Less than 150 women attend a pro-vaccine event in Monsey

Less than 150 women participated in a vaccine education program in Monsey, NY, less than a month after the same hall was filled with hundreds of men and women for a symposium on vaccines.

The women's event in Monsey, a town in Rockland County with a large Orthodox Orthodox population, was organized by a coalition of orthodox Jewish pro-vaccine groups on Monday night, local newspaper News reported.

It's for women that they feel comfortable asking questions, immunization activist Shoshana Bernstein told the newspaper. She also called women the "guardians of health in the family".

Bernstein is the author, along with the Orange County Health Department, of a vaccine information booklet entitled "Tzim Gezint," which means "be healthy" in Yiddish. It has been distributed to the Jewish community of Rockland.

The program allowed women to visit booths and ask questions of doctors and other health professionals.

The event took place less than a month after a symposium with leaders of the anti-vaccination movement, which involved hundreds of haredim. This event brought together a range of stakeholders who challenge the medical consensus and urge families not to vaccinate their children. Among them, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, the British doctor whose study linking measles vaccines to autism was controversial, via Skype; and pediatrician Lawrence Palevsky.

The Orthodox communities of New York and Rockland County have been at the center of the largest measles outbreak since 1992. The New York City Department of Health and Mental Health announced Thursday that "the health care and mental health of New York City has been announced. there were 550 confirmed cases of measles in New York between September 2018 and May 29. Rockland County officials said 254 cases of measles were reported there on May 28.