Texas legislator calls vaccine research "witchcraft"

by



[ad_1]

"Call on our elected leaders from TX to say" NO MAS "and to defend our children!" The researcher, Peter Hotez, tweeted, imploring lawmakers to remove the laws on exemptions leading to an increase in the number of unvaccinated children.

A Texas lawmaker fought back, triggering enmity on Twitter.

In Texas, Jonathan Stickland, representative of the State of Texas, told him, "Do our favor and take care of your business.Parental rights are more important to us than your" science "rewarding."

Hotez replied, "Wow, it's impressive, from a member of the Texas House of Representatives."

The legislator then described the vaccine researcher's work as "witchcraft".

Stickland has not responded to a request for comment.

The American Academy of Pediatrics said, "Vaccines are safe, vaccines are effective, vaccines are saving lives."
Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, was harassed as part of her advocacy work. But he made it clear that he had not been specifically targeted by a member of the Texas House of Representatives until now.
His son is dead. And then the anti-vaxers attacked it

"It's really amazing," Hotez said. "I do not know what he was thinking specifically about targeting an elector of this kind, I would have thought that some of the House's ethics rules would stop you." It's kind of an abuse of power."

The number of measles cases reported this year in the United States has risen to 764, according to US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Hotez and other public health officials worry that one of the major contributing factors is the vaccine exemption for non-medical reasons.

They called for increased government intervention.

In 2015, California got rid of religious and philosophical exemptions after a measles outbreak in the region. According to the CDC, the percentage of California nursery schools benefiting from such exemptions increased from 2.5% in the 2014-2015 school year to less than 0.1% in the 2017- 2017 school year. 2018.

Hotez said that Strickland's comments show that the anti-vax movement has become mainstream.

"He is now fully integrated into the public life of this country," Hotez said. "This shows how ubiquitous the anti-vaccine movement is at the moment, and now trying to start dismantling it will be very hard work."

Michael Nedelman of CNN contributed to this report.

[ad_2]

Source link