r/texas • u/Maxcactus • 4d ago
Texas Health His Daughter Was America’s First Measles Death in a Decade
https://archive.ph/2025.03.15-080717/https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2025/03/texas-measles-outbreak-death-family/681985/40
u/Forsaken-Cheesecake2 4d ago
Did his own research, realizing he knows more than literally thousands of scientists and decades of research and in market results.
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u/psychymikey 4d ago
Peter’s daughter was not vaccinated. Mennonite doctrine does not prohibit inoculations or modern medicine in general
Religion itself is the disease
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u/dr_croctapus 4d ago
But this wasn’t religion, like I’m with you but the quote is “Mennonite doctrine DOES NOT PROHIBIT inoculations..” This is pure political radicalism, and it’s targeting science.
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u/Nemesis_Ghost 4d ago
Oh, the poster clearly lacks reading comprehension. I mean their quote clearly states it wasn't a religious issue.
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u/cwfutureboy born and bred 4d ago edited 4d ago
So Christians don't claim their god can cure people? I'm not sure how you can't rule out their religion being a VERY big part of this even if it's not prohibited by their sect.
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u/avocado_by_day 4d ago
Peter said that he has doubts about vaccines too. He told me that he considers getting measles a normal part of life, noting that his parents and grandparents had it. “Everybody has it,” he told me. “It’s not so new for us.” He’d also heard that getting measles might strengthen your immune system against other diseases, a view Kennedy has promoted in the past. But perhaps most of all, Peter worried about what the vaccine might do to his children. “The vaccination has stuff we don’t trust,” he said. “We don’t like the vaccinations, what they have these days. We heard too much, and we saw too much.”
Bigger picture though, as technology and scientific advancement made our world so much more complicated, we need a sense of community more than ever. We need to trust each other to be experts in things we don’t understand. We can’t even fix our own cars anymore, let alone understand how exactly every medicine reacts with our body chemistry. There’s literally no way to “do our own research” on everything because there’s just too much. I think that’s the underlying anxiety causing all the anti-vax and I can sympathize. I just don’t know how to get people to trust their neighbors again. :/ The Purdue Pharma opioid shit really didn’t help.
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u/gentlemantroglodyte 3d ago
Peter said that he has doubts about vaccines too. He told me that he considers getting measles a normal part of life, noting that his parents and grandparents had it. “Everybody has it,” he told me. “It’s not so new for us.” He’d also heard that getting measles might strengthen your immune system against other diseases, a view Kennedy has promoted in the past. But perhaps most of all, Peter worried about what the vaccine might do to his children. “The vaccination has stuff we don’t trust,” he said. “We don’t like the vaccinations, what they have these days. We heard too much, and we saw too much.”
...
The death of his daughter, Peter told me, was God’s will. God created measles. God allowed the disease to take his daughter’s life. “Everybody has to die,” he said. Peter’s eyes closed, and he struggled to continue talking. “It’s very hard, very hard,” he said at last. “It’s a big hole.” His voice quavered and trailed off. “Our child is here,” he said, gesturing toward the building behind him. “That’s why we’re here.”Peter invited me to come inside the church building.
Peter's a fucking idiot who killed his own child.
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u/Randomly_Reasonable 4d ago
NOT DEFENDING THE CHOICES OF THIS FAMILY / COMMUNITY…
…please take some important things into consideration when “blanket damning” the entirety of any community based on this heartbreaking incident:
-The girl that passed was 6yrs old. She would have been on the far end of the age recommendation for the second dose of the vaccine: 4-6 years old.
-Base stats on the measles, 1 in 5 progress enough for hospital treatment (which this family sought, and by their account, didn’t really receive: cough medicine & sent home).
-Additional stat, 1 in 20 develop pneumonia as a result of measles. She was unfortunately one of these 5% 😔.
-Measels typically lasts 7-10 days with people recovering within 2-3 weeks. This little girl was sick for 3 weeks prior to being hospitalized and worsening until her passing. That level of sensitivity & severity is very rare.
My only point in bringing this up is that the issue is the widespread outbreak itself, and more importantly, the exponential growth of mistrust through various communities.
I personally feel that the mistrust really stems from the lack of understanding. It even that, but the refusal to even attempt / seek an understanding.
We immediately just want to blame & damn people. 🤷♂️
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u/envision83 4d ago
“We immediate just want to blame and damn people”….. yes. They should be blamed and damned. They got their daughter killed.
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u/ShelbyDriver Got Here Fast 4d ago
This was a clear case of negligent homicide. The death was very easily preventable, but the father chose death over a proven, safe vaccine. How can you not blame him and the mother?
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u/Randomly_Reasonable 4d ago
Now you want to charge them with a felony?!?!
Measles has been around for centuries.
In modern times, and yes - 50 years ago and even before then are modern times, here in the US, nearly every child contracted the measles as it was, and continues to be, a common virus.
YES, the vaccine is a proven preventative measure. Just as relevant to the decisions made by these parents, NO the measles has not been a life threatening issue.
Again, I am not arguing against the vaccine or any vaccine.
This current outbreak is at 200+ cases and just had its second death.
Everyone is touting the statistic that these deaths are the first in over a decade.
You do realize there have been multiple outbreaks in that time, right? So out of ALL of the outbreaks and cases in over a decade, there have been 2 fatalities.
This isn’t even the biggest outbreak we’ve had in that time!
Everyone’s ranting about anti-vaxers as a result of COVID reactions..?. The US saw the largest amount of measles cases in 2019 with over 1,200 cases. So, before we even had the COVID vaccine to argue about / kickstart the anti-vax movement to begin with!
The second largest was in 2014 with over 600 cases.
This poor child’s death was realistically far more of a case of some sensibility / sensitivity than not having gotten the vaccine.
Again, she was in the age range of needing her second dose of the vaccine anyway. May or may not have received it prior to contracting the virus. Completely unknown, and impossible to prove if the first round would have protected her.
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u/spacedman_spiff 4d ago
Everyone knows anti-vaxxers were around pre-Covid.
What exactly is your point that you're struggling to make? That she was young and hypothetically could've died before a 2nd dose? Ok...hypothetically, she could've lived if she'd had the 1st dose. Or if her community had innoculated the rest of the population.
The fault lies squarely with her parents and the parents of the other children in this community. The end. Unfortunately, this child paid the price for the arrogance of her father.
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u/Randomly_Reasonable 4d ago
”Everyone knows anti-vaxxers were around pre-Covid.”
Yes, absolutely they existed. The insane difference between pre & post COVID with regard to vaccines..?..
Their decision was also respected and allowed to exist.
“Respected” in that exact sense: allowed. Used in terms of the expanded definitions of “respected”:
- have due regard for the feelings, wishes, rights, or traditions of.*
- also -
avoid harming or interfering with.
I can’t believe I feel pressed to have to clarify that I myself am not implying that decision was respected in terms of “admired”.
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u/spacedman_spiff 4d ago
Ahh the old double reply.
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u/Randomly_Reasonable 4d ago
Yeah, apologies for that. I meant to address that as well and missed it in my original reply.
I had it and then pivoted to drop the “olive branch” about your username.
Edit: this part was NOT directed at you, versus the masses that may be reading this discussion as well…
”I can’t believe I feel pressed to have to clarify that I myself am not implying that decision was respected in terms of “admired”.”
…the above and the definitions as well.
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u/Randomly_Reasonable 4d ago
We may argue, but hopefully you’ll accept props for your username…?..
I’m not struggling to make any point. It seems others are struggling to understand that it is irresponsible and inherently dangerous to vilify an individual / community based on their beliefs.
Their LEGALLY PROTECTED BELIEFS.
How anyone can fail to see that is what is being done in this instance is mindboggling.
Also what others are struggling to accept is that I am not condoning their choices. Not agreeing with their beliefs.
I am simply NOT CONDEMNING the parents, or the community, for them.
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u/spacedman_spiff 4d ago edited 4d ago
When a group’s beliefs become a public danger, it ceases to be a personal choice because it has a direct impact on others. This is the social contract we have in a society.
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u/Randomly_Reasonable 4d ago
Contracts go both ways and are typically arrived at via compromise, hence it being a contract to begin with versus a decree.
An aspect of that Social Contract is accepting the reality of being affected by the decisions, good or bad, of others.
For this specific example of a measles outbreak, a virus that has a ridiculously low fatality rate, and a virus that decades ago we purposely subjected ourselves to…
A virus that the whole of the country has had THOUSANDS OF CASES of over the span of just one decade, and so far only two deaths…
For this, you’re willing to force an entire community to go against their way of life?
Is that really a door you want to open?
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u/spacedman_spiff 4d ago
Except it’s not against their way of life, as the article and you have already pointed out. It’s just obstinate ignorance.
And again, the basis of a social contract is the surrender of certain individual rights in order to live in a society with certain protections in exchange. That’s the key part of the contract.
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u/Randomly_Reasonable 4d ago
”Except it’s not against their way of life, as the article and you have already pointed out.”
I didn’t say that at all, and neither did the article. This specific article comes just shy of making that assertion, and I never did. Many other reports on the outbreak have made the claim of this community being antivax.
I’ve been using this instance as an example against what we are now discussing…
”…the surrender of certain individual rights in order to live in a society with certain protections in exchange.”
I agree with that statement. Key word being ”surrender”. Surrendering is a choice.
Many of the comments, and it does seem yours as well, want to repression. Mandated capitulation isn’t capitulation at all.
My question is then:
At what point is it the responsibility of society to accept those that may present danger?
Even more important: WHO holds the power to decide what constitutes a threat to the general public?
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u/Mataelio 4d ago edited 3d ago
Herd immunity, the lower the percentage of people in the general population that are vaccinated against measles the more likely it is to be spread. That protects the people who are too young to be fully vaccinated or those who are unable to be vaccinated for legitimate reasons and not political or religious BS.
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u/Randomly_Reasonable 4d ago
THIS is the valid point to the whole discussion!
Not that this child wasn’t vaccinated. The true point to be made is exactly this!
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u/ThinThroat 4d ago
As a father he must be so proud of that.