Category Archives: Vaccines

A Sad Tale of Measles in Canada

Epidemics/Pandemics, Health, Trust and Distrust, Vaccines

 

In 1988 Canada declared measles was totally eliminated from the country.  That was a happy day. But that was then; this is now. Sadly, things have changed and not for the better.  And Mennonites are central to this sad tale.

First, let’s look at Ontario, then let’s look at Alberta, and then Manitoba.

In May of this year, just over a month ago, CBC’s podcast  Front Burner tackled the subject of what it called “a measles epidemic in Canada.”  That is pretty strong language. Is it justified?

On that show Jayme Poisson pointed out that “Measles case numbers in Ontario are higher than the total registered cases of the entire United States. As of today, it is 1,646 cases since January.” Shockingly, she pointed out that measles was spreading on a per capita basis even faster in Alberta!

 Public health experts have said that unless Canada turns this around measles will again be endemic to our country. Why?  Because ignorance is on the rise. She did not say that. I said that.

CBC senior health reporter Jennifer Yoon explained how things had got out of control in Canada.

Hm. Just sticking with Ontario here, what do we know about how this outbreak started and spread? Yoon then jumped right in to a Mennonite connection:

 

“We know that it really started in October. So there was a wedding, a Mennonite wedding, in New Brunswick. Somebody went to the wedding and then came back to Ontario, and they started spreading measles. Public health officials said they never really got it under control, and the cases that we’re seeing right now are by and large connected with that outbreak. Not all, but most of them are.”

 

Think about that “most” measles cases in Canada are connected to that outbreak.  Poisson stepped in to make it clear that the CBC did not want to be heard blaming Mennonites. It wouldn’t do for the CBC to do that. This is what she said,

 

“I wanna be careful here about not blaming or unfairly singling out Mennonite communities, because, of course, we know that there are cases not in Mennonite communities. But we do know also that many of the outbreaks in the U.S. as well have been in Mennonite and other Anabaptist communities. And what do we know about why that is?”

I of course have no such limitations. Actually I do. I live here and would prefer not to be run out of town. Yoon did not want to stigmatize Mennonites:

 

“So what you said there about stigma is absolutely what public health officials are thinking about. We know for sure that these are communities that, um, have historic objections for vaccinations for generations. Public health officials have said that they have religious objections, they have historically low vaccination rates. But some of them have not said that these are Mennonite communities. Ontario’s top doctor, Kieran Moore, did come out at the beginning and said that these are Mennonite communities. But it doesn’t really matter if you’re Mennonite or not. If you’re unvaccinated, you’re not protected. So that’s the kind of messaging that public health has been trying to give.”

 

Let me say that I was brought up in a Mennonite community and attended regularly, a Mennonite church until I was 18.  And I have never heard anything about the ill effects of vaccines in church.  But a lot has changed since I was 18. Some Mennonites—not all—have developed some strange ideas about vaccines.

This issue came up in 2021 when there were discussions about religious freedom and Covid-19 vaccines. This astonished me. Like I said, I had never heard in our church or anywhere else that this was a religious issue.

What does religion have to do with vaccines? That’s for my next post.

Mennonites Spearhead the Charge of the Ignorant

Epidemics/Pandemics, Health, Mennonites, The Sleep of Reason, Trust and Distrust, Vaccines

 

I have already commented on how the dangerous measles outbreak in the southern USA.  Now there is more news of Mennonite leading the charge of the ignorant in Canada.

Decades of research around the world has shown that there are no miracle treatment for measles, but the M.M.R. measles vaccine is 97 percent effective in preventing the disease. That really is stunning success, yet it does not seem to impress the impressionable vaccine deniers in both Canada and the US. And many of those deniers, it turns out, are Mennonites.  Mennonites seem to be punching above their weight in turns of measles vaccine denial. This is not a record we Mennonites of which  should be proud.

 

Mennonites have been encouraged in their denial by Donald Trump and his Secretary of State.  In the United States approximately 82% of Evangelical Christians have consistently supported Donald Trump. No other group has been as loyal to Trump no matter what crimes he commits. Felon or not, Evangelicals like Trump. As a result, they also like Trump’s Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr.  I want to pursue that link. What is the fundamental basis of Evangelicals’ “faith” in Trump? Why is it so unshakeable?

I think that word “faith” is important and will come back to in future posts. Recently in the US the Americans have experienced the largest single measles outbreak in the past 25 years. I have already posted about this on March 1, 2025  (see https://themeanderer.ca/mennonites-lead-the-charge-against-health-protections/) I want to dig deeper into this weird connection between science denial and Mennonites. Actaully it is not that weird.

