Tonight

S – We are not we are not vaccinating,

A – we are not endangering our children

There’s an information war on vaccination

G – There is a small group of people who are behind this incorrect science

that group of people are doing a tremendous disservice to the world and to the health of the world

Why is one particular community getting the blame?

America’s Measles Comeback

An hour outside New York City is a quiet suburban community at the epicentre of a severe measles outbreak

The virus has spread rapidly through the mostly ultra orthodox Jewish community here in  Rockland county with public officials declaring a state of emergency

It's usually a very private and closed community

But out of frustration and fear some are speaking up

M – You better be careful or you’ll be on camera.

W – Shut the Camera

M – She doesn’t want to be on camera

W - Are you speaking in favour?

M – Absolutely

W – I am also absolutely in favour

M – Do you want to be on Camera?

I never do these interview but I feel so strong the halashem

W – its beyond terrible. I think people have gotten so carried away they are not thinking rationally anymore.

M: One of the things that causes the angst, the anguish, the anger in our community among many people such as myself is that the world is getting a skewed picture of what Orthodox Jews believe cause there are some nincompoops unfortunately that are uneducated and believe that shots are dangerous, they're harmful and they cause disease more than they cure or prevent diseases.

M: an old expression that for every two Jews, there are three opinions.

And in a desperate attempt to control the spread of the disease around 6000 unvaccinated  KIDS were pulled out of school -  most of them are ultra-orthodox jews

They're less connected to popular culture. That would be the best way of saying it

M: Preserving their old ways and exactly, staying as close to the Torah as possible. Hasidum would never go to a movie theatre. They're never supposed to.

So far this year there have been over 1100 reported cases across the US [S1] and 296 in Rockland county alone.[S2] 

Measles is an incredibly contagious disease

People catch it through droplets in the air or by touching infected surfaces – where the virus can live for up to two hours[S3] 

SOT: The real story of the vaccine is told in the fears and smiles of a little girl

In the 1960’s a vaccine became widely available. [S4] 

Around 95% of a population needs to be vaccinated to stop the spread of measles [S7] - It’s called herd immunity and it protects those who can’t be immunised, like newborn babies and cancer patients

The World Health Organization now lists vaccine hesitancy a top ten threat to global health[S8] 

MSNBC This antivax movement is growing

00.19 this anti vax movement has been proven to be dangerous.

00.11 Antivaxxer are putting their kids lives at risk.

There is an information war across the US as the Antivaxers take on mainstream medicine.

Brandy -

Okay, can you carry this bag for me?

Son  -

Ah it's heavy.

B – Normal face. Normal face. Look at me.

In California I meet Brandy, an ex pharmaceutical sales rep turned anti-vaxxer

She believes harm caused by vaccines is the most pressing health issue of our time.

B - I started Learn The Risk after working in the pharmaceutical industry, for Merck, and selling a product that was killing people.

B - The name of the drug was Vioxx, and I saw how everything went down from the inside.

Viox  - was an arthritis drug, that allegedly caused 140,000 heart attacks – [S9] It cost Merc nearly 7 billion Australian dollars[S10]  in damages and has left Brandy questioning the integrity of the pharmaceutical industry

B- I speak about the dangers and the side effects of pharmaceutical drugs, medical products and vaccines. And this is the information that people need to know, but since the pharmaceutical industry is one of the leading advertisers on media, television, print media, radio, they don't get the right information on the side effects and the real dangers of all pharmaceutical products, including vaccines.

Brandy says a healthy immune system is the best defence – rather than vaccines like MMR

But voicing these opinions comes at a cost

I get death threats. I get death wished upon my child. I get accused of child abuse when my child is far, far healthier than his peers.

And you know it just never stop, stops, it’s a barrage of attacks from both the pharmaceutical industry, from the public, from the media, it's not easy.

D - How does that make you feel?

B - You know, as much as it challenge, it's a challenge on a daily basis, it doesn't distract me from the main purpose. Because I feel like this is the reason why I was put on the Earth. And this is my mission and the children are counting on me.

