A mother whose child died aged six from a brain inflammation caused by measles hopes sharing her story will encourage parents to “vaccinate more”.
It comes as the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) warned of measles outbreaks in parts of London.
Gemma Larkman-Jones wants more parents to consider having their children vaccinated sooner.
…
Prof Dame Jenny Harries, UKHSA chief executive, warned that measles is spreading among unvaccinated communities, and added that a “national call to action” is needed across the country.
Vaccination rates across the UK have been dropping, but there are particular concerns in parts of the capital as well as in some areas of the West Midlands.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A mother whose child died aged six from a brain inflammation caused by measles hopes sharing her story will encourage parents to “vaccinate more”.
It comes as the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) warned of measles outbreaks in parts of London.
Her son, Samuel, developed a rare form of brain inflammation after catching measles, and died in 2019.
“I honestly think that if people knew that this was a possibility they would vaccinate more,” Ms Larkman-Jones, 45, of Brixton, south London, told the PA Media news agency.
Prof Dame Jenny Harries, UKHSA chief executive, warned that measles is spreading among unvaccinated communities, and added that a “national call to action” is needed across the country.
In February 2019 Samuel was transferred to St Thomas’ Hospital where a lumbar puncture and an MRI test found he had the neurological disorder subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE).
The original article contains 393 words, the summary contains 143 words. Saved 64%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
if ooonly someone had told her… are you kidding me.
Did you read the article? She’s not saying that she didn’t know that measles are dangerous, she’s saying that she thinks people would vaccinate more and sooner if they knew the potential delayed effects of measles. Her son died 4 years after catching it and he wasn’t vaccinated at 2 because he was on a delayed vaccination program (it doesn’t say why). It’s a super tragic story really and it doesn’t seem like she’s anti-vax or anything like it, quite the opposite.
interesting, thank you!
if the problem is these delayed vaccinations, why isnt that the meat of this problem? seems less about communication and more about a failed implementation plan (in general)
Delayed vaccination was an anti vax talking point awhile back: Somehow parents were convinced by morons on the internet that you had to space vaccines out more. Basically once you start questioning the actual science, the more susceptible you are to just never actually finish the vaccine series, so antivaxxers win.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2882604/
Intentionally delayed vaccine doses are not uncommon. Children whose parents delay vaccinations may be at increased risk of not receiving all recommended vaccine doses by 19 months of age and are more vulnerable to vaccine-preventable diseases. Providers should consider strategies such as educational materials that address parents’ vaccine safety and efficacy concerns to encourage timely vaccination.
For example some doctors, if a baby is suspected to have an acute form “Food protein-induced enterocolitis syndrome” to the egg, they prefer to delay the shot of a few months waiting for the diagnosis, in the tiny chance that if some egg proteins are present in the vaccine (some of them are grew in chicken eggs)
Should sue the school and the government…
So this poor kid catches measles, recovers from it, then 7 years later develops a extremely rare aftereffect that absolutely nobody could have foreseen, which kills him, and your response is “Sue the school and government”?
I was just reading yesterday about an American guy that went into a restaurant in Canada and when ordering a burger, asked for it to be medium cooked. The waiter came back with the burger, and a disclaimer form stating that the customer couldn’t sue the restaurant in case of food poisoning due to undercooked meat.
The customer made a big fuss about it on Reddit, but quite frankly, it’s people with your mentality that bring this about.
It’s just plain fucking greed at this point
The irony is that America isn’t even in the top 3 most litigious countries. That stereotype was a myth that was spread by McDonalds, in the wake of the (now infamous) hot coffee lawsuit.
Basically, a woman was horribly burned by coffee that was way too hot (the coffee was hot enough to melt her labia and fuse it to her thigh) and only wanted McD to pay for her medical bills. It was something like $20k total, once all the skin grafts, reconstructive surgery, rehab, etc was accounted for. McD told her to pound sand. So she sued for the medical bills, because her insurance company required it as a condition of her coverage. Basically, her health insurance didn’t want to pay for it, so they said they’d only cover things after she lost a lawsuit.
In the lawsuit, it was discovered that she wasn’t even the first person to have been injured; McD had been warned numerous times that their coffee was being served too hot (it was near boiling) and that it had horribly injured several people prior to this. But they kept the coffee hot to discourage free refills; People had to wait for their coffee to cool before they drank it, and all that waiting meant fewer refills. So McD repeatedly refused to lower the serving temp of their coffee, because they didn’t want to potentially give people an extra refill.
In the lawsuit, the jury was so horrified that they awarded the woman the large judgement. Again, she was only suing for the medical bills, but they awarded her millions instead, to send a lesson to McD and hopefully get them to reduce the temp of their coffee.
Instead, McD hired an advertising company to run an astroturfing campaign against the woman. They spread the myth that she was a money hungry vulture looking for an easy payday. They dragged her through the mud, and she ended up having a mental breakdown from all of the constant harassment. Simultaneously, they spread the stereotype that Americans are all super litigious and will sue at the smallest inconvenience. Again, to discourage future lawsuits by making people think their (completely legitimate) claims were frivolous.
It’s widely considered to be one of the most successful astroturfing campaigns in history, and comments like yours are proof of that. The stereotype still exists to this day, all because McDonalds didn’t want to give free refills.
It’s still in the top 5 though. And that’s per capita. If you look at the total number of frivolous lawsuits, America number one again, and it’s not even close
Germany and Austria are only in the top 5 because a) the sheer number of laws they have, and b) the fact it that legal action is covered by obligatory insurance
We all remember the McDonald’s case, that has nothing to do with it
