[2017 Jan 17] Oklahoma docs lying and crying, lawsuits flying — all to mandate vaccines BY J.B. HANDLEY
He claims the fact that there were over 300 cases of the mumps in Oklahoma this past year could impact lawmakers this legislative session. “I’d like to get it passed right away before we have a huge outbreak and a lot of people die,” said Yen.
Dr. Yen — an anesthesiologist by training (which has nothing to do with infectious disease or vaccines) — has a history of making incredibly baseless and wild statements about vaccines and public health, and his interview yesterday was no different. A few quick, easily confirmable facts would show that Dr. Yen seems to think falsehoods are the only way to convince Oklahoma’s parents to give up their medical rights. Here’s five quick facts to show you how Dr. Yen is lying:
Fact #1: People don’t die from the mumps. This CDC website says “Death from mumps is exceedingly rare…There have been no mumps related deaths reported in the United States during recent mumps outbreaks.”
Fact #2: Almost everyone who gets mumps during mumps outbreaks has been vaccinated for mumps. The state health department spokesperson in Massachusetts, after a Harvard University mumps outbreak in 2016, said, “the infected students had all been vaccinated against mumps.”
Fact #3: Merck (the maker of the MMR [mumps] vaccine) is being sued by two former scientists who allege the mumps portion of the MMR vaccine is less effective than Merck represents. “According to the lawsuit, Merck began a sham testing program in the late 1990’s to hide the declining efficacy of the vaccine.”
Fact #4: Oklahoma’s department of health issued a report about their own recent mumps outbreak. What did they find? Of 455 cases, only 9% had NOT been vaccinated!
Fact #5: Senator Yen’s primary reason for introducing his bill again is to “maintain herd immunity,” which the data shows the U.S. population has not remotely achieved, because of adults. He claims that the vaccination rate amongst children for the MMR vaccine has declined in Oklahoma: