Unfortunately, the Amish have become the poster child for the anti-vax movement…The implication is that vaccines are not needed, since the Amish do not vaccinate and they are healthy without suffering any consequences.
Nothing can be further from the truth. The Amish…do have low vaccination rates; and because of these low rates they have been unnecessarily afflicted with infectious diseases.
In 1979, I was a medical intern at the Gundersen Clinic in La Crosse, Wisconsin…The attending doctor at the time took a history and examined [a young teenager], stating “If I didn’t know better, I would say this patient has polio.”
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I was witnessing an outbreak which involved the states of Iowa, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and resulted in a total of 14 cases of paralytic polio in Amish communities.
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Anti-vaxxers also scare the public regarding vaccinations by falsely stating that Amish children are not vaccinated and, thus, do not suffer from autism. In contradistinction, one study screened 1,899 Amish children for autism; 25 were positive, and, of these, 14 were evaluated and in seven the diagnosis of autism was confirmed.