 

Recently, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has directed American health officials  to explore potential new treatments for the measles disease such as the effectiveness of vitamins, even though there is no significant scientific evidence to suggest vitamins might be the answer.  And let me be clear, there is nothing wrong with testing or studying new approaches to public health problems.  However, we must be careful not to deflect attention or resources away from more likely solutions as a result of such research.  It could be that knowing there is a possibility that vitamins will protect people, many might think it would be smart to avoid the proven and effective vaccines in favor of false hopes of more acceptable measures such as vitamins.

Frankly, I was very surprised to read in the New York Times about Mennonites have such a profoundly unwelcome influence in the United State. What is up with that? That is what I want to know. It will take me a few posts to get to the bottom of this.

 

This is what Teddy Rosenbluth of the New York Times said about Kennedy’s new approach:

“The decision is the latest in a series of actions by the nation’s top health official that experts fear will undermine public confidence in vaccines as an essential public health tool.”

 

 

Kennedy made the direction to his officials just as he was starting to feel a lot of backlash from the scientific community about his approach to the measles outbreak. Measles is sweeping through the American South-west, particularly in Mennonite communities where vaccination rates are so very low. Low vaccination rates inevitably mean more cases of measles because low rates erode group immunity.

In May of 2025 America experienced 930 cases of measles, most of which were associated with those communities and specifically Mennonite in those communities.  As Rosenbluth reported, “As an example of such a community, Mr. Kennedy pointed to the Mennonites in West Texas, who have experienced the brunt of the cases and hospitalizations in the current outbreak.”

 

This brings up the question that interests me. Why are Mennonites not trusting the science?

 

Vaccine Skeptic or Anti-vax?

Epidemics/Pandemics, Health, Trust and Distrust, Vaccines

 

R.F.K. Jr. has frequently denied that he is anti-vax despite the ample evidence to the contrary.  Dr. Paul A. Offit is another well-respected American pediatrician specializing in infectious diseases, vaccines, immunology, and virology. He is not a fan of R.F.K. Jr. In an interesting article in the New York Times he explained his view of Kennedy this way,

 

The news media labels Robert F. Kennedy Jr. a vaccine skeptic. He’s not. I’m an actual vaccine skeptic. In fact, everyone who serves with me on the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisory committee is a vaccine skeptic. Pharmaceutical companies must prove to us that a vaccine is safe, that it’s effective. Then and only then will we recommend that it be authorized or licensed for use by Americans.

 

Mr. Kennedy, on the other hand, is a vaccine cynic, failing to accept studies that refute his beliefs. He claims that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine causes autism, despite more than a dozen studies performed in seven countries on three continents involving thousands of children showing that it doesn’t.

 

Even though childhood vaccines have prevented more than 1 million deaths and 32 million hospitalizations in the past 30 years Kennedy says no vaccine is safe and effective.  That sounds pretty good to me.

Kennedy also claims vaccines were not properly studied before use. This also sounds good, but as Dr. Offit said, “When Mr”. Kennedy says he wants vaccines to be better studied, what he really seems to be saying is he wants studies that confirm his fixed, immutable, science-resistant beliefs. That’s not skepticism.”

 

As I have said before skepticism is good and important. We need skeptics to constantly keep scientists on their toes and alert to potential problems. Complacency is dangerous. But we need   skepticism based on good science and careful analysis. Not blather like that of so many vaccine skeptics. We must always remain skeptical of the skeptics too. Otherwise, they can do serious harm.

 

Dr. Offit says he is a skeptic. He needs proof that vaccines are safe and effective. He pointed out that he was on the Food and Drug Administration advisory committee which voted in favor of the  authorisation of the bivalent Covid vaccine which targeted both the original strain of the virus and Omicron variant, but he voted against its authorization because he was not convinced that the updated vaccine was better than the original. He said he and his colleagues debated the pros and cons vigorously.  Rigorous debate is essential for good science.

 

As a result he and his colleagues constantly ask question and examine new data and when warranted make changes. Sometimes the public is annoyed at the changes, but that is how science works. Nothing is baked in. Nothing is sacred. Even after the clinical trials are done they continue their surveillance systems because not all problems are picked up in the clinical trials. That was how they discovered the mRNA Covid-19 vaccines caused the heart condition myocarditis in about 1 in 50,000 people. They also discovered that the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine caused dangerous blood clotting in about 1 in 250,000. With that data they evaluated these rare harms against the enormous benefits and decided the vaccines should be continued. The benefits out weighed the harms.

 

Despite all this hard and effective scientific work he was annoyed when “Mr. Kennedy, on the other hand, has claimed that the Covid-19 vaccines, which have saved the lives of at least three million Americans, are “deadliest vaccine ever made.”

 

He knows that all vaccines have side-effects. It is impossible to avoid them. But he responded this way: “Yes, vaccines can cause side effects, but forgoing vaccination is also a risk… there are no risk-free choices.”

