Unvaccinated Amish help create largest US measles outbreak in 20 years

I’ve come across way too much information over the years about amish animal abuse. Just google: Ohio amish puppy mills — it’s a well documented fact that they abuse and kill dogs and horses. An interview from someone who had rescued hundreds of dogs near death from amish puppy mills said they have as much empathy for their dogs as they would have for a carrot. how’s that for a supposedly spiritual God fearing sect?

I’ve had measles twice. At my age now it would threaten my life. Damn these people to hell.

Amish measles. Ewwwww.

This is a Quote from :
http://amishreligiousfreedom.org/q_and_a_no2.htm
“The elderly Bishop informed me that actions and good deeds are very important and that the Amish do believe that they are a constant “witness” to God by the way they dress, provide assistance to those in need (both Amish and non-Amish) and the way they behave in all matters. That is, although they live their lives so as “to be pleasing to God” seven days a week in all aspects of their everyday lives, the Old Order Amish are not crusaders for the “word of God.” They are not out to “save” or “convert” the non-believer, especially a non-Amish individual. They do not hold revivals of any sort, do not send missionaries anywhere, do not seek to bring new members to the church outside their own children and do not go door to door passing out religious literature. Their Bible tells them to be concerned about their own salvation and, “..to take care of those of your own house… ” (I Timothy 5:8) both spiritually and physically. In addition, as opposed to other fundamentalist groups, an Amish person will never verbally state, “I am saved,” since only God can know and make that judgement. But, they do view themselves as “a congregation of the righteous. ” (Titus 2:14).” I am curious to find out if this is correct information…. if it is, then why were ther so called Amish “missionaries ” in the Philippines in the first place?

If the Amish were active in the outside world, they could have an all-Amish government in Holmes County, Ohio. But they’re not. They quit (their own) school at 14. Their bishops decide almost everything for their individual churches, such as whether a bicycle is a banned mechanical conveyance or okay to ride. Many don’t know that Switzerland has French and Italian regions, only German, where the original 400 families were driven out of. Because of inbreeding, they have a high incidence of congenital defects, which they take care of themselves. They are pacifists. The married men wear beards but no mustaches, which Swiss officers wore.
There’s so much more. Do a little research.

I understand what you are saying Prof, but I do wonder if the idea of vaccines is unknown to them or if they are not vaccinated by religious choice.
If we missed them shame on us. If they chose to be missed it’s a different matter.
If you want to handle that rattlesnake fine. Just don’t do it in my house.

Thanks for being willing to consider another point of view.

What you had in mind was more like the Mormon (and other authorative religions) model, where certain principles and practices are divinely ordained until they are inconvenient and must be divinely abolished or modified.

Right. And how the technology impacts jobs in the community is very important. You can’t drive a car because it puts the person who makes buggies out of a job. As well as as the blacksmith who shoes your horses and the people who provide leather for the harness, and so on. It’s not a bad philosophy in that regard. We may need to embrace it to some degree in the not to distant future when all of our semi-skilled jobs are replaced by our robot overlords.

Our social organization has often been on thoughtful. We provided marriage for only some couples not for all. We mandated health inoculations through the schools and not by the state. By doing so we missed the Amish. I wonder if we had Universal Health care whether we would have missed the Amish.

Ironically many of the foodies and the greens are advocating that we all lead lives more like the Amish. In the absence of alternative energies the Amish way of life is the only truly sustainable agriculture.

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The Mennonites are very similar in their lack of immunization. I had the distinct displeasure of watching a 14 yo girl die from tetanus in our ICU as a resident. It was horrible watching someone in the flower of youth die from a preventable disease.
Given the fact that the state has to respond to these outbreaks (i.e. provide resources, treatment, etc), the state has an interest in mitigating the impact of such outbreaks. It therefore behooves the state to step in and vaccinate these kids to limit the damage.

You misunderstand.

Their concern is not based on the perceived evil of specific technologies or devices, but on the potential impact on their homes and communities.

The phone in a shed in the back yard is not there because the phone is evil, but because it is less of a temptation and disruption when it is not in the house.

Similarly, riding in an automobile when making a trip that isn’t practical by other means has much less impact on a family than owning (and, therefore, driving) one.

Non-Amish parents make similar decisions for their own families. Consider the impact of a TV in a child’s room versus a TV kept unplugged in a corner of the living room, for example.

There are many separate Amish communities. They each decide for themselves how and what kind of technology to use.

Riding in a car or plane doesn’t seem to be a problem, since they are not driving it. Some will have phones, but in a shack in the back yard. Some are members of the community, but not fully baptized in the church, so some rules bend easier. Lots of hidden cell phones.

I shop at an indoor Amish market. They are traditionally dressed, but wear sneakers and happily take Visa.

It’s been due to the rise of ‘religious and personal conscience’ legislation advanced by fundamentalists and their hyper-conservative allies in federal, state, and local governments. The same rules which would’ve gotten us sent home from school as kids for failing to produce a vaccination record have been watered down, nullified, and obliterated — just so selfish gits can mooch off the herd immunity of others.

How did they get back and forth to the Philippines? Quite a long swim for the poor horses.
Very strange to me that they were allowed to go there without being vaccinated first, and return since they skipped the vaccinations.
At least when I was a kid, you had no choice in the matter… maybe it was just my parents, but I thought it was actually the government who required us to get various vaccines before going there – maybe it was just a military thing?

I am not terribly familiar with the Amish beyond the famous religious aversion to modern technology like electricity and indoor plumbing. Can anyone tell me if that aversion to modern technology and convenience applies to things like health care (I know that there are other religious sects that do not accept blood transfusions or surgeries – we hear about those groups periodically as their kids die from completely treatable things like infections or appendicitis) and air travel? If there is a religious aversion to modern health care is it a surprise that the missionaries didn’t get vaccinated? If there is a religious aversion to air travel how did they get there? Given that the typhoon was late in the calendar year (based on John’s first screen cap) and they are all ready back to spread the disease at home, I assume that some form of modern travel was conducted given the 7300 odd miles from the West Coast to Manila. I mean it is 8300 or so miles from Columbus to Manila, being rather generous with land travel (30 miles per day is pretty good for walking/horse buggy travel) and sea travel (10 knots/11 mph) it would take about 4 months round trip so a return leg of about 2 months – I am not completely sure but a 60 day period should be long enough to cover the infectious period for exposure prior to leaving the country (so it should have run its course by the time one reaches ones destination assuming no modern conveyance was used).

Re: why the health department isn’t more involved.
Government agencies don’t impose immunization requirements on adults (except for certain professions). School attendance usually requires some level of vaccination for children. However, each state has its own rules regarding school attendance and vaccination. I don’t know whether the Amish attend school or are considered home-schooled (which might not have the same requirement). But it almost doesn’t matter what their school situation is because Ohio’s vaccine requirement is virtually non-existent.

“Quick Fact: A pupil who presents a written statement of the pupil’s parent or guardian in which the parent or guardian declines to have the pupil immunized for reasons of conscience, including religious convictions, is not required to be immunized. Medical exemptions are also allowed.”
http://www.nvic.org/Vaccine-Laws/state-vaccine-requirements/ohio.aspx
That exemption means that any child can be exempted from vaccine requirements for just about any reason.

Of course, the outbreak needed other non-vaccinated people, right? I assume it was an outbreak outside of the Amish community?

If so, that means the idiots who fear vaccinating their kids because it may result in autism are the real problem. A lot of kids are not getting vaccinated because of these morons and their absurd theories about vaccination and illnesses, led by the Michelle Bachmann’s and other dim fobs.

The impulse to go help is admirable. But yes, the decision not to take care to protect the health of others is well described as ‘hubris and stupidity.’ And I would also add ‘selfish.’

As you said in the post, the lack of vaccinations could have resulted in the Amish missionaries infecting the very people they claimed to want to help. Plus, going into a typhoon-devastated area, it’s foolish not to assume one of the obvious results will be diseases running rampant — and thus putting everyone back home at risk upon return.

Of course. How hard is it to say “hmm, I’m going to a developing-ish country that’s just been devastated by a typhoon, disease will likely be rampant, maybe I should ask someone whether I need any vaccinations?” Of course, it’s worse than that – whoever organized the trip must have known about vaccinations, and the need to check beforehand, as they must organize these things all the time, you’d think. AND, it’s no like it’s news that measles is a problem everywhere and every child and adult should be vaccinated, period. So many levels of hubris and stupidity in this story.

They wouldn’t have known because they don’t follow the modern media closely but they should have thought to inquire about precautions before they went. Regardless, the old Vietnamese Buddhist saying applies: “No good deed goes unpunished.”