Biological war: Williamsburg residents sue the city for the right not to vaccinate

Five Williamsburg residents are fighting for the right not to vaccinate themselves and their children in a growing outbreak of measles in Brooklyn. They sued the Ministry of Health for the purpose of canceling an emergency health declaration which imposed heavy fines for unvaccinated residents.

The plaintiffs, who lodged a complaint on Monday in the Brooklyn Supreme Court, argued that the approximately 300 known cases of life-threatening illness did not justify the city's decision to override their religious objections to the MMR vaccine, according to their lawyer. .

"We do not believe that the so-called" epidemic "has reached a level requiring an extreme response of forcing vaccination," said Robert Krakow, a lawyer practicing at the bar in Manhattan, specializing in the prosecution of injuries related to vaccination.

Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot announced on April 9 that unvaccinated residents of four Williamsburg postal codes – where about 250 of the 285 measles cases had been identified – would be punishable by fines of up to $ 1,000. hatching, which exclusively affected members of Orthodox Jewish communities in the borough.

And while Krakow's clients represent a mix of Jewish and non-Jewish residents of Williamsburg, they all oppose vaccination for religious reasons and claim that the city's latest move to stem the spread of the virus is an exaggerated response and that less drastic measures, such as quarantining infected people, should have been explored first.

"We do not think the city should force people to get vaccinated," said Krakow. "Quarantine can be imposed on people with active infections."

The measles virus can be contagious for weeks before symptoms manifest, and the lawyer said that he was unaware of the fact that several cities in the Williamsburg yeshiva had been cited by the city for admitting unvaccinated students among an on-going exclusion order, including a school where more than 20 students had been infected. , according to the Department of Health.

Complainants further allege that inoculation can actually contract and spread measles, and that vaccination "[enhances] the risk of harm to the public "through a process called erasure of the virus.

"It's something that happens, and we do not know much about it," Krakow said.

Viral shedding refers to the process by which viruses spread, but is a term used by members of the anti-vaccination movement to spread the myth that vaccines cause epidemics, according to a Science-Based Medicine report.

Some vaccines use weakened versions of live viruses, but the MMR vaccine does not actually belong to it and does not involve viral shedding, according to the Immunization Partnership, a non-profit organization that advocates the vaccination.

Measles is an extremely contagious, airborne disease that claimed the lives of 400 to 500 people a year before the MMR vaccination program was launched in 1963, according to the Center for Disease Control.

Barbot did not exceed his authority by issuing the city's declaration requiring the use of vaccines, after attempts to educate the community and excluding unvaccinated children from the Kings County Yeshiva failed to stop the spread of the disease, according to a spokesman for the city's legal department.

"The municipality is empowered to take action to address the very serious danger posed by this measles epidemic," Nick Paolucci said. "The US Supreme Court upheld the right of states and localities to prescribe vaccines to stop epidemics."

Updated April 15, 2019 at 3:12 pm

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