Christians Under Attack

slaughtered ritualistically. Dr. Katme’s “parts”, in actuality, are either pieces of cells or even proteins removed from cells, and then incubated in a lab. And he also complained that vaccines contain alcohol, which Muslims who adhere strictly to Islam do not consume. This man is a psychiatrist who has worked for 15 years with Britain’s National Health Service, yet his writings suggest someone with not the most basic grasp of immunology or vaccine science.

Dr. Katme argues that inoculation is worthless in Muslim children, because mothers adhering to Islamic Law nurse them until age 2. They thus acquire “natural immunity” either from their mothers or from actually catching the diseases. The truth is that breast-feeding passes along a limited immunity, most valuable for a very young infant during the first weeks of life, and generally the protection lasts only for the time the child nurses. This is not lifelong protection from the disease. Also, any immunity passed in breast-milk, in addition to being short-term, covers only a few of the dangerous diseases for which vaccines exist.

As far as “natural immunity” acquired from exposure and actual illness, before children were commonly vaccinated, these diseases - measles, diphtheria, meningitis, whooping cough, polio – left parents with blood running cold through their veins. Many a child was left mentally or physically disabled after a bout even with a common childhood illness . . . or far too often, dead. Many modern physicians suggest that those parents who nowadays argue that vaccination isn’t necessary, are living in a sort of “out of sight, out of mind” mentality. But back when people saw children frequently suffer permanent disability or death due to illness, they welcomed the chance to stop these diseases, even with vaccinations that carried a very small risk of other health-related issues. The trouble is, in an age when mass internet information - some of it erroneous - has made everyone an armchair medical expert, many Western parents hold some misguided ideas about the value of immunizing their children.

Given this atmosphere, it is easy for a more fundamental Islamic stance to take hold. The same vaccine resistance in the UK Muslim community has popped up elsewhere in the West. It begins with a mullah’s call to followers to resist vaccinating their children because to do otherwise is un-Islamic. As the fever builds, the argument feeds on paranoia already in place in Western society, and the same mullahs begin to cite health risks in vaccines. This jumping from one argument to the other, exploiting anxiety already present in non-Muslim parents, and the simultaneous rise of these incidents in Western cities in the past decade or so, all point to another concerted effort on the part of Muslim fundamentalists to challenge and disrupt within their host countries, imposing their wills and ideology, rather than to assimilate.

Here are some simple scientific facts, most of which Dr. Katme ignores:

• Babies do not acquire complete immunity through placental transfer or breast-feeding. If they did, thousands would not have died before the advent of antibiotics and vaccines, despite having been breast-fed.
  
  
• Immunity acquired through breast-feeding, depending upon specific disease, is not lasting, or as strong as that which is given through a vaccine. Immunity is about degree, not either/or.
  
  
• Keeping dangerous disease at bay or eliminating it depends upon “herd immunity”; that is, a substantial number of the population - at least 95% - must be inoculated, in order for those not inoculated or those with a lesser immunity, to be safe, and for the disease to remain quiet.
  
  
• No vaccine is 100% safe to every individual. Adverse reactions occur, but very rarely. The vast overall benefit to the general health of a community far outweighs the risk to a few.
  
  
• No vaccine renders 100% immunity to a disease. So let’s say your child has had shots for measles. The Muslim child in daycare has not, and your child is exposed. Because your child is not completely immune, or has a compromised immune system due to another medical condition, your child can contract measles.
  
  
• Before vaccines were introduced in the U.S., there were over 175,000 cases of diphtheria annually (1920-22), over 147,000 cases of whooping cough (1922-25), and over 4 million cases of measles (1951-54). German measles (rubella) rendered up to 20,000 infants born with mental defects and physical deformities in a year, and polio paralyzed 10,000 children.
  
  
• Across web sites, it is becoming fashionable for Muslims to cite the more aggressive claims of anti-vaccine advocates through the years, such as the idea that vaccines CAUSE the disease they are designed to prevent, or that vaccines cause autism or SIDS. According to the Center for Disease Control, the weight of currently available scientific evidence does not support the hypothesis that MMR vaccine causes autism. And as for vaccines causing the disease they are meant to prevent, this is scientifically impossible. Vaccines most often consist of a “killed” form of the virus - it can’t replicate, but simply stimulates the host to produce immunity.)

The biggest problem is that this reluctance to vaccinate poses a health risk outside the Muslim community. There are children who aren’t vaccinated because of pre-existing medical conditions, say a heart issue, HIV or cancer - these children would be at greater risk of infection from another unvaccinated child who is a carrier. Also at risk are children so young that they haven’t received a particular vaccine, or who haven’t yet received adequate boosters. The elderly are also at risk, as is anyone with a severely compromised immune system, such as those undergoing cancer treatments or suffering from AIDS. Once these people begin to contract a disease in numbers, it spreads. The “herd immunity” requirement is violated; if a large enough minority carries the disease, an epidemic can begin. And, if the disease begins to mutate into forms not covered under the vaccines that have already been given, everyone is in danger.

The science is complicated: suffice it to say that the reluctance of a minority within the general population to inoculate can endanger everyone, and in fact can result in an epidemic. In India, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan in recent years, large outbreaks have been seen as a direct result of the refusal of local populations to be inoculated. In Nigeria in 2004, a mass protest against polio vaccination was led by Muslims who railed that the vaccines were part of a U.S. plot to render Muslims sterile. Despite the assurances of the World Health Organization, the protest continued for months, and several children came down with polio. Some months later, as a direct result of this single Nigerian states’s refusal to vaccinate, a polio resurgence was seen across 10 nations, all of whom were previously polio-free!

In the U.S., the states set the vaccination legal mandates for daycare and schools. Currently, only 2 states do not allow “religious exemptions”. Of the 48 who do, 20 also allow “philosophical exemptions”. If the mandate exemptions in your schools allow religion to dictate your child’s safety - and thus that of your community - it could be a big problem.

POSTED BY/http://www.news.faithfreedom.org