H5N1

False Ebola vaccine is not a deadly poison to kill Congolese

Thanks to Fiston Mahamba (@FMLarousse) for tweeting about Habari RDC and CheckCongo, both of which I've included in the Ebola list. The former is a compendium of posts by Congolese bloggers, and the latter is a site that fact-checks Congolese media. Here's an August 9 story from Habari RDC: False Ebola vaccine is not a deadly poison to kill Congolese. Excerpt from the Google translation:

In a one minute and five second audio, widely shared since the confirmation of the first case of the Ebola virus disease in Goma, the voice of a woman speaking in Kiswahili says: "Hello, the news circulates, it's even happened on TV, is that we will start an Ebola vaccination campaign in Goma, at home in Kivu, from next Monday. Have not you seen it? This is not Ebola, it is a target (target) of Rwandans to commit a massacre in Congo. Their Ebola does not exist in Congo."  

Her words are chosen because pressing the Rwandan button has the immediate effect of revolting some Congolese and creating distrust. The woman's voice continues, "I learned that one doctor and three individuals who injected this vaccine have all died. So share this information widely: that no one accepts this vaccine, tell it to all your brothers, those of the Babembe tribe, the Viras and other tribes you know. Tell them not to accept this vaccine." 

This part of his message is the perfect illustration of the tribal-ethnic manipulation that diffusers make of intoxications. Infox seeks ways to speak to the primary instincts of the human. That's why she is very dangerous.  

Then, the woman's voice goes to a call to kill the doctors and agents of the response. For that she talks about killing them with a machete: "And if possible, they attack with machete all those people who come with this vaccine and they return where they come from. That people only bend their knees and only god will protect them. There is no vaccine, there is no disease, there is no Ebola in Congo. It is rather a plan of the 'whites' in connivance with the Rwandans to destroy us." 

The icing on the cake, she ended up talking about God who will protect the people. 

Shared even in groups of Congolese diaspora, this audio is nothing but an unfounded rumor. For tens of thousands of people, including the former governor of North Kivu Julien Paluku, Monseigneur Melschisédeck or Mbusa Nyamwisi, have already vaccinated and they are not all dead.

MSF: DRC Ebola outbreak response struggling one year on

Via MSF.org: DRC Ebola outbreak response struggling one year on. Excerpt:

As the worst Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) history approaches its second year, the number of new Ebola cases recorded each week is hovering near its highest levels since the beginning of the epidemic. 

In July 2019, between 80 and 100 people were diagnosed with the disease every week. The outbreak is also continuing to spread geographically. Uganda saw its first Ebola patients in June, though they had travelled from DRC, while Goma, a city of 1.5 million people, recorded its second case just this week.

Following the declaration of the epidemic on 1 August 2018, a massive response was rapidly launched, aided by tools that were either unavailable or severely limited in previous Ebola outbreaks, such as an investigational vaccine and developmental treatments. 

Despite this, the outbreak seems headed in the wrong direction and in July was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). Since last August, Ebola has infected over 2,600 people, and killed 1,700 in DRC. 

A year on, we must review what must now be done to bring the outbreak to an end.  

Building trust amidst insecurity 

Insecurity is frequently mentioned as one of the main challenges for the Ebola intervention. Northeastern DRC has been an area of active conflict for the past quarter century and is rife with the presence of armed groups. 

Alongside this, healthcare workers associated with the Ebola response are still not trusted. They have been specifically targeted, sometimes resulting in crucial activities such as contact tracing, alert investigation or vaccination campaigns to be suspended, limited or cancelled. 

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) knows this all too well. In February, the Ebola treatment centres in Katwa and Butembo were attacked, forcing us to withdraw our teams from those centres.

