Anti-vax parents lose in New York court and face heavy fines if they do not vaccinate

A Brooklyn judge on Thursday rejected the petition of five anonymous anti-vaccine mothers who tried to block the city's recent vaccination mandate in the midst of the country's largest measles epidemic in decades.

And the city has not wasted time to enforce its confirmed order. As the judge made his decision Thursday, city health officials imposed the first sanctions on offenders, according to the New York Times. Officials sent convocations to parents of three children for not vaccinating children, even after city officials determined that they had been exposed to the dangerous viral disease.

Measles is so contagious that up to 90% of exposed people who are not vaccinated or otherwise exposed may become ill, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The extreme contagion of measles is due in part to the fact that once it is thrown into the air by a cough or sneeze, it can remain suspended in the air and remain contagious until two o'clock . Anyone who is vulnerable to breathing the virus or touching contaminated surfaces can detect it.

With the continued exposure of unvaccinated children, such as the three children of the parents penalized, city health officials expect the epidemic to continue to break down. ;aggravate. By April 18, the authorities had confirmed 359 cases in the outbreak that began last October. This is up from 285 confirmed cases just ten days ago.

Parents of three children – from three separate households – face a $ 1,000 fine if an officer confirms the summons to a hearing. If the parents do not respond to the summons or do not appear at the hearing, they will be fined $ 2,000.

New York City Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot said on Thursday that officials had not made the decision to give the mandate – and the sanctions related to it – lightly. "It was a dramatic response to a serious problem," she said, according to the Times.

Earlier this week, health department lawyers vigorously defended the court's mandate. On the basis of the lawsuit (PDF) filed by the anonymous mothers, their lawyer stated that the order was "excessive, it was coercive". City lawyers responded that the spread of the epidemic had accelerated and remained a serious public health problem. They also noted that the objections to maternal immunization were based on fictitious and discredited scientific evidence.

The judge in the case, Judge Lawrence Knipel, sided with the city, calling it a rare but necessary response to a dangerous epidemic.