Measles Outbreaks in Canada and Mexico Bring Grim Prognosis

px_eliezer_ · 2025-04-18T14:19:13+00:00

Canada has reported more than 730 cases this year, making this one of the worst measles outbreaks in the country since it declared the virus “eliminated” in 1998. Mexico has seen at least 360 measles cases and one death, most of them in the northern state of Chihuahua, according to Mexican health authorities. Many of the communities grappling with measles have large Mennonite populations that public health officials have linked to outbreaks. The multinational resurgence has concerned epidemiologists, who fear that simultaneous outbreaks near the U.S. border will make it more difficult to contain the virus…. The outbreak in Canada, which began in late 2024, has been “disproportionately affecting” people from Anabaptist communities, including Mennonite and Amish people, and can be traced back to a large Mennonite gathering in the fall, according to the Ontario Ministry of Health. MORE HERE: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/17/health/measles-texas-mexico-canada.html Mennonite and Amish communities are generally not anti-vax as such, but do tend to avoid interacting with the health care system. Also the communities are densely packed making disease spread easier. Finally, there is much interaction between the Mennonite communities in all 3 countries.

Thane_Bitter

urbanriot Check out the new propaganda at covid.gov

Sparkchaser

Thane_Bitter Check out the new propaganda at covid.gov

OMG. We have sunk to new depths. 😭

Somewhat-Reticent

Thane_Bitter Replaced where-to-get-vaccine advice with an “official story”.
Another budget cut? I suppose private enterprise will step up, to sell vaccines?

MichelR

Thane_Bitter Oh my…

ugly95

Astyanax I’m not going to deny conspiracists contributed to it. However more intelligent people who usually trusted doctors and scientists had that trust broken when those same people ordered their financial ruin ordering their businesses closed or out of a job. Sure many workers enjoyed being on the government dole being paid to sit at home to do nothing all that time but after that got cut off the country never was as good as it was.

It has to be pointed out how little people actually think about their contrarian narratives. It is precisely why these lies are so effective. People take something they think sounds good because it fits with their prior positions.

Two school age children have died of measles in the US, which means they are at least 6 years old. The recommendation is that a child be vaccinated at age 1. An adult has also died of measles.

That means that the parents who are responsible for their child dying of measles all made their decision not to vaccinate their child before April 2020. So, for these nonsense narrative about loss of trust in Public Health to be true, these parents would have had to already been affected by decisions made by Public Health (there were no lockdowns until the middle of March 2020, and the vaccines didn’t come out until 2021, and weren’t offered to everybody until about half a year later) and have already lost trust in Public Health within the first month of the pandemic.

These were not “intelligent people” that “usually trusted doctors and scientists”. They made their decisions before the pandemic. Not because of it.

And if you’re just going to limit the “intelligent people” that “usually trusted doctors and scientists” to the people that voted to elect leaders to oust them from ever having the power to do it again, then that also does not pass the sniff test. There was a clear ideological divide in the people that claim to have lost faith in Public Health. It was not about the decisions that were made by Public Health. It’s about what they were told to think about the decisions that were made by Public Health.

These “intelligent people” by what they voted for, are on the wrong side. It is insane logic that the “intelligent people” who lost trust in Public Health were right back then to do so, and were forced into making stupid decisions that led us to where we are now now. If you lost faith in Public health because you thought they overreacted to something and it made you reflexively make a dumb decision, then you were never a critical thinker. You were just fooled twice.

Pandemic preparation without romance: insights from public choice
Consider a pandemic. When early actions—such as testing and quarantine, ring vaccination, and local lockdowns—prevent a pandemic, those inconvenienced may question whether the threat was ever real. Indeed, one critic of this paper pointed to warnings about ozone depletion and skin cancer in the 1980s as an example of exaggeration and a predicted disaster that did not happen. Of course, one of the reasons the disaster didn’t happen was the creation of the Montreal Protocol to reduce ozone-depleting substances (Jovanović et al. 2019; Tabarrok and Canal 2023). The Montreal Protocol is often called the world’s most successful international agreement, but it is not surprising that we don’t credit it for skin cancers that didn’t happen. I call this the prophet’s paradox: the more the prophet is believed beforehand, the less they are credited afterward.

The prophet’s paradox can undermine public support for proactive measures. The very effectiveness of these interventions creates a perception that they were unnecessary, as the dire outcomes they prevented are never realized. Consequently, policymakers face a challenging dilemma: the better they manage a potential crisis, the more likely it is that the public will perceive their actions as overreactions. Success can paradoxically erode trust and make it more difficult to implement necessary measures in future emergencies.

px_eliezer_

Thane_Bitter covid.gov

That site now includes the full [Majority Report] from the House Oversight Committee, but it does not include the [Minority Report] which by definition is from the other party….and has a different POV.

This is not taking place in a vacuum, it directly relates to the huge fight going on right now with China. The timing is not a coincidence, notwithstanding that there are many valid points raised for other reasons.

[deleted]

ugly95 This narrative is the biggest crock that constantly gets repeated. It was not public health that sowed the seeds of mistrust. Actual experts being wrong is not what diminished trust. It was the active disinformation campaigns by self-interested conspiracists with no expertise lying constantly about the evidence, and baselessly accusing actual experts of misconduct, and the useful idiots that amplified these self-promoters, that destroyed public trust. And it’s precisely why a group of liars managed to fail upwards into positions of power, and are currently in the process of getting revenge on the institutions that dared to criticize them.

Dude, wtf are you talking about? The mainstream media, social media was 100% in cooperation with the governments and public health, pushing only ONE message and one solution.

There were medical experts who were silenced, banned and cancelled because they dared to question the status quo. There was no discussion allowed.

Somewhat-Reticent

[deleted] it’s precisely why

Ah, no. Those were “in power” and decided how it was to be handled.

px_eliezer_

[deleted] Dude, wtf are you talking about? The mainstream media, social media was 100% in cooperation with the governments and public health, pushing only ONE message and one solution.

There were plenty of different messages.

That’s why many people were pushing for Ivermectin and sundry other treatnents, and that’s why the Great Barrington Declaration was issued in October 2020.

One of the main authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, Dr Jayanta Bhattacharya, now is the Director of the NIH.

This in and of itself is a remarkable role-switching, whether it is delicious or terrible depends on POV.

AFAIK there was indeed less dissent in Canada (despite the convoys) compared to the USA.

We Americans tend to be a more ornery lot, we have more guns, we have less politeness, at least SOMEWHAT more media diversity, and stronger free speech protections.

Not to mention, we’re the ones that threw out the Crown, 249 years ago.

WebinTheWorld

I think that adults over 18 can make their own choices for THEMSELVES but if you dont vaccinate a kid that is child abuse and the goverment should step in.

WebinTheWorld

Astyanax Those that had nothing to lose from lockdowns and other countermeasures could afford to sit back in their homes watching their fat direct deposits hit their bank accounts every month undisturbed (if not increased) throughout the pandemic pontificated about how important it was for them and everyone else to “follow the science” and “save lives”

I didnt know anyone like that. Most people you denigrate like that worked from home and contributed toward society. They were brave and did the right thing

Somewhat-Reticent

WebinTheWorld You’re entitled to your opinion.

Thane_Bitter

[deleted] I wish they could have, having a man that later would be a convicted felon suggest that enjusting bleach was a good idea did not need to be broadcast. Notions are not ideas, and sure as hell aren’t theories.

But you should be over the moon now with all the alternative explanations of how the world actually works.

ugly95

Astyanax Hardly. Those that had nothing to lose from lockdowns and other countermeasures could afford to sit back in their homes watching their fat direct deposits hit their bank accounts every month undisturbed (if not increased) throughout the pandemic pontificated about how important it was for them and everyone else to “follow the science” and “save lives”. Meanwhile those that owned and ran businesses saw their dreams forever destroyed by some public health order preventing them from ever having customers again.

This is perfectly exemplified in your quoted article showing the abject obtuseness to how economically catastrophic the pandemic was to individual lives in calling that an “inconvenience”.

Nobody should take anyone seriously who claims “ajbect obtuseness” at calling something an “inconvenience” when that same person (i) tries to equate people dying, and having long term illness with people having their business shut down and (ii) makes the exaggerated claim that “public health orders prevented them from ever having customers again”.

It’s so easy to recognize when people parrot the contarian narratives of people like Jay Bhattacharya, which completely undermines any claim that people with alternate opinions were actually silenced. He is a guy that, even now, treats having a YouTube video taken down as something more problematic than people dying.

The last generation of scientific leaders didn’t think they needed to care about power, nor fight the war of public opinion. The result was charlatans like Bhattacharya got elevated into positions that enable them to tear down academia, all because they were incapable of dealing with accurate criticism.

The propaganda campaign to reframe studying disinformation as part of the censorship industrial complex to suppress their contrarian views was effective because people that were actually expert treated the debate as if it was a debate about facts, when it was really about particular individuals seeking clout and political gain.

Unsurprising to see someone repeating that narrative bring up this idea of the laptop class that got to sit at home and collect a paycheque. Considering that the very people, like Bhattacharya and Makary, were those very same people. They did not treat patients. This is why they said things that no doctor that actually did treat patients would actually say. They were the laptop class doctors that did not bear any responsibility for their own actions.

The current medical establishment in the US got famous by going on FOX News and the alternate media and saying how well they would have handled COVID. They got praised for their opinions but not for actually doing anything. It was opinion pageantry.

It’s very easy to loudly proclaim what you would have done. Especially when you are willing to be dishonest about what was actually happening. Actually governing in the real world is not as easy. Which is why when those very people were put in charge, they made a disaster of things.

Now that those exact people are actually in power, we are seeing what they actually would have done. And they have demonstrated that they are completely incompentent.

And, yet it wasn’t the “intelligent people” that became “skeptical” that managed to figure out that’s exactly what these people were. With all their skepticism, they just happened to miss out on the most obvious thing.
And somehow, everyone else already knew and were saying so for years.

px_eliezer_

ugly95 Considering that the very people, like Bhattacharya and Makary, were those very same people. They did not treat patients. This is why they said things that no doctor that actually did treat patients would actually say. They were the laptop class doctors that did not bear any responsibility for their own actions.

This is true of Jay Bhattacharya, he finished his M.D. program but never did any internship or residency afterwards, and thus never received any state medical license nor anything beyond such as board certification. Simultaneous with his M.D. program he was doing a Ph.D. in Economics and soon after went to work for the RAND Corporation. He’s far more of an economist than a physician.

Marty Makary however after his M.D. (and also an M.P.H.) did extensive training in surgery, and is a prominent surgeon at Johns Hopkins. He does a lot on the public policy side too, but his medical experience is extensive and well-respected.

Dks01

My local Public Health unit’s blunt measles messaging.

InternetJeff

It seems that the US was was declared free of circulating measles in 2000.

The United States was declared free of circulating measles in 2000, with 911 cases from 2001 to 2011. In 2014 the CDC said endemic measles, rubella, and congenital rubella syndrome had not returned to the United States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measles#United_States

It would seem that reintroduction of measles is from other places.

Perhaps pressure ought to be brought to bear on these other places to control and eradicate measles in these other places. It apparently worked for Smallpox.

px_eliezer_

InternetJeff Perhaps pressure ought to be brought to bear on these other places to control and eradicate measles in these other places. It apparently worked for Smallpox.

Attention has to be paid to BOTH—foreign and domestic.

(And for that matter, if we DO want to help stamp out disease in other countries—which DOES HELP US TOO—we should not be dismantling the US diplomatic presence in Africa, and we should not be killing our foreign aid programs, both of which are being done right now).

px_eliezer_

US to end funding for childhood vaccines in poorest countries, document shows
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/trump-administration-end-funding-child-vaccines-developing-countries-new-york-2025-03-26/
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/26/health/usaid-cuts-gavi-bird-flu.html

Where’s Plumpy’Nut? A lifesaving food for malnourished kids is caught up in U.S. cuts
https://www.npr.org/sections/goats-and-soda/2025/04/25/g-s1-62165/malnutrition-children-plumpynut-lifesaving-u-s-aid

US cuts to HIV programs in Africa threaten to set progress back to ‘dark ages,’ experts say
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/hivaids/us-cuts-hiv-programs-africa-threaten-set-progress-back-dark-ages-experts-say

Dks01

InternetJeff The reason small pox was eradicated and polio almost eradicated was that national governments made millions of dollars commitments to providing vaccine, delivery systems and personnel to the WHO and the UN to do it. That has disappeared, apparently. Without G7 leadership, expect little change.

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