DRC: 14 Ebola deaths in a month in Some, near Mambasa

Via provinces26rdc.net: DRC: 14 Ebola deaths in Some, near Mambasa. The Google translation:

Fourteen people died within about a month of the Ebola outbreak in 17 confirmed cases in Some, a locality 26 kilometers from Mambasa center in Mandima health area (Ituri) . The last case of death was recorded on Monday, announced the coordinator of the response to the Ebola epidemic in Ituri, Christophe Shako, Wednesday, July 24 at Radio Okapi. He regretted, however, strong resistance from the community to collaborate with the response teams. 

Popular resistance may facilitate the spread of this disease in the region, said Christophe Shako. Accessibility is easier at Some, which is closer to Mambasa. 

"We have a total of seventeen confirmed cases at Some. And among the seventeen confirmed cases; we have fourteen dead. It's a time bomb. And even the population of Some begins to move, " said Christophe Shako.  

The people of Some who come to Mambasa and return to other cities, according to him, risk spreading the Ebola epidemic. The other problem is related to the strong resistance on the part of the population. 

"The people who are next to the confirmed cases - all the family members, the community - are not well identified. The high-risk contacts escape us, since the teams of the response can not work calmly at Some, because of the reluctance of the population," explained Mr. Shako. 

When the teams of the response are not able to get their hands on these people, according to Christophe Shako, it becomes complicated to follow them and vaccinate them. This represents a real threat to the community.

Lyme disease: Is a solution on the way?

Via The Guardian: Lyme disease: is a solution on the way? Excerpt:

As a former martial arts world champion, who trained daily and enjoyed camping and hiking at weekends, Stephen Bullough had always prided himself on leading a healthy life.  

Like most people, he thought very little when he was bitten by a tick on a camping holiday close to home in Wigan in 2014, never suspecting that this tiny bite would unleash an infection in his body that would one day leave him permanently incapacitated.  

“He had a rash on his right arm, which we put down to ringworm, so we put a bit of cream on it and thought nothing of it,” remembers Angela, Stephen’s wife. “In 2015, he started to develop these cognitive problems, getting words wrong. We laughed about it at first, joking, ‘You’re getting old now.’”  

But a year later, Bullough began to experience sudden seizures and muscle weakness, leaving him with severe difficulties walking. Over the past three years, his condition has rapidly deteriorated, leaving him unable to see, permanently bed-bound and often suffering multiple seizures at a time.  

“Last May, he had a massive seizure and then his whole body was convulsing,” says Angela. “That’s the day he went blind and has never walked or seen since. He then started having back-to-back seizures; he’s in hospital once a month because they just won’t stop, regardless of how many drugs they give him. One weekend, he had 40 seizures.” 

Bullough was eventually diagnosed with Lyme disease, an illness caused by various species of bacteria in the genus Borrelia that live in the guts of ticks. Once transmitted to humans, it can attack the immune system and lead to serious health complications such as arthritis, meningitis, neurological problems, even heart failure. While Lyme disease can sometimes be treated with antibiotics if detected early, not everyone responds and for patients such as Bullough who have developed chronic symptoms, there is currently no cure.

This is particularly concerning as Lyme disease appears to be on the rise, something scientists have attributed to climate change, creating conditions in which tick populations can thrive. While the disease is currently estimated to affect between 2,000 and 3,000 new people every year in the UK, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) suspects the real figure is far higher. 

But for scientists, one of the most tragic aspects of Bullough’s story, as with those of many other patients, is that it could potentially have been avoided. In the late 1990s, the first preventive human vaccine, called LYMErix, was developed and 1.4m doses had been administered by the end of 2001. The data suggests it was highly effective, protecting against the disease in almost 90% of cases. 

LYMErix wasn’t perfect. It was relatively expensive, did not work in young children, only protected against one strain of Lyme disease and was only available in the US. But it appeared to be the first step towards eradicating the disease for good. Anti-vaccine fear saw it vanish from the market, however, and with that, all scientific research and investment in the field ceased.

The death knell for LYMErix proved to be a theory that the vaccine could induce autoimmune reactions in humans. This was partially based on a study from 2000 that found the vaccine contributed to arthritis in hamsters, as well as entirely hypothetical concerns from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) panel, which approved LYMErix, that the immune system might overreact and begin to attack healthy tissue along with the Borrelia bacteria. 

These ideas were subsequently disproved, but the fear continued to spread. In 1998, the now retracted Lancet study linking the MMR vaccine to autism had been published and the modern anti-vaccine movement was gathering momentum. 

Class action lawsuits were filed against LYMErix’s manufacturer after several incidents of arthritis were reported. But while the evidence suggested that these incidents were unconnected to the vaccine, sales began to plummet and in 2002, the product was withdrawn altogether. 

“The consequences have been that, until recently, no manufacturer has wanted to touch this,” says Gregory Poland, who is head of the Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group in Minnesota. “Some of the anti-vax campaigners had published a statement saying that no matter what kind of Lyme vaccine they develop, we will organise mass protests and lawsuits. In the US, it takes about 10 to 15 years of research and about a billion dollars to develop a vaccine and get it licensed. Since LYMErix, nobody’s been willing to risk that.”

Measles resurgence in the USA: How international travel compounds vaccine resistance

Via The Lancet Infectious Diseases: Measles resurgence in the USA: how international travel compounds vaccine resistance. Excerpt:

Hotez and colleagues' recent article highlights the increasing frequency of vaccine-preventable disease cases in Europe and the USA caused by very visible anti-vaccine movements. The most troubling aspect of this development is the global increase in measles cases. From Jan 1, 2019, to April 26, 2019, the USA reported 704 confirmed measles cases spanning 22 states, compared with 372 reported cases in 2018, 120 in 2017, 86 in 2016, 188 in 2015, and 667 in 2014. Therefore, only 4 months into 2019 the number of cases reported is already the highest since measles was declared officially eliminated in the US in 2000. 

These high numbers show that the USA still remains at risk for large measles epidemics such as those recently seen in Europe. Two main factors are believed to contribute to the resurgence of measles cases in the USA: reintroduction of the virus at individual localities through travel from countries experiencing outbreaks and low vaccination rates fueled by non-medical exemptions (NMEs). The analysis we present confirms the hypothesis that these two factors are the most salient ones for the outbreaks of measles in the USA in 2019. This hypothesis allows a predictive risk analysis to identify which US regions are most at risk. The seriousness of this risk is underscored by the ease of transmission of measles, which is caused by the highly contagious measles morbillivirus that is capable of airborne spread. 

We explain this risk using a quantitative model that identifies the US counties with the highest risk of a measles outbreak in 2019. This spatial relative risk profile at a county resolution for the USA is derived from a multiplicative risk function that compounds four factors: international air travel volume to the destination county, NME rates in the county, county population, and the incidence rate of the measles outbreak at travel origin. The model uses county level NME rates if available; otherwise, it relies on state averages for NME rates or estimated vaccination rates. A detailed description of the data and methods used are available in the appendix. Our risk measure can be interpreted as the expected relative size of a measles outbreak in a county. 

The results of the predictions are shown in the figure and listed in the appendix. The results of our calculation are spatially consistent with the reported measles cases in the USA (last comparison made April 15, 2019): counties we identify or those immediately adjacent to them have reported measles cases in 2019. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and various state health departments, at least 45 USA counties have reported measles cases in 2019 and 30 of these are either included in the top 25 at-risk counties identified in figure 1 or spatially adjacent to one of the top 25 counties. 

Our results correctly predicted the areas in Washington, Oregon, and New York that have had major measles outbreaks. Brooklyn, New York, which has reported over 300 cases, is adjacent to Queens, New York, which ranked fourth. Multnomah, Oregon is ranked 13th, and adjacent to Clark, Washington with 73 cases. San Mateo, California, ranked 19th has had an outbreak with four cases; adjacent Santa Clara has also reported four cases, and adjacent Santa Cruz and San Francisco have also each reported one case. Several Texas counties are identified as being at an elevated risk of measles. Harris, Texas has had the biggest outbreak so far with four cases and is ranked ninth in our predictions. Another seven counties in Texas have reported cases, which are all in close proximity to either Tarrant, Texas (ranked 12th) or Travis, Texas (ranked 22nd).

Further, each of the USA counties listed in the appendix that have not yet had a measles outbreak in 2019 (as of April 15) either lies adjacent to a county that has or is served by a major international airport and is thus at risk of imported measles cases resulting in a local outbreak. Besides Travis, Texas these include Maricopa, Arizona, Clayton Georgia, Honolulu, Hawaii, Wayne, Michigan, Salt Lake, Utah, Hennepin, Minnesota, Suffolk, Massachusetts, Loudon, Virginia, San Diego, California, and multiple counties in Florida. These counties should be targeted for enhanced surveillance and enhanced vaccination efforts. 

Lastly, using the proposed analysis, we can specify the set of countries that contribute most to measles risk across the USA. The top countries ordered by risk posed are: Ukraine, Mexico, Cuba, Israel, Japan, Thailand, and Philippines. Surveillance should also be directed towards those counties with the high incoming passenger volume from these countries. Additionally, we should consider measures to improve public health in these countries— for instance, foundations that are committed to global health enhancement could allocate funding for vaccination efforts in these countries. 

Perhaps the most important implication of our results (appendix) is to suggest enhanced surveillance in counties such as Cook, Illinois, and Los Angeles, California, which have each so far only reported one case of measles in 2019 but, because of the presence of major international airports, could serve as the fulcrum of continuous importation of the measles virus into the USA.

Why is measles back?

Via The Atlantic, a long, thoughtful analysis: Why Is Measles Back? Excerpt:

In two essays, “Illness as Metaphor” in 1978 and “AIDS and Its Metaphors” in 1988, the critic Susan Sontag observed that you can learn a lot about a society from the metaphors it uses to describe disease. She also suggested that disease itself can serve as a metaphor—a reflection of the society through which it travels. 

In other words, the way certain illnesses spread reveals something not just about a nation’s physiological health but also about its cultural and political health. For instance, AIDS would not have ravaged America as fully as it did without institutionalized homophobia, which inclined many Americans to see the disease as retribution for gay sex.

Now another virus is offering insights into the country’s psychic and civic condition. Two decades ago, measles was declared eliminated in the U.S. Yet in the first five months of this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded 1,000 cases—more than occurred from 2000 to 2010.  

The straightforward explanation for measles’ return is that fewer Americans are receiving vaccines. Since the turn of the century, the share of American children under the age of 2 who go unvaccinated has quadrupled. But why are a growing number of American parents refusing vaccines—in the process welcoming back a disease that decades ago killed hundreds of people a year and hospitalized close to 50,000?

One answer is that contemporary America suffers from a dangerous lack of historical memory. Most of the parents who are today skipping or delaying their children’s combined measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine don’t remember life with measles, much less that it used to kill more children than drowning does today. Nor do they recall how other diseases stamped out by vaccines—most prominently smallpox and polio—took lives and disfigured bodies.  

Our amnesia about vaccines is part of a broader forgetting. Prior generations of Americans understood the danger of zero-sum economic nationalism, for instance, because its results remained visible in their lifetimes. When Al Gore debated Ross Perot about NAFTA in 1993, he reminded the Texan businessman of the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which raised tariffs on 20,000 foreign products—prompting other countries to retaliate, deepening the Great Depression, and helping to elect Adolf Hitler. 

But fewer and fewer people remember the last global trade war. Similarly, as memories of Nazism fade across Europe and the United States, anti-Semitism is rising. Technology may improve; science may advance. But the fading of lessons that once seemed obvious should give pause to those who believe history naturally bends toward progress.