Brandy is rallying vaccine sceptics in California to tackle a proposed new law.

The government wants to make it harder for people to get exemptions from mandatory vaccination based on their medical condition.

Well we know they're trying to mandate vaccines, and it's all about profit and not health.

So vaccines have a longer patent life. They don't have liability

And they don't go through the rigorous safety testing. 

If you don't like the truth, if you wanna softball or sugarcoat things, you should probably leave the event now.

For the people at this event, a distrust of government regulation and the pharmaceutical industry is built on allegations of children being injured by vaccines

The day after his first birthday, we took Jacob in and ah I held him down on the table and they administered 5 injections

Within days, Jake stopped looking at us. He stopped hearing us, He broke in a rash.

W – he is severely autistic now

“Thank you so much for all you do”

These hurting and marginalised parents are looking for answers….

The turn out was amazing we had a lot of people in the room who had children with vaccine injuries who had a lot of inspiration and passion a lot of enthusiasm.

High profile celebrities like Jessica Biel, Jim Carey and Robert De Niro are bringing vaccine scepticism into the media spotlight

Robert De Niro – There are a lot of things with the CDC and the pharmaceutical industry that are not said.

JC - Vaccine are the largest growing division of the pharmaceutical industry 13 billion dollars profit.

They control medical schools.

They are fighting what they see as censorship of information around vaccines, and believe parents should have a choice

Dr Glatt is a Rabbi and an infectious disease specialist. He’s in a unique position to spread the message that vaccination is safe

There are no studies supporting any of the anti-vaccination allegations. There's not a single department of health or public health agency, none, that disagree what I'm saying. 

It's overwhelming, we don't find such evidence in any other area of medicine as we do with the value of vaccinations.

One of the most damaging allegations laid at the door of the MMR vaccine was the debunked link to autism.

Sot – measles mumps and rubella given all at once may be too much for some people’s immune system

It began with a scientific paper by UK doctor Andrew Wakefield linking the MMR vaccine to autism. He tested just 12 children and published his findings in the Lancet Medical Journal in 1998 12 years later the study was found to be fraudulent and was retracted by the medical journal.

But despite Wakefield being discredited and struck of the medical register many still believe his theory

G: There are a very vocal, small, totally unscientific community that somehow believe vaccines cause autism which has been proven conclusively as not being true.

This is the April 16^th journal on annals of internal medicine 2019. It publishes a study on MMR vaccination and autism a nationwide co-ord study.

The study looked at 657461 children between 1999 and the finished their follow up in 2013.

Which clearly found there is zero link between the autism and the vaccination.

Despite the scientific evidence supporting the safety of the MMR vaccine

Antivax information was spread into the Orthodox Jewish community in Rockland New York - by a mysterious organisation called PEACH.

M - Welcome to my home, ah its locked.

Matis didn't buy into it, but many others did

M: Unfortunately, certain aspects of the new age movement have penetrated into the Jewish community. The new age movement largely does not believe in conventional medicine or science

D: How important is it for you to keep up with the vaccinations for your kids?

The answer is on a scale of 1-10, I would say 1 million because one of the tenets of our religion is that we have to do, we have to take whatever efforts are necessary to protect our health. That's a mitzvah to protect one's health.

Some people want to be exempt from vaccination on religious grounds fearing that immunization interferes with gods will.

Yoselle, look this will be our new house. Let’s hope the neighbours have also received shots. Let’s go inside. Do you like the new house? Yes?

Hyam, do you like getting shots?

M: He doesn't like it but it's important and we do it.

M: I find it to be ironic that many of the pioneers of vaccines were Jewish scientists, Louis Pasteur came out with a vaccine against rabies[S11] , Jona Salk [S12] the vaccine for polio and other notable vaccinations were developed.

by Jewish scientists and doctors.

M: This is a Cabernet Franc Merlot mix. 

D: Made by you?

M: Made by us in this house. About two years ago

M: I'll make the blessing and you can say "amen" which affirms it.

