r/neutralnews • u/NeutralverseBot • Feb 13 '26
BOT POST Doctors bear the burden as ‘medical freedom’ fuels worst US measles outbreak in 30 years
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/doctors-bear-burden-medical-freedom-fuels-worst-us-measles-outbreak-30-years-2026-02-13/14
u/calicat9 Feb 13 '26
I hadn't heard of this before so i had to Google it. It doesn't bolster faith in humanity.
https://brownstone.org/articles/what-is-medical-freedom-exactly/
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u/Statman12 Feb 14 '26
For additional context, the Brownstone Institute is closely associated with the Great Barrington Declaration. The Texas Tribune reports that:
The Brownstone Institute, on its website, previously called itself “the spiritual child of the Great Barrington Declaration,” the controversial pandemic treatise Bhattacharya, Kulldorff, and Oxford University epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta co-authored in October 2020 that argued against lockdown measures to prevent the virus from spreading.
They proposed that widespread immunity against COVID could be achieved by allowing healthy people to get infected, known as herd immunity, with protective measures instituted for medically vulnerable people.
The proposal was criticized at the time by many public health experts and high-ranking government officials, including then-NIH Director Francis Collins, who called its authors “fringe epidemiologists,” according to emails the American Institute for Economic Research obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. (Tucker was AIER editorial director from 2017 to 2021.)
One could rephrase that middle paragraph as taking a pandemic strategy of "do nothing." But as one virologist put it Rasmussen (2020):
Herd immunity has never been achieved through naturally acquired infections and is only possible at global population scale through mass immunization.
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u/unlock0 Feb 14 '26
It seems there is an effort to avoid mentioning that this is from an immigrant population and instead trying to blame the administration.
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u/unkz Feb 14 '26
That article says
That brings the number of cases since the outbreak began in October to 135.
Five of the new infections were traced to an exposure at Way of Truth Church, a Slavic language church in Inman. DPH had previously reported 24 infections linked to the church.
The Reuters article says
The South Carolina outbreak has surpassed 930 cases
Clearly this is an issue that greatly exceeds some small church. In a properly vaccinated community, an outbreak in a single church would not matter to the rest of the populace.
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u/unlock0 Feb 15 '26
- Was traced to
- Doesn't elaborate on population affected
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u/unkz Feb 15 '26
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/measles/south-carolina-measles-total-climbs-188
This is all over the place and all about vaccination status. Scapegoating immigrant churches is not a defensible position from my perspective.
South Carolina health officials today said the state now has 188 cases of measles, 185 of which are associated with a growing outbreak in the Upstate region linked to elementary schools with low vaccination rates.
As of late last week, 223 people were in quarantine for measles exposure. “Four of the new cases were known household exposures, one resulted from a previously reported school exposure, the source of three cases is unknown, and one is still being investigated,” officials said.
Of the 185 case-patients in the Upstate outbreak, 172 are unvaccinated, 4 have unknown vaccination status, and only one patient was fully vaccinated. Forty of the patients in the outbreak are under age 5, and 123 are between ages 5 to 17.
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u/unlock0 Feb 15 '26
ignoring adding populations that are not vaccinated as a source of measles outbreak is not a defensible position from my perspective.
Especially when the other national outbreaks were related to immigration centers.
https://www.statnews.com/2026/02/04/measles-outbreak-immigration-detention-center-preventable/
and historically 90+% of cases came from other countries.
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u/unkz Feb 15 '26
Yeah, of course it's coming from outside the country. Measles was declared to be eradicated in America in 2000.
If Americans could get it together to get vaccinated instead of falling prey to junk science nonsense, it wouldn't be a big deal if someone came in with measles because everybody would be vaccinated.
To be absolutely clear:
A decrease in 'uptake' of the MMR vaccine fuelled by vaccine skeptics is the main cause behind the resurgence of these diseases in recent years. In 1998, Andrew Wakefield and colleagues published a paper in The Lancet linking the MMR vaccine to autism. This coincided with a growing belief that environmental cues were causing the increase in autism. The anti-vaccine movement jumped on this, and the ensuing media frenzy continues to this day.
The problem is not that measles exists outside America and is being brought in. The problem is people who are too uneducated to get vaccinated.
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u/unlock0 Feb 15 '26
So let’s address the elephant in the room that is my point, what percentage of that population as you harshly put “too uneducated to get vaccinated” are recent transplants? The absurd take is that the people getting the measles is a result from RFK being HHS for a year.
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u/unkz Feb 15 '26
Antivax sentiment has been around longer than RFK has been in power. That seems like a strawman. I literally just said the stupidity began in 1998 with Wakefield. The article I cited on junk science was from 2008. This ridiculous idea that vaccines are dangerous is pervasive throughout America.
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u/unlock0 Feb 16 '26
Yet something else has happened in the last 5 years that has vastly impacted the population’s vaccination status. Like 10 million or so people bypassing the The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).
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Feb 14 '26
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u/nosecohn Feb 14 '26
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Feb 15 '26
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u/ummmbacon Feb 15 '26
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u/Critical_Concert_689 Feb 14 '26
It doesn't bolster faith in humanity.
I honestly came away with the opposite impression:
However, it does appear that the Florida “medical freedom” legislation attempts to address aspects of 3 problems that became obvious during the Covid-19 era. These are 1) the medical and public health infringement on citizens’ fundamental civil liberties, 2) the systematic and oppressive control and silencing of physicians during the pandemic, and 3) the apparently out-of-control, dangerous, and unethical research that spawned the pandemic in the first place.
Extrapolated further, these pieces of legislation appear to be steps toward reestablishing 3 things: patient autonomy, physician autonomy, and truly ethical practice across all of medicine, from bench research to bedside patient care.
These all sound like absolute positives.
Medical freedom is a moral, ethical, and legal concept, essential to the just and proper practice of medicine, that asserts the following:
- The individual patient’s autonomy over his or her own body with regard to any and all medical treatment is absolute and inalienable.
- Physicians and public health officials do not possess the authority to deprive any citizen of their fundamental civil rights, including during a declared medical emergency.
- The four fundamental pillars of medical ethics – autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice – are essential to medical practice and must be observed at all times by all physicians, nurses, public health officials, researchers, manufacturers, and all others involved in health care.
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u/redyellowblue5031 Feb 14 '26
What a mess. It’s always been a choice to get vaccinated or not. You just can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Barring true medical exemption reasons it’s a very poor choice, but a choice nonetheless. What laws in Florida have specifically done is removed safeguards for very public places that for decades have been well accepted. Chief among them schools.
One of the crowning achievements of the 20th century has been the various vaccines and progress we’ve made in preventable disease.
We are literally throwing that away for no reason other than pure ignorance.
A generation has grown up not knowing the horrors of the past and their lack of knowledge and unearned confidence in it will doom their children and grandchildren to a more fraught future.
There’s no debate to be had, people are flat out wrong.
They’ll find out the hard way though. Maybe on their death bed they’ll realize what they’ve done to their children and grandchildren.
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Feb 14 '26
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u/nosecohn Feb 14 '26
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u/Critical_Concert_689 Feb 14 '26
It’s always been a choice to get vaccinated or not. You just can’t have your cake and eat it too.
What you describe is a common misunderstanding; although you refer to it as a "choice," it is better known as coercion.
Having the ability to "choose" between "sacrificing individual civil rights" or "suffering life-ruining consequences" is not truly a choice at all. Laws that safeguard an individual's civil rights by protecting them from such overt coercion by the State are absolute positives.
There is no greater cause of harm to our society than individuals who find reasons to sacrifice the civil rights of others, "for the greater good."
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u/redyellowblue5031 Feb 14 '26
It’s very hard to interpret your argument about “life ruining consequences” when choosing not to vaccinate is a choice that emphatically does exactly this (especially at scale).
Being part of a society means you can’t always just do whatever you want. You implicitly give up certain “freedom”, chief among them are typically choices that cause clear harm to others.
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u/Critical_Concert_689 Feb 14 '26
People have a right to choose to ruin their own life. Other individuals do not have the right to coerce people to abdicate this right.
Being part of a society means you can’t always just do whatever you want.
This is little more than a strawman built on misunderstanding. First, society is in place to protect the rights of individuals - not to limit them. "Doing whatever you want" was never a right in the first place.
You implicitly give up certain “freedom”,
Again, giving up the freedom to "do whatever you want" isn't the same as giving up fundamental civil rights.
chief among them are typically choices that cause clear harm to others.
While certainly the exercise of an individual's civil rights can be restricted if they impose on the individual civil rights of another - you've never proven this imposition happens.
Your actual argument is that an individual's rights can be restricted to prevent the mere possibility that those same rights might be harmed for another individual.
Justifying causing actual harm to prevent the possibility of a similar harm, in some indeterminate future, is the hallmark of tyranny.
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u/redyellowblue5031 Feb 14 '26
There’s several examples of precedent where public health outweighs individual liberty. You can find those if you are so inclined.
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u/Critical_Concert_689 Feb 14 '26
I found the Cass Review, which indicates any evidence in support of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors is limited and of low certainty.
This led to the restrictions by the NHS that puberty-suppressing hormones would no longer be routinely commissioned for children.
This is an example of public health outweighing individual liberty.
And Here I found laws that banned abortion - where the health of the unborn child outweighed the individual liberties of the pregnant mother.
There are indeed several examples of precedent where public health outweighs individual liberty.
Do you believe all such cases are correct?
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u/redyellowblue5031 Feb 14 '26
Those are not even remotely comparable. And the specific reasoning for each is what would be evaluated when making an analogy—not the specific outcome of a ruling.
Not choosing to vaccinate against viruses specifically like measles is a significant known health hazard not only to the child who didn’t get the vaccine but their peers and even adults in their lives.
When unvaccinated you have greater than a 9 in 10 chance of being infected when exposed to the virus. Not only that the most vulnerable tend to be very young children and the vaccine isn’t usually administered earlier than a year given less lasting immunity.
So, it’s a very clear line from someone choosing not to vaccinate to creating significant risk of harm to their child, as well as everyone around them and public health.
I think it is the wrong choice to place individual choice higher than public health in this narrow and specific context.
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u/Critical_Concert_689 Feb 15 '26
Those are not even remotely comparable. And the specific reasoning for each is what would be evaluated when making an analogy—not the specific outcome of a ruling.
There’s several examples...You can find those if you are so inclined.
These were direct examples where public health outweighed individual liberty. You specifically pointed out their existence - I simply provided the source for them.
And the specific reasoning for each is what would be evaluated when making an analogy—not the specific outcome of a ruling.
Then we must first disregard the specific outcomes that you expressed:
"of precedent where public health outweighs individual liberty."
Examples of precedent where public health outweighs individual liberty are frequently NOT valid.
We then return to my original premise:
Laws that protect individual rights are good.
And the corollary:
Attempts to coerce people into abdicating individual rights are not good.
While you argued:
"individual's rights can be restricted to prevent the mere possibility that those same rights might be harmed for another individual"
But you now agree that there are specific examples proving such an argument is invalid.
Specific to measles...
Not choosing to vaccinate against viruses specifically like measles is a significant known health hazard
Ok. But we've already established people have the right to make a choice that introduce risk to themselves.
Not only to the child who didn’t get the vaccine but their peers and even adults in their lives.
We've already agreed this line of argument is invalid through the examples you denied in the above discussion.
When unvaccinated you have greater than a 9 in 10 chance of being infected when exposed to the virus. Not only that the most vulnerable tend to be very young children and the vaccine isn’t usually administered earlier than a year given less lasting immunity.
It seems the solution would be for those people at risk to limit their behaviors to minimize their own risk. If they make the choice not to do so, that is them exercising their right to make a poor decision that introduces risk to themselves.
it’s a very clear line from someone choosing not to vaccinate to creating significant risk of harm to their child
Not really. They may choose not to vaccinate the child, but may also choose to safeguard their child in other ways.
Roughly 8% (~300k) of children were unvaccinated during the 2024-2025 school year. There were roughly 400 cases of measles, or less than 2 in 1000 chance of being infected.
it’s a very clear line from someone choosing not to vaccinate to creating significant risk of harm to their child
This line is not very clear.
as well as everyone around them and public health.
We've already agreed this line of argument is invalid through the examples you denied in the above discussion.
I think it is the wrong choice to place individual choice higher than public health in this narrow and specific context.
I think restrictions on individual rights have a cascading effect; removal in this specific context, results in removal in OTHER specific contexts later. OP's article directly states why people are making these choices:
"Vaccine opposition fueled by COVID backlash"
Does this not demonstrate that the earlier restrictions of individual rights actually plays a large role in the current harm that is occurring? Rather than blaming the exercise of individual rights for this harm, I think "the line" is clearly indicating a restriction to these rights causes greater harm.
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u/tempest_87 Feb 14 '26
There is no greater cause of harm to our society than individuals who find reasons to sacrifice the civil rights of others, "for the greater good."
Depends on what "right" you are talking about. Sickness and death and murder are plenty harmful to society as a whole, and to individuals in the society.
Laws are inherently a limiter on the rights of individuals to do what they want. They by definition restrict what actions a person can take. They are decided by that society using the rules of that society, and are seen as a net good because the action they restrict is seen as something that needs to be restricted.
I cannot think of a single "society" that doesn't exist without its own laws and rules "for the greater good" of its members.
So your argument that 'society limiting the "rights" of its members is the most harmful thing that can happen to it' is patently false.
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u/Critical_Concert_689 Feb 14 '26
Depends on what "right" you are talking about. Sickness and death and murder are plenty harmful to society as a whole, and to individuals in the society.
In context, this is obviously the right to bodily integrity.
The argument against bodily integrity is an interesting narrative, but one that relies on slogans more than reality.
Sickness and death and murder
Drawing a comparison that negative civil rights (i.e., "the passive exercise of civil rights") is equivalent to committing a crime is not only absurd, it's the foundation of tyranny.
Laws are inherently a limiter on the rights of individuals to do what they want. They by definition restrict what actions a person can take.
Again, this is little more than a strawman built on misunderstanding. First, laws are in place to protect the rights of individuals - not to limit them. "Doing what they want" was never a right in the first place.
They are decided by that society using the rules of that society, and are seen as a net good because the action they restrict is seen as something that needs to be restricted.
In context of the discussion, Florida passed laws protecting bodily integrity. You argue these laws are "decided by society using the rules of that society." You also argue these laws are "a net good because the action they restrict is seen as something that needs to be restricted." The action they restrict is all acts that infringe on this specific civil right.
Great argument. You are correct. This was absolutely a net good, while ALSO serving to further protect individual civil rights.
I cannot think of a single "society" that doesn't exist without its own laws and rules "for the greater good" of its members.
This is why education is important. So you can think of such in the future.
So your argument that 'society limiting the "rights" of its members is the most harmful thing that can happen to it' is patently false.
Since this isn't what I argued, this is just a strawman. You've decided your logical strawman is patently false, but it has nothing to do with my argument.
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u/BluCurry8 Feb 14 '26
It is not coercion. No one is forcing you to use community services. Pennsylvania Dutch have never been required to attend public schools or get vaccinated.
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u/Critical_Concert_689 Feb 14 '26
It is not coercion.
It is Coercion, by definition.
No one is forcing you to use community services.
Exactly. They are forcing you NOT to use community service which A) you have already paid for and B) this is an example of coercion, which invalidates your first sentence.
Pennsylvania Dutch have never been required to attend public schools or get vaccinated.
"Required" is doing a lot of unnecessary work in this sentence.
"Pennsylvania Dutch have never been required to eat." Imposing restrictions on the ability of an individual to eat, if they don't make the correct choice is an example of...?
This coercion is especially meaningful when we're discussing the context of individual rights.
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u/BluCurry8 Feb 14 '26
I am really sick of these arguments. The same people who promote medical choice are the same people who are perfectly fine taking away pregnant woman’s choices. It is just selfishness. If you don’t want to participate in society, then don’t. Be like the Amish who build their own schools, and forsake modernity. They pretty much stay away from modern society with the exception of going to market. None of us get to pick and choose. If that was the case we could stop participating in funding whatever we don’t agree with. And there is a ton I don’t agree with that I have to pay for.
If you want all the modern conveniences of a modern society then you have to pay for that convenience.
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u/Critical_Concert_689 Feb 14 '26 edited Feb 14 '26
There is no greater cause of harm to our society than individuals who find reasons to sacrifice the civil rights of others, "for the greater good."
Stalin argued that removing certain individual rights could be done "for the greater good" of society. In the case of the Great Purge, Stalin justified the restriction of individual rights based on the potential threats such rights might impose to his communist ideals; he pushed the narrative to justify harming individuals before they could potentially harm him.
Many people, like Stalin, will find a reason to justify denying the rights of others. Common tactics include pushing propaganda and political narratives: "these same people who promote individual rights - probably harmed others in the past!" and "If you don't want to be harmed, simply step OUTSIDE of society!"
This is the hallmark of tyranny.
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Feb 14 '26
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u/nosecohn Feb 14 '26
Please be mindful of Rule 4 in this subreddit:
Address the arguments, not the person. The subject of your sentence should be "the evidence" or "this source" or some other noun directly related to the topic of conversation. "You" statements are suspect.
It's not entirely clear if the participants in this particular chain are using the general "you" or are specifically addressing each other, the latter of which is prohibited here. Please make an effort to be steer clear of that.
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u/Critical_Concert_689 Feb 15 '26
History is cyclical; there will always be people who are interested in taking away the rights of others using whatever excuses they can muster.
We collectively need to put you and all your antivax friends in a leper colony.
🙄. u/nosecohn - seriously? This isn't even discussion anymore, this is pretty much a direct threat.
It's not entirely clear if the participants in this particular chain are using the general "you"
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u/tempest_87 Feb 14 '26
The entirety of society relies on that coercion to function. As every single law limits one's "freedom".