Declining vaccination rates not only reflect a great forgetting; they also reveal a population that suffers from overconfidence in its own amateur knowledge. In her book Calling the Shots: Why Parents Reject Vaccines, the University of Colorado at Denver’s Jennifer Reich notes that starting in the 1970s, alternative-health movements “repositioned expertise as residing within the individual.” 

This ethos has grown dramatically in the internet age, so much so that “in arenas as diverse as medicine, mental health, law, education, business, and food, self-help or do-it-yourself movements encourage individuals to reject expert advice or follow it selectively.” 

Autodidacticism can be valuable. But it’s one thing to Google a food to see whether it’s healthy. It’s quite another to dismiss decades of studies on the benefits of vaccines because you’ve watched a couple of YouTube videos. In an interview, Reich told me that some anti-vaccine activists describe themselves as “researchers,” thus equating their scouring of the internet on behalf of their families with the work of scientists who publish in peer-reviewed journals.

A growing lack of trust in authority poses a serious danger to our health

Via The Guardian, a thoughtful and insightful article: A growing lack of trust in authority poses a serious danger to our health. Excerpt:

Virtually every Bangladeshi and Rwandan believes that vaccines are safe. Fewer than half of Japanese or French do so. In western Europe, almost one in six of those with college education reject vaccines. In southern Africa, you’re twice as likely to do so if you attended university. 

These are among the often disturbing facts that tumble out of a new study, the Wellcome Global Monitor, published last week. A survey of 140,000 people from 140 countries, it is at heart an exploration of the relationship between science, trust and attitudes to vaccination.  

Trust has become a vital political issue. Many worry about the erosion of confidence both in expertise and in public institutions and about the social consequences of that erosion. One is the growing refusal to believe medical authority, especially about vaccination. From measles outbreaks in America and Europe to the spread of Ebola in central Africa, scepticism about vaccines has had a devastating impact.

The Wellcome survey suggests that the relationship between scientific and social trust and attitudes to vaccination is more complex than many imagine. One might think, for instance, that better scientific education and greater confidence in healthcare professionals would be linked to greater trust of vaccines. It isn’t. There tends to be greater scepticism about vaccines in richer, better-educated countries than in poorer states in which people have less education and are more sceptical about the benefits of science.  

Western Europe shows some of the highest levels of trust in both scientists and healthcare professions: 88% have “high” or “medium” trust in scientists, 68% have “a lot” of trust in medical professionals and 78% believe that science benefits people like them. But, with the sole exception of eastern Europe, western Europe also has the lowest level of trust in the world in vaccines.  

Compare this with north Africa. Here, just 61% have trust in scientists, medical professionals are trusted “a lot” by less than a third of the population and fewer than half think that science benefits people like them. Yet whereas only 59% of western Europeans believe that vaccines are safe, 85% of north Africans do so. 

In low-income countries, 81% of even those with low trust in scientists have confidence in vaccines. In rich countries, that figure drops to less than half. 

Poor countries remain ravaged by diseases long eliminated from western nations. Globally, some 2.5 million children under five die every year from vaccine-preventable diseases. In countries such as Bangladesh and Rwanda, vaccination programmes have helped transform the lives of millions. In richer countries, medical advances, including vaccines, have been so effective that many no longer recognise their importance or the consequences of rejection.  

There are, however, deeper problems than just a lack of historical memory. Trust is shaped by myriad social forces. Inequality is one. According to the Wellcome report, the more unequal a nation, the greater the distrust of science. In both rich and poor countries, those whose lives are more precarious are more sceptical of science than those who say they are “living comfortably”, a trend particularly pronounced in rich nations.  

There is also the question of the relationship between scientific and political trust. According to Wellcome: “The level of confidence people have in their national institutions – their government, judicial system and military – was a good predictor of their level of trust in science.”

Rumors and false information surround Ebola outbreak in DRC

Via Time.com, a sobering report: Rumors and False Information Surround Ebola Outbreak in DRC. Excerpt:

Given political tension in the country, there is speculation among communities that the central government – roughly one thousand miles away in Kinshasa – is spreading the virus on purpose to gather support or using it to quell opposition. This was exacerbated when residents of Beni and Butembo were barred from voting in the recent presidential election, ostensibly because of health risks.  

Others believe that international aid organizations are behind the outbreak. This belief has been compounded by the amount of money that suddenly seems to be flowing into DRC’s east to help assist efforts to contain Ebola. They argue they got little relief from conflict and other health issues before this, and ask why Ebola would be any different.

With an internet penetration of less than 7%, word of mouth remains the most common way for rumors to spread in DRC. These have included speculation that people who died from Ebola are deliberately being killed in treatment centers. 

Ebola’s viral load spikes when someone dies, meaning burials need to be carefully conducted. Since the outbreak began, dozens of volunteer teams who are associated with the Red Cross or the Congolese government have been involved with more than 5,600 burials.  

Kate Learmonth, a health coordinator for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said the humanitarian organization is sensitive to what’s being said among Congolese communities in relation to concerns about Ebola burials. In an attempt to combat the spread of false information, burial and community outreach teams are logging what they hear in communities. Since last August, they’ve gathered more than 85,000 messages of complaint, feedback and rumors from 1,300 volunteers working on the Ebola response.  

This has influenced changes in how those who have died from the virus are buried, including a switch to using clear body bags to secure victims in. These allow mourners to say goodbye, and also helps to combat mistruths about what happens to an Ebola patient after they die, including pervasive rumors that their organs are harvested. 

In recent months, Red Cross burial teams have also started allowing relatives of the dead to don protective clothing and accompany their body through the whole process.  

“We really feel there needs to be a reset and that more emphasis needs to be put on addressing the community fears and concerns, to make sure it’s a local response,” said Learmonth. “The outbreak will only really end when the community is engaged.” 

The spread of harmful rumors have had tragic consequences for Congolese frontline workers, many of whom have been accused of profiting from the crisis. There have been more than 130 attacks on healthcare facilities, during which dozens of people have been killed. 

Hygienist Mireille Kavira, 38, was offered a job in Beni General Hospital’s Ebola treatment centre two months ago, after the unrelated death of her husband, who had worked there before. As a mother of four children, she needs the money, but her new position led to Kavira’s neighbors shunning her.

“The community don’t like me because they understand I work where Ebola is,” she said. “They say ‘You got money for nothing, there is no Ebola, you are an accomplice.’”

One hundred and fifty miles south of Beni, the border city of Goma doesn’t yet have any confirmed Ebola cases, but misinformation is already being spread there too.  

On a Saturday morning in Katoy, a poor neighborhood in the city’s north, a group of local leaders and volunteers gather in a compound. They’re discussing Ebola, how to avoid contracting it, and what to do if you experience symptoms. After reiterating the importance of regular hand-washing, the group leader reads out a hotline number to call if anyone comes across a suspected case. Then the attendees begin to discuss the rumors they have heard. 

One volunteer said she heard foreigners will force people into Ebola treatment centers, claiming they have Ebola even if there are no symptoms. “You white people come for your own interest, to make money off Ebola,” she said, as others around her nodded. 

“We really want to inform the population about Ebola so people know what it is and how to react, making sure they adopt the right attitudes when and if it reaches the city,” says Clarisse Amunazo, a health promoter for Médecins Sans Frontières. The medical charity have a team of 24 people involved in outreach to communities in Goma. 

Traditional healers, who are more trusted and preferred by many Congolese from impoverished backgrounds, are being brought into the Ebola response too. They help identify and report new cases, and are also eligible for vaccinations as frontline workers. 

However, Amunazo said that while healers are doing valuable work, there are still pockets of resistance, echoing many of the other fault lines in eastern DRC that have allowed rumors around Ebola to flourish. 

“Some (traditional healers) have their own beliefs and think they can cure any disease,” Amunazo said. “One told me he’s making his own cure for Ebola.”

Meet the New York couple donating millions to the anti-vax movement

Via The Washington Post, a reminder that global health should not depend on the very rich: Meet the New York couple donating millions to the anti-vax movement. Excerpt:

A wealthy Manhattan couple has emerged as significant financiers of the anti-vaccine movement, contributing more than $3 million in recent years to groups that stoke fears about immunizations online and at live events — including two forums this year at the epicenter of measles outbreaks in New York’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. 

Hedge fund manager and philanthropist Bernard Selz and his wife, Lisa, have long donated to organizations focused on the arts, culture, education and the environment. But seven years ago, their private foundation embraced a very different cause: groups that question the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. 

How the Selzes came to support anti-vaccine ideas is unknown, but their financial impact has been enormous. Their money has gone to a handful of determined individuals who have played an outsize role in spreading doubt and misinformation about vaccines and the diseases they prevent. The groups’ false claims linking vaccines to autism and other ailments, while downplaying the risks of measles, have led growing numbers of parents to shun the shots. As a result, health officials have said, the potentially deadly disease has surged to at least 1,044 cases this year, the highest number in nearly three decades. 

The Selz Foundation provides roughly three-fourths of the funding for the Informed Consent Action Network, a three-year-old charity that describes its mission as promoting drug and vaccine safety and parental choice in vaccine decisions.  

Lisa Selz serves as the group’s president, but its public face and chief executive is Del Bigtree, a former daytime television show producer who draws big crowds to public events. Bigtree has no medical credentials but holds himself out as an expert on vaccine safety and promotes the idea that government officials have colluded with the pharmaceutical industry to cover up grievous harms from the drugs. In recent weeks, Bigtree has headlined forums in ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities in Brooklyn and Rockland County, N.Y., both areas confronting large measles outbreaks.  

“They should be allowed to have the measles if they want the measles,” Bigtree told reporters outside the Brooklyn meeting on June 4. “It’s crazy that there’s this level of intensity around a trivial childhood illness.” 

Thanks largely to the Selzes’s donations, ICAN is now the best-funded among a trio of organizations that have amplified concerns about vaccines. ICAN brought in $1.4 million in revenue in 2017, with just over $1 million supplied by the Selz Foundation, according to tax filings. 

The Selzes and the groups they support are hardly the only purveyors of anti-vaccine ideas. Environmental attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a nephew of the late president, runs the Children’s Health Defense, a charity that promotes a similar agenda; it brought in $727,000 in 2017, according to tax filings. Barbara Loe Fisher, who says her son was injured by vaccines, runs a Virginia-based nonprofit that combats legislative efforts to tighten vaccine requirements. Her group, the National Vaccine Information Center, brings in about $1 million a year, according to its 2018 tax documents. 

Japan and Ukraine most likely to doubt safety of vaccines

Via Nature News & Comment: Japan and Ukraine most likely to doubt safety of vaccines.

People living in wealthy countries are more likely to question the safety of vaccines than are those living in poorer ones, according to a worldwide survey on public attitudes to science and health.

More than 140,000 people from around 140 countries gave their views on the safety and efficacy of vaccinations as part of an almost two-year project funded by London-based biomedical research charity Wellcome.  

Europe has some of the lowest levels of perceived safety, with just half of those in Eastern Europe and 59% in Western Europe strongly or somewhat agreeing with the statement “vaccines are safe” (see ‘Vaccine perceptions’). Confidence is particularly low in France and Ukraine. 

By contrast, 97% of people in Bangladesh think that vaccines are safe, and that number remains high throughout South Asia. In East Africa the figure is 92%.  

In some regions, greater scientific knowledge was associated with less confidence in vaccines, suggesting that providing information and education might not be enough to combat scepticism.