Sullivan County, NY – Summer Camp Is Newest Front In Battle With Measles Outbreak

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    FILE - In this July 1, 2014 file photo, Orthodox Jewish girls walk to waiting buses after summer day camp in Kiryas Joel, N.Y. Kiryas Joel is a tightly packed Hasidic enclave surrounded by suburbia in the Hudson Valley. As a measles outbreak stretches toward summer camp season, New York counties with a concentration of Orthodox Jewish camps are requiring vaccinations for campers and staff. (AP Photo/Mike Groll, File)Sullivan County, NY – The battle to contain the worst U.S. measles outbreak in 27 years has a new front: summer camp.

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    Vaccinations have been made mandatory this summer for campers and staff in several counties north of New York City that annually fill up with kids from the Orthodox Jewish communities that have been hit hardest by measles.

    Ulster County took the extra step of mandating the measles vaccine or proof of immunity at all day camps and overnight camps, becoming the latest county in the area to issue immunization requirements. Rockland County announced a similar order this month, following mandates from Sullivan and Orange counties.

    “We have to make sure our t’s are crossed and our i’s are dotted in making sure all these vaccination records are in and have been fine-combed through to make sure everything is in compliance,” said Rabbi Hanoch Hecht, of Ulster County’s Camp Emunah, which hosts many girls from a Chabad community in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights.

    “In the past where we accepted religious exemptions for certain things,” said Hecht, who is getting his own blood checked for immunity, “now we cannot.”

    The state of New York requires summer camps to keep immunization records for all campers, but doesn’t bar children from attending if they haven’t gotten a measles shot.

    Children are required to get the measles vaccine to attend schools in New York, however, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed legislation Thursday eliminating an exemption for kids whose parents object to vaccinations on religious grounds.

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that, as of June 1, more than 1,000 measles cases had been reported in the U.S. since the start of the year, up from fewer than 100 cases a year a decade ago. The bulk of those cases have been diagnosed in ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn and suburban Rockland County.

    The CDC recommends everyone over a year old should get the vaccine, except for people who had the disease as children. Those who have had measles are immune.

    The vaccine, which became available in the 1960s, is considered safe and highly effective — paving the way for measles to be declared all but eliminated in the U.S. in 2000. But it has had a resurgence several times, including 667 cases in 2014.

    Hecht and others stressed that vaccinations are widely accepted by most members of the Orthodox community, echoing rabbis in Brooklyn and Rockland County who say it is a relatively small group of parents influenced by anti-vaccination propaganda — not religious teachings — who have resisted inoculations.

    The Orthodox Union said it has previously required up-to-date vaccinations, including the MMR vaccine, for its 37 summer programs.

    “Most of the leaders and rabbis have taken the approach that vaccination is required,” Hecht said.

    Health officials in New York City have taken a tough approach, making measles vaccinations mandatory for everyone living in the Brooklyn neighborhood that is the epicenter of the outbreak, fining people for failing to get inoculated and closing 12 schools for failing to exclude staff and students who couldn’t document immunity. The city announced the two most recent closures Thursday.

    Now, as schools prepare to close down for the summer, the fight is spreading into the Catskills and Hudson River Valley.

    Sullivan County is in the heart of the traditional Borscht Belt, and the lake-laden area still attracts thousands to its camps and bungalow colonies each summer. Of the 170 state-regulated camps in the county, 139 are Orthodox Jewish camps.

    “We draw such a population from New York City, where this measles outbreak was,” Sullivan County spokesman Dan Hust said. “It was considered prudent and wise.”

    Not everyone agrees. The orders from Sullivan and Orange counties were challenged in state courts by parents of various religious faiths. However, civil rights attorney Michael Sussman said Friday he believes those cases will have to be withdrawn given New York’s removal of religious exemptions.

    Several camp administrators interviewed by The Associated Press expressed no objection to mandatory vaccinations.

    “We have no issue with that,” said Yoel Landau, director at Camp Rav Tov, a camp for Hasidic boys in Monticello. Landau said schoolboys from New York City attending the camp should have already been vaccinated because of the city’s order in April.

    Rabbi Dovid Teichman, director of Camp Govoah, which caters to Orthodox campers in rural Greene County, said staffers were “combing through each and every application to make sure that everyone is vaccinated.”

    “I can’t jeopardize anybody,” he said. “So if I find somebody that’s on the list that’s not vaccinating, I’m not taking them into camp.”


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    23 Comments
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    4 years ago

    Outbreaks of measles is going to keep happening as long as the anti-vaccination crowd, including many so-called educated individuals on this site, will offer their pompous opinion, “that the government should not mandate vaccination”. They would rather people suffer from serious brain damage or even death, to avoid the vaccine. They still can’t comprehend that contacting measles, is not the same as the common cold.

    MrSmith
    MrSmith
    4 years ago

    Dont get me wrong I am pro vaccination, but I dont understand, if you and your children are vaccinated you are immune from the measles what do you care if someone else is not vaccinated

    yosher
    yosher
    4 years ago

    All this news coverage of the “Ultra Orthodox and Chