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Scientology cruise ship quarantined over confirmed case of measles

CyberPanda

Banned
A crew member aboard a cruise ship used by the Church of Scientology tested positive for measles, causing the vessel’s occupants to be quarantined in the Caribbean since Monday, a report said.

The vessel and its roughly 300 passengers and crew members have been stuck on the “Freewinds” ship in the Caribbean port of St. Lucia after the confirmed case of the highly contagious disease, according to NBC News.

The infected female patient has been isolated and is in stable condition, according to St. Lucia’s chief medical officer Dr. Marlene Fredericks-James.

St. Lucia Coast Guard Sgt. Victor Theodore confirmed to the network that the cruise ship was the same as the one listed on the Church of Scientology’s website.

The ship is described on the church’s website as being used as a floating “religious retreat ministering the most advanced level of spiritual counseling in the Scientology religion.”

The ship is set to depart Thursday. The church couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

 

Ownage

Member
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I read about people who used to be with Scientology and who attended these cruises. They are not fun and the people are held against their will. One woman in an interview literally broken down and cried while on the cruise and as soon as she got back she left the church for good because of how scared she was to go back on the cruise. That “religion” I mean scam is soo fucked up.
 

CyberPanda

Banned
I read about people who used to be with Scientology and who attended these cruises. They are not fun and the people are held against their will. One woman in an interview literally broken down and cried while on the cruise and as soon as she got back she left the church for good because of how scared she was to go back on the cruise. That “religion” I mean scam is soo fucked up.
I'm glad Leah Remini got out of it.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
When people start talking about Measles as a serious health risk I always find it a bit weird, as to me it was always just a common childhood illness. Looking it up, it has an 0.2% mortality rate, and that's mainly from under-5's, so its hardly the black-death.

I take the point about it being a real threat to people with compromised immune-systems such as from malnutrition or sickness, and I am aware it is highly contagious, but it strikes me that this only gets a lot of play because (1) it was a disease supposedly eradicated through immunization (in the developed world), and clearly it wasn't. And (2) because it plays into the whole pro/anti -vaccination thing,
 

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
Looking it up, it has an 0.2% mortality rate, and that's mainly from under-5's, so its hardly the black-death.
Multiply a small percentage by a large amount of people, and that is going to give you an unacceptable number of casualties, especially given how cheap and easy it is to prevent.
 

Geki-D

Banned
When people start talking about Measles as a serious health risk I always find it a bit weird, as to me it was always just a common childhood illness. Looking it up, it has an 0.2% mortality rate, and that's mainly from under-5's, so its hardly the black-death.
Add to that other complications that can fuck up a person's life. It's also highly contagious so whilst it might just cause you an inconvenience, you could infect someone with an autoimmune disease for which the vaccine isn't as effective and the sickness is going to cause more trouble.
 
When people start talking about Measles as a serious health risk I always find it a bit weird, as to me it was always just a common childhood illness. Looking it up, it has an 0.2% mortality rate, and that's mainly from under-5's, so its hardly the black-death.
That's every fifth hundred person?

I didn't know measles are that horrible..
 

Winter John

Member
It's crazy to think that these idiots worship a guy called Ron. The Christians, Jews, Buddhists and all the rest of them are understandable cos they've had thousands of years of indoctrination and fairy tales drummed into them, but Ron? The dude was running around 30 years ago. He had a fuckin TV.
 
Multiply a small percentage by a large amount of people, and that is going to give you an unacceptable number of casualties, especially given how cheap and easy it is to prevent.
It's really not. Measles have a 1 in a 1000 morality rate for REPORTED cases. Since the measles wasn't considered a serious illness back in the day, it was largely unreported because people didn't bother to seek medical help. A closer estimate is about 1 in 10,000 mortality rate. It's really not a serious disease at all, just a really contagious one. As it turns out, the MMR vaccine is actually more dangerous. Right? Blows your mind, doesn't it? You are more likely to suffer serious consequences from the MMR vaccine than measles. It's still an extremely small chance though.

