
Health authorities have identified seven more cases of measles traced to an outbreak at the Disney theme parks in California, bringing the number of known cases up to 26.
Nine people who visited Southern California’s Disneyland or California Adventure theme parks during a five-day period in December have contracted measles, California health officials announced Wednesday.
California chickens are getting an extreme coop makeover in 2015 under a proposition passed by the state’s voters back in 2008, and it’s costing farmers and consumers in renovations and rising egg prices.
