State and national health officials say groups like Del Bigtree's are directly responsible for the measles outbreaks that struck Orthodox communities here and in New York City this year
By Lena H. Sun and Lena H. Sun National reporter focusing on health Email Bio Follow Ben Guarino Ben Guarino Reporter covering the practice and culture of science Email Bio Follow May 20 at 1:34 PM MONSEY, N.Y. — In a suburban shopping center an hour north of New York City, hundreds of mostly ultra-Orthodox Jews gathered in a sex-partitioned ballroom to hear leaders of the national anti-vaccine movement.
The turnout last week in this suburb hard hit by measles helps explain why New York has become ground zero in one of this country’s largest and longest-lasting measles outbreak in nearly 30 years. Even in a religious community grappling with more than 700 cases in Rockland County and New York City since last fall — among them, children on oxygen in intensive care units — anxious and confused parents said they came because they are afraid of vaccines and seeking guidance about what to do.
State and national health officials say groups such as Bigtree’s are directly responsible for the measles outbreaks that struck Orthodox communities here and in New York City this year. Through an aggressive social media campaign, pamphleting and traveling road shows that pop up in receptive and often insular communities, officials say, the anti-vaccine movement has produced pockets of unvaccinated children where the highly contagious and sometimes deadly disease can catch fire.
The modern anti-vaccine movement began about 40 years ago in response to legitimate concerns about the side effects of a pertussis vaccine. But it has metastasized into something far darker in the echo chamber of Facebook chat rooms, WhatsApp and YouTube — especially against a backdrop of rising suspicion of elites, including drugmakers, doctors and public health officials.
Barbara Loe Fisher Several hours after her eldest son — then 2½ — got his fourth shot to prevent diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus, Barbara Loe Fisher said she found him staring straight ahead as if he couldn’t see her. “When I called out his name, his eyelids fluttered, his eyes rolled back in his head, and his head fell to his shoulder,” she recalled.
Today, the National Vaccine Information Center in Sterling, Va., which she founded, is considered one of the most effective lobbyists for parental choice, combating efforts in New York and other states to make it harder for parents to opt out of vaccinating their children. To many parents, Wakefield’s thesis seemed believable because symptoms of autism first appear when children are about 12 months old — the same age they receive their first MMR vaccine, said Alison Singer, a New York City mother with a severely autistic daughter.
“About 15 to 20 percent of people with diagnoses of autism can now be told by their doctors why they have it,” Gordon said. “The moment we began expanding the vaccination program, our health has been declining in our children,” Bigtree said recently on a weekly live show he distributes on Facebook and YouTube. For his HighWire show, he has about 140,000 Facebook followers and regularly garners tens of thousands of views per YouTube video.
In an extraordinary public rebuke this month, three members of Kennedy’s family — including his brother, a former congressman, and his sister, the former lieutenant governor of Maryland — accused Kennedy of being “part of a misinformation campaign that’s having heartbreaking — and deadly — consequences.”
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