What is really a problem, however, is that the MMR vaccine is only temporary. Many of the measles outbreaks are occurring withing vaccinate populations. In the recent New York outbreak, almost half of the people with the measles were vaccinated. What's happening is that people are getting vaccinated as kids, but the immune system boost only last for a decade or two, which means they become susceptible to getting the measles again as adult - when it is far more dangerous and deadly. So the MMR vaccine may actually only be protecting people when it is safest to get the measles, and leaving us wide open when it is more likely to kill us. And since we don't know when the vaccine wears off, it is really a crap shoot. Expect to see MMR booster shots in the near future, and for the MMR vaccine to go from 2 shots to 3 or even 4. However, if you've actually had the measles, that immunity is forever.
 
Wut...

What is the death rate from the MMR vaccine?
They don’t publish those numbers.

I believe in 2003, more people died from the MMR vaccine than measles, but that’s slightly misleading. It was something like 103 vs 96 - but there were far fewer cases of measles than took the MMR vaccine. However the vaccine has other serious complications, such as anaphylaxis (allergic reaction), seizures, meningitis, or encephalitis. That last one is particular ironic since the measles don’t kill you, but there is a very rare chance of encephalitis (brain inflammation) which kills you. The measles vaccine (specifically the measles part) can cause this in kids with weakened immune systems. So one of the side effects of the MMR vaccine is literally the thing that is dangerous about the measles. And because the encephalitis can occur up to a year after the shots, it is rarely associated with the vaccine.

How common are these complications? The seizures happen at a rate of 1 in 3,000 to 4,000. So, like I said, you are more likely to suffer serious complications from the MMR vaccine, but less likely to actually die from it (which is already incredible small, estimated to be a tiny 0.01% chance). Presumably. Like I said. They don’t publish vaccine mortality rates (and measles mortality rates are usually represented globally, with most deaths being in third world countries with poor health care). It’s all very difficult to get accurate numbers for any of this, by design.
 

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
They don’t publish those numbers.

I believe in 2003, more people died from the MMR vaccine than measles, but that’s slightly misleading. It was something like 103 vs 96 - but there were far fewer cases of measles than took the MMR vaccine.

With respect to the recent claims of deaths caused by MMR vaccine [57], drawing broad cause and effect conclusions between vaccination and deaths based on spontaneous reports to VAERS, some of which might be anecdotal or second hand, is not a scientifically valid practice. In fact, a review of the VAERS data reveals that many of the death reports for MMR vaccine involved children with serious preexisting medical conditions or were likely unrelated to vaccination (e.g., accidents). These complete VAERS reports and any accompanying medical records, autopsy reports and death certificates have been reviewed in depth by FDA and CDC physicians and no concerning patterns have emerged that would suggest a causal relationship with the MMR vaccine and death.

The evidence for the safety and effectiveness of vaccines routinely given to children and adults in the Unites States is overwhelmingly favorable. In the case of MMR vaccine, this includes preventing hundreds of potential measles-related deaths each year [34]. Any discussion of the true risks of vaccination should be balanced by acknowledgment of the well-established benefits of vaccines in preventing disease, disability and deaths from infectious diseases.



As it turns out, the MMR vaccine is actually more dangerous.

I'm still not sure what your ideal situation is. If you really think that the MMR vaccine is more dangerous than actual measles itself, would you prefer that the MMR vaccine be discontinued, and that people get exposed to the actual disease naturally instead of the vaccine because the actual disease is not that harmful, and because it confers lifetime immunity?
 
The thing is, pretty much every child is given the MMR vaccine. It is required by most schools to even attend. So while just prior to the vaccination being made public, there were about 450,000 reported cases of the measles (about 400 deaths that year), the MMR vaccine is given to 3 to 4 million children every year. There are numerous complications, many of them quite serious, that have a relatively rare chance of happening which is magnified by the sheer volume of shots being given out. There were 500 million doses administered in 100 different countries in 2003 (I think). Maybe not with the measles, but there are vaccines where the dangers are worse with the vaccine than the disease it is supposed to prevent. The chicken pox vaccine, for example, is more dangerous than the chicken pox.

Don't get me wrong. My issue with the MMR vaccine isn't necessarily the safety of it. I do think it is generally safer than the measles, but I don't think it is as effective as getting the measles. It doesn't build up your immune system as effectively or as permanently. In a first world country with access to decent medical care, the measles are not very risky at all. I think there have been 700 cases on the measles in 2019 so far, and zero deaths from it. I think that the vaccine isn't very good at doing its job, and represents a large scale science experiment that we are performing on our children, and our species' future.

I'm still not sure what your ideal situation is. If you really think that the MMR vaccine is more dangerous than actual measles itself, would you prefer that the MMR vaccine be discontinued, and that people get exposed to the actual disease naturally instead of the vaccine because the actual disease is not that harmful, and because it confers lifetime immunity?
First, I don't think the MMR vaccine is more dangerous than the measles. You might suffer more consequences (some very bad), but it is absolutely true that the measles leads to more directly attributable deaths and MMR. I think the MMR vaccine is relatively ineffective over a long period of time, so I'm not sure if those complications are ultimately worth the trade off since we'll all probably get measles anyway in the next couple years as the vaccines wear off.

I'd like a few things.

1) I'd like the vaccines to be studied in more detail. Right now, the effectiveness of vaccines is only compared against other vaccines. There's been no studies, that I've seen, that compare a vaccinated population to an unvaccinated population when it comes to testing the potential side effects. For instance, if you have a group of kids with the MMR vaccine and a group of kids without it, how many of them get GBS or autism. I'd also like to see a comparison between when kids the vaccines and whether effects are more pronounced when multiple vaccines are given at the same time (like MMR). To be clear, I don't think vaccines cause autism, but I'm not sure how anyone can say for sure when they don't compare against a control group. The fact that it is impossible to find an unvaccinated control group these days, I consider a problem.

2) I'd like vaccines to be reclassified. They are currently classified as a biological agent rather than medicine, and are not required to go through the battery of tests that medicine has to before being released to the public. This was initially done in an effort to cut the red tape and get vaccinations out to the populace quicker, but right now, there are, I believe, 36 mandatory vaccinations for all children that have not ever been properly tested. And in a few cases where they were, the pharmaceutical companies were caught falsifying the studies. It should also be pointed out that the person in charge of the CDC when the MMR vaccine was approved now works for the company that makes it, and a whistleblower has come out and said that they hid studies and data under this leadership. He had a paper trail going back a decade, so it wasn't a sudden change of heart or something made up.

3) I'd like to see vaccinations only when it is of vital importance. Chicken pox doesn't need a vaccine, and the HPV vaccine may actually increase cases of cervical cancer that it is supposed to prevent. Like I said, 36 mandatory vaccinations, and I'm not sure that the majority of them should be mandatory. In fact, I'd like to see all vaccinations be optional, just because the concept of mandatory medicine seems absurd to me. I suspect that the vast majority of people would choose the vaccinations without the threat of law or ostracization trying to influence them. The more you push people, the more they push back, and I think you'd see adoption of vaccinations go up if people felt like it was their decision to do it.

4) I'd like to see the spite with which anti-vaxxers are treated to be softened somewhat. The idea that they are harming herd immunity and thus putting the entire nation at risk is paranoia, as is the belief that the measles is basically a death sentence. I'd like to see people be a little bit more aware of the actual dangers of these diseases, to the point that they are acting a reasonable, educated adults and not as scared little children. Right now, people are taking the religious exemption on vaccinations because they believe they are helping their children, but it's an all or nothing situation. While they might be willing to do some vaccinations, the way it works is the second you take one, you have to take all the mandatory vaccinations. Doctors are afraid to recommend against vaccinations, afraid they'll lose their licenses or get branded as quacks. Just recently, New York banned unvaccinated kids from public, and when that failed, decided to start fining the parents $1,000. Someone will have to explain to me how we can treat our fellow humans with such absolute contempt simply because they choose which chemicals they put in their children's bodies.
 
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