Category Archives: News

News

Threat of Measles Outbreak on Martha’s Vineyard After Unvaccinated Child Tests Positive

Public health officials are worried about a possible Measles outbreak on Martha’s Vineyard after an unvaccinated child was diagnosed with the disease last week:

“While the child was immediately identified and subsequently isolated from the community, we know that individuals on the island were exposed to the virus during a phase of the illness in which the patient is infectious but has no symptoms,” the hospital said in a statement.

Measles can be very contagious to children and adults who are not vaccinated against it. Symptoms are similar to a cold at first, but a red blotchy rash soon appears.

Anyone who thinks they might have measles should call their doctor first instead of going directly to a doctor’s office or a hospital.

Although the child was visiting Martha’s Vineyard from abroad, this case is likely in keeping with findings from earlier this month, that anti-vaccine parents tend to cluster in rich, white areas.

News

Washington Post Editorial Board: Assisted Dying ‘A Humane Way To End Life’

Following a hearing on a bill in the District of Columbia—modeled on Oregon’s law—to allow physician-assisted dying, the Washington Post editorial board has come out in favor of the measure:

The issue stirs strong emotions. Some opponents, including the Catholic Church, cite religious or moral grounds, seeing any form of assisted dying as anathema to teachings that life is never to be taken. Some physicians believe the practice violates their oath only to heal, and some disability rights activists fear that they will be vulnerable to abuses. Others warn of a slippery slope to euthanasia.

Oregon’s 18 years of experience do not confirm any of these fears. Enacted in 1997, Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act allows terminally ill adults who are residents of the state to obtain and use prescriptions from their physicians for self-administered lethal doses. Stringent protections include a life expectancy of less than six months, a finding of mental capability, a concurring opinion from a second doctor, mandatory discussion of hospice and other options, waiting periods and more.

Oregonians have made sparing use of the law, with 859 deaths as of Feb. 2 . The state collects data on each case, and there have been no reports of coerced or wrongly qualified assisted deaths. The typical patient is about 71, suffering from terminal cancer, well-educated, with health insurance and enrolled in hospice. About one-third of prescriptions were never used, suggesting some terminally ill people are comforted by knowing they have an alternative to extensive suffering should they need it.

Read the full article here.

News

AMA: End Personal, Religious Vaccination Exemptions

Bruce Japsen of Forbes reports on a significant development at the American Medical Association:

The American Medical Association endorsed an end to non-medical exemptions for immunization, saying the nation’s largest doctor group would throw its considerable lobbying clout behind state and national efforts to halt personal and religious exemptions from vaccinations for children entering schools.

The vote today by the AMA’s policy-making House of Delegates to seek more stringent state and federal immunization requirements comes at a critical time opponents of vaccination exemptions are successfully lobbying lawmakers in California and elsewhere for legislation to end non-medical exemptions from vaccination. Last December, a highly publicized outbreak of measles at Disneyland sickened more than 130 Californians.

You can read the full report here.

News

California: Tell Your State Senator to Support Patient Choice at the End of Life

Today the Center for Inquiry’s Office of Public Policy launched an urgent advocacy alert regarding a piece of legislation under consideration in the California Senate:

Time is running out! The California Senate has until June 5 to approve a bill that would legalize physician-assisted dying, or else the bill will automatically lapse — and the Center for Inquiry (CFI) needs your help to get it passed before the deadline.

SB 128, the End of Life Option Act, would authorize “an adult who meets certain qualifications, and who has been determined by his or her attending physician to be suffering from a terminal illness, as defined, to make a request for medication prescribed pursuant to these provisions for the purpose of ending his or her life.” The bill would also establish procedures for making these requests.

You can read more and take action here.

 

News

It’s Time to Eliminate Religious Exemptions From Medical Care

Inspired by the California Senate’s recent efforts to repeal the state’s exemption from vaccine requirements, Jerry Coyne argues on Slate that lawmakers across the United States should repeal religious exemptions from medical care:

As preventable diseases like measles and whooping cough are reappearing in the United States, many anti-vaxxers are re-evaluating their opposition to immunization, and others are questioning nonmedical exemptions from vaccine requirements. The California state Senate, for instance, just overruled a long-standing law that permitted parents with religious and philosophical reservations to send their children to public and private schools without their shots.

This is a sound decision: Vaccinations are safe and essential for the health of our society. We cannot allow philosophy or faith to trump public health. But denying children potentially life-saving vaccines is just one part of the problem; I’d like to eliminate even more exemptions: those now enshrined in many laws permitting religious parents to withhold scientific medical care from their children in favor of faith healing.

Keep reading here.

News

Urgent! California: Tell Your State Senator to End “Personal Belief” Vaccine Exemptions

From the Center for Inquiry’s Office of Public Policy:

California Senate Bill 277 — a bill that would end vaccination exemptions for children based on their parents’ beliefs — passed all 3 of its Senate committee votes. It now sits before the Senate awaiting a full and final vote, as early as this week! The Center for Inquiry urges you to support SB 277 and take action below to contact your state senator now!

Take action here.

 

News

Supreme Court Rejects Appeal of Gay Conversion Therapy Ban

The Hill reports on a significant development regarding gay conversion therapy bans:

The Supreme Court has decided not to consider New Jersey’s ban on gay conversion therapy.

The high court rejected a case Monday challenging a law Gov. Chris Christie (R) passed in August 2013 prohibiting state-licensed counselors from offering therapy services that try to change a minor’s sexual orientation.

Licensed therapists Tara King and Ronald Newman appealed the New Jersey Circuit Court of Appeals decision to uphold the state ban. They argue New Jersey’s law violates their state and federal rights to free speech and freedom of religion under the First Amendment.

On behalf of their minor clients, King and Newman further argued that New Jersey’s law interferes with clients’ rights to determine their own sexual identity and parents’ fundamental right to direct the upbringing of their children.
In the opinion, Judge Freda Wolfson said the New Jersey law regulates conduct, not speech. There is “no indication in the record that religion was a motivating factor for passing the law,” she added.

“From its plain language, the law does not seek to target or burden religious practices or beliefs,” she wrote. “Rather, it bars all licensed mental health providers from engaging in [conversion therapy] with minors, regardless of whether that provider or the minor seeking [conversion therapy] is motivated by religion or motivated by any other purpose.”

Keep reading here.

News

Reports Detail Violations of the Affordable Care Act

Two studies by the National Women’s Law Center have found that many insurance companies are still charging for birth control, exploiting loopholes that may take years to close. From Jezebel:

In two “State of Coverage” reports … the NWLC found that many major insurers are ignoring the ACA’s new rule that FDA-approved birth control methods should be covered without a co-pay. Insurers do things like putting all hormonal birth control methods together into one category, then pay for just one or two of them. Others don’t cover sterilization, although it’s an approved birth control method that some women might choose, or impose arbitrary age limits, refusing to cover birth control for women over 50. (Which raises the question: do they think women are continuing to take birth control after 50 for the hell of it? Presumably they’re doing it because they can still get pregnant and would rather not.)

The NWLC also found that insurers are putting odd limits on things like maternity leave and breastfeeding supplies, things that are also supposed to be well-covered under the ACA. (Those odd limits include things like refusing to cover more than one ultrasound for a pregnant person; most people get at least two, possibly more if there are complications.)

You can read the reports here.

News

Center for Inquiry Testifies at FDA Hearing on Regulation of Homeopathy

From the Center for Inquiry’s Office of Public Policy:

The Center for Inquiry (CFI) was invited and today delivered oral testimony at the Food and Drug Administration’s first review of its policies regarding the regulation of homeopathic products in more than 25 years.

Michael De Dora, director of CFI’s Office of Public Policy, delivered CFI’s testimony during on the first of a two-day public hearing at the FDA’s White Oak Campus in Silver Spring, MD. His testimony, however, was presented not only behalf of CFI, “but also on behalf of dozens of doctors and scientists associated with CFI and its affiliate program, the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, with whom we work on these matters.”

In his testimony, De Dora briefly reviewed the scientific evidence on homeopathy, illustrated the harm caused by homeopathy, and proposed actions the FDA should take to hold homeopathic products to the same standards as non-homeopathic drugs in order to fulfill its mandate to protect the American public.

You can read more, including the full testimony, here.

News

Despite Anti-Vaxxer Deluge, CA Senate Health Committee Forwards Bill to End “Personal Belief” Vaccine Exemptions

SB277, the proposed California bill that would end “personal belief” exemptions from vaccination in the state, moved closer toward a full Senate vote after the Senate Health Committee voted 6-2 to approve it.

The bill next faces votes in the Senate Education, Judiciary, and Appropriations committees. California residents can send a message to their senators in seconds using our pre-made action alert here.

The Senate Health Committee’s approval of the bill is all the more heartening because it came, apparently, in the face of the usual horde of anti-vaccine protestors:

For more than 11/2 hours, an extraordinary wave of parents and children from across the state crept one by one to a microphone to implore the Senate Health Committee to kill the legislation they insist violates parents’ rights and puts their children at risk.

[…]

Chanting “My Child, My Choice” and carrying signs that read “Force my veggies, not vaccines,” and “Protect the Children, Not Big Pharma — No on SB277,” the crowd listened as one speaker after another addressed both the harm they said vaccines have caused their children and the threat of an arrogant state government that is seeking to make health care decisions on their behalf.

Although the bill’s supporters were few in number at the demonstrations, aside from the clear science proving vaccines safe and effective, they had the recent history of measles and whooping cough outbreaks in California on their side.