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Measles time. Why do I critique @AgudahNews for mishandling the measles crisis? A. Anti-vaccine support stemming from Agudah leadership. B. Focus on PR instead of improving vaccination rates. C. Failure to make a statement mandating vaccination.
A. “Rabbinic authorities are entitled to their social issue opinions no less than anyone,” said Agudath’s Avi Shafran. “The issue of admitting unvaccinated children to schools when there are no immunocompromised students in them is one that has two eminently arguable sides.” Tell
me more about how this has two arguable sides @AviShafran. This is ridiculous on so many levels. Impossible that schools could have zero IC children and also impossible for anyone to know who is and isn’t IC. Does everyone tell you their medical history? FAIL.
Then there’s this: signed letters containing signatures of 3 of @AgudahNews Moetzes. The letters are full of anti-vaccine lies and propaganda which have been repeatedly debunked by leading scientists.
The wife of one of @AgudahNews Moetzes held an anti-vaccine “chizuk call” to frum anti-vaxxers in the midst of the measles outbreak, encouraging them not to give in to pressure and not to harm their children by vaccinating them. Transcript
and recording here: https://dusiznies.blogspot.com/2018/12/dangerous-rebbetzin-temi-kamenetsky.html?m=1 Agudah doesn’t respond or address this. By this time, frum children with measles are in NYU’s ICU.
“In 2015, Rabbi Kamenetsky turned his flawed beliefs into policy when he signed a letter prohibiting yeshivas from refusing admission to unvaccinated children. Other prominent signatories included Rabbi Malkiel Kotler and Rabbi Matisyahu Salomon, two of the leading rabbis in
Beth Medrash Govoha (BMG), the largest yeshiva in the U.S. The letter claimed that vaccine use is “unavoidably unsafe.” Although the letter never explicitly stated that getting immunized is forbidden according to Torah law, statements such as these by leading rabbinic authorities
Will discuss B and C soon.
have normalized this belief in parts of the ultra-Orthodox community in the U.S. https://yucommentator.org/2018/12/the-vaccination-debacle/