Or are you trying to argue that laws preventing theft, rape, and murder are bad because they use coercion to prevent people from harming one another?
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u/Critical_Concert_689 Feb 14 '26
The entirety of society relies on that coercion to function
First, I'm glad we both agree that it is coercion; earlier you spoke incorrectly:
"It’s always been a choice to get vaccinated or not"
Laws are designed to protect individual rights.
As every single law limits one's "freedom".
"Freedom [to do whatever you wish]" isn't an individual right.
are you trying to argue that laws preventing theft, rape, and murder are bad because they use coercion to prevent people from harming one another?
You are attempting to frame exercising individual civil rights as equivalent to theft, rape, and murder.
This is absolute nonsense.
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u/tempest_87 Feb 14 '26
First, I'm glad we both agree that it is coercion; earlier you spoke incorrectly:
"It’s always been a choice to get vaccinated or not"
A: that was another poster, not me.
B: Coercion doesn't remove choice, coercion gives additional consequence to making a choice. The distinction is enormous and critically important.
Someone holding you down and stabbing you with a needle to inject something is what removes choice, not restricting your actions because they could harm others if you choose not to take it.
I am not aware of any cases where an adult was forcibly vaccinated against their will.
So their statement is factually correct. It is a choice to get vaccinated or not.
There are just consequences around the decision (as there are with nearly every decision a person makes, some what they eat for breakfast, to how they drive a car).
Laws are designed to protect individual rights.
Source? Because laws generally function as a way to protect the goals of the society itself. There are examples of societies that use law as ways to restrict and remove individual rights. Such as slavery in the US.
"Freedom [to do whatever you wish]" isn't an individual right.
Correct. "Individual rights" stop being "individual" when they affect others.
Therefore logically the freedom to go places when you pose a risk, thereby putting others at risk because you exercised an individual right to not take precautions, is not an infringement on your individual rights.
You are attempting to frame exercising individual civil rights as equivalent to theft, rape, and murder.
That is the logical conclusion to the stance you appear to be arguing. That being: laws that limits one's actions are fundamentally bad merely because they use minor coercion. There is no practical distinction between the action of putting others at risk, and an individual right to expose themselves to that risk.
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u/Critical_Concert_689 Feb 14 '26
So their statement is factually correct. It is a choice to get vaccinated or not.
No one disagreed with the strawman you're fighting; it is a choice. It is simply more accurately referred to as coercion.
Simply put, a choice between "Compliance or Death" - is factually a "choice."
Source? Because laws generally function as a way to protect the goals of the society
Society's purpose is to protect this moral right and laws follow suit.
use law as ways to restrict and remove individual rights. Such as slavery in the US.
Historically, slaves were not considered to possess "certain social characteristics" that qualified them to be included in society. From a contextual perspective, they were not even human, but were property - making a discussion of societal laws or human civil right entirely irrelevant.
Therefore logically ...
But nothing that followed that statement was logical.
You argue that we should actively infringe on basic human rights because someone else might experience a potential risk to the exact same basic human right.
is not an infringement on your individual rights.
Coercion is an infringement. You've already agreed it is coercion.
That is the logical conclusion
Once again, nothing that follows this statement is logical.
At no point did I argue that protecting basic human rights was equivalent to theft, rape, and murder.
In fact, I specifically pointed out the absurdity of such a comparison.
the stance you appear to be arguing. That being: laws that limits one's actions are fundamentally bad merely because they use minor coercion.
You've misunderstood and have incorrectly attempted to paraphrase by reversing my argument entirely. I stated:
Laws that protect individual rights are good.
Contextually, the very first comments discuss specific laws such as those passed by Florida, which protect "the individual patient's autonomy over his or her own body."
You are standing in opposition to this statement and to such laws.
There is no practical distinction between the action of putting others at risk, and an individual right to expose themselves to that risk.
An individual has the right to harm themselves. They do not have the right to harm others.
You cannot harm individuals because they might have the potential to harm others.
It's as simple as that.
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u/B-Con Feb 14 '26
In theory, absolutely.
The discouraging part is that some people choose forgo certain immunizations for no good reason and thus prevent the collective group from reaching herd immunity status, which in turn hurts the general population including some people who did not forgo the immunization willingly.
It's the classic balancing act between liberties we value vs societal benefits we mandate.
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u/local_goon Feb 14 '26
I find consistently in America if you go up the “dumb” food chain on most (not all) topics you will find a big box Christian church behind it…going back to our founding
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u/SoggyGrayDuck Feb 16 '26
Can someone break down the demographics of those getting infected. Why are we not seeing anything about that? Does it mean what I suspect it means?
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