 

In other words, if you choose not to take the vaccine you are probably taking a much bigger risk.  Skeptics like R.F.K. Jr. make things harder for parents to make the right decision for their children because according to Dr. Offit, he “he has cited and ignored data that doesn’t support his conclusions.”  And that creates mistrust of vaccines and the authorities in charge of them and that can be very dangerous for society.

 

Dr. Offit in his article ended with the expression of an ominous concern: “Given the lack of appropriate guardrails that would normally prevent an anti-vaccine activist, science denialist and conspiracy theorist from heading the country’s most important public health agency, it’s a dangerous time to be a child in the United States.”

 

I would add, that is also true of Canada.

 

And that’s not where we want to be.

Mennonites Lead the Charge Against Health Protections

Death of Truth, Health, reason, The Sleep of Reason, Vaccines

 

I used to joke that Mennonites are taking over the world. It’s actually true. And its not a good thing. It’s actually very dangerous. But it is preventable by vaccines. Measles is one of the most contagious diseases in the world. And we have not been taking it seriously, because we have been so effective at combating it. And that is all thanks to vaccines for measles.

 

The United States has just experienced a measles outbreak in the American southwest, particularly in Texas. On February 26, 2025 for the first time in 20 years a child died of Measles in Texas. It was also the first time in nearly a decade in the US. Texas confirmed it had 124 cases mostly in Gaines County and 9 cases in Lea County New Mexico.

 

Here’s the shocking part:

“Most of the cases are occurring in a Mennonite community that largely homeschools, so there would not be school vaccine mandates,” explains Bill Moss, MD, MPH, a professor in Epidemiology and executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center.”

 

You see most schools in the US mandate that children enrolled in the school must be vaccinated against measles. Mennonites in these communities mainly homeschool. And these homes don’t get their children vaccinated.  As Mennonites sometimes say, “We trust in God. We don’t need vaccines.” They think God is stronger than any disease and all they need to do is appeal to God. Sadly, that’s not working so well.

 

As Aliza Rosen of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health said,

 

“At a time of rampant mis- and disinformation about vaccines, public health experts worry outbreaks like this may only become more common in a time of rampant mis- and disinformation about vaccines, public health experts worry outbreaks like this may only become more common.”

 

As Dr. Ron Cook, of Texas Tech University said on PBS News Hour,

 

“If you walk into a room and you have measles, 80 to 90 percent of those individuals within a week will come down with measles. All you have to do is go in that room, breathe, cough a couple of times, but 80 to 90 percent of those individuals in that room will become infected with measles if they’re not vaccinated.”

 

Even though the vast majority of Americans and Canadians believe in the safety and effectiveness and safety of vaccines, there are growing numbers of people who are skeptical about vaccines, unvaccinated people account for the almost all the new cases of measles. And sadly, those numbers include children.

 

As Caitlan Rivers, Senior Scholar, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, pointed out,

“In fact, 93 percent of people are vaccinated against measles. That is an enormous congruency in a population that otherwise can’t agree on a whole lot.”

 

Rivers also said she was troubled by misinformation coming from the newly Trump appointed secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who has made it clear that he questions vaccines.  All of us should question vaccines, but when we get clear answers from a wide majority of scientists and researchers, we should believe them until we learn for some reason they can’t be trusted. Unfortunately, many Mennonites in some communities don’t trust in the science. They do their own research on line or have faith.

 

Dr. Paul Offit, an expert on vaccines and one of the  committee advisers and director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said,

 

“I just fear that we are slowly sort of tearing apart the public health process that has basically served us well. I mean, we live 30 years longer than we did 100 years ago, primarily because of vaccines. And I just think vaccines have become, I think, following this pandemic, to some, a dirty word.”

 

Dr. Offit, like Caitlan Rivers lays a lot of blame at the feet of people like Robert F. Kennedy for spreading misinformation about vaccines that has influenced people like the home-schooling Mennonites. This is what he said:

 

“So, if you look at that Mennonite community, about 80 percent of those children were vaccinated. That’s not enough. It has to be in the mid-95 percent range to protect against this disease, measles, which is the most contagious infectious disease, more contagious than any other infectious disease.”

 

And so it will find those people who are unvaccinated and cause an infection. I think this was a line that was crossed. This is the first measles death in a child in almost 20 years. That’s a tragedy because, one, any death in the child is a tragedy.

 

This was a preventable death. We basically eliminated measles from this country by the year 2000. It’s come back largely because people have chosen not to vaccinate their children, in part because they’re scared of the vaccine, scared that it has safety issues like autism, something that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been promoting loudly and to many people for the last 20 years. And I think this is the result of that.

 

As a result Mennonites are bringing death to their communities—particularly children—because they are listening to misinformation rather than scientists. As a result children are at risk or even dying from a preventable disease. That’s bad.