What Would Jesus Do About Measles?

[cbayer]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/10/opinion/what-would-jesus-do-about-measles.html

By PAUL A. OFFITFEB. 10, 2015

PHILADELPHIA — MEASLES is back. Last year, about 650 cases were reported in the United States — the largest outbreak in almost 20 years. This year, more than a hundred have already been reported.

Parents have chosen not to vaccinate their children because they can; 19 states have philosophical exemptions to vaccination, and 47 have religious exemptions. The other reason is that parents are not scared of the disease. But I’m scared. I lived through the 1991 Philadelphia measles epidemic.

Between October 1990 and June 1991, more than 1,400 people living in Philadelphia were infected with measles, and nine children died. The epidemic started when, after returning from a trip to Spain, a teenager with a blotchy rash attended a rock concert at the Spectrum. By Nov. 29, 96 schoolchildren had been stricken with the illness; a week later, it was 124; by the end of December, the number had risen to 258, and the first child had died. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent a team to determine whether the strain of measles was particularly virulent. It wasn’t. Investigators found that the deaths had nothing to do with the strain that was circulating and everything to do with the parents.

Two fundamentalist Christian churches — Faith Tabernacle Congregation and First Century Gospel Church — were at the heart of the outbreak. Children had not been vaccinated, and when they became ill, their parents prayed instead of taking them to the hospital to receive the intravenous fluids or oxygen that could have saved their lives of those with the worst cases. “If I go to God and ask him to heal my body,” said a church member, Gordon Korn, “I can’t go to a doctor for medicine. You either trust God or you trust man.”

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[Journeyman]

1. Jesus would probably lay hands on some righteous vaccine and protect those children . . .

[cbayer]

2. Agree. He was all about healing the sick.

I really don't get the religious basis for refusal, except for those that refuse all medical care.

But I agree with the author that people should not be permitted to make martyrs of their children.