M: Praised art Thou, O Lord our God, Creator of the fruit of the vine. 

D: Amen.

D: It's only my first sip (laughing).

As vaccine misinformation and fear spread through some parts of this community vaccination rates began to fall.

Vaccine sceptics and the families who’ve had measles feel targeted and ARE hesitant to speak out…

But they also want their side of the story heard

D: Thanks for having me.

A: Come on in.

S: People are afraid to just speak their minds because of all the negative feedback that they're getting from other people. People are going mad over this subject.

D – Have you had measles?

S – I haven’t had measles

D - Have you had measles?

P – No but a few of my

D – Have you had measles? Was it part of the latest out break
P – Yes yes my children had the measles. A few of them had the measles a few of my grandchildren had the measles.

D – They ok now?

P – They are more than ok they are alive and well.  And some had it a little bit worse than others. But it passed.

D – We see people in other countries dying.

A – They are dying of diarrhoea too it is not related.

This family is more afraid of the risks associated with the vaccine than the health risk associated with the measles

D – Do you see a future where you might be forced to vaccinate your kids?

A – Not under my watch. Not my kids under my watch.

D – what if they can’t go to school.

P – I’ll home school them.

P – We will make schools for them

S – that is it. If they crack down on home schooling for whatever reason then we move. We are not we are not vaccinating.

A – we are not endangering our children. No one is going to tell us what is best for our children. Coz that is how that is not democracy.  That is how a dictatorship starts.

P – There is a lot of hype out there and it may seem like there is a lot of monsters on either side but

Our community and 99% of the people from both sides of the fence would do anything to help

The amount of love and caring far out weighs this particular issue.

D – So rockland is not at war.

P – There may be a difference of opinion but we are not divided.

Making monsters out of antivaxxers is driving these parents further into hiding. 

Shoshana was compelled into action when her child underwent cancer treatment – compromising that child’s immune system and making them vulnerable to a whole range of diseases

S: I have a child who is almost 5 years post-chemo and remains somewhat immuno-compromised and it's sort of like everyone else's kid until it's yours. And when it's your own child that's at risk because of what I perceive as a lack of education and a lack of available information, it sort of, to me, was galvanising

Shoshana’s organised an event for anti vaxxers, pro-vaxxers and health professionals to encourage respectful debate

S: We created an event where we have actual vaccine booths manned by experts in that particular field, whether its DTAP or SIDS or autism

W – we need more people here?

S – they will come they will come. We are not even thinking of starting before 8.15 and we will push it to 08.30 if we have to.

S - no matter where you currently stand on vaccination, at the end of the day there is one thing we definitely all have in common. Either we have a child or we know a child, and we love them.

We are not here to “split the Jewish people”, o make play groups for the not vaccinated to create schools for those who don’t vaccinate.

When it’s time for questions these mums seize the opportunity to interrogate the experts

P- To take a baby that's born hale and hearty and to start tampering with his immune system, and manipulating, that's already question

So is it so? Because you take the Jewish law and it talks about circumcision. And you start talking about actual surgical procedures listed verbatim. It's a beautiful thing by the way. 

P - That's because God said and circumcision is not done for a medical procedure. It's done for a different reason. 

D – wait wait wait

S - I think the interaction with the nurses and doctors who came really, really well prepared to answer questions with evidence based studies, I think that's been extremely impactful. Because you know, in the United States, our medical system for better or for worse is not built around the opportunity for extensive dialogue.

Matis is also here to take part in the discussion

I came here today to show my support for this evening to educate the public on the importance of getting vaccinated, and to show the world that the majority of Orthodox Jewish people do get vaccinated and a few bad apples are ruining it for everyone

There are now measles cases in 30 states across the US, with the majority of these cases linked to close knit communities like the orthodox Jews in New York state[S15]  and the Slavic community in Washington state.[S16] 

This community is trying hard not to let the issue pull them apart

It’s like throwing the stone into the water and the ripple starts. That's what we have going on here. It's a process; it's not going to happen overnight. Um but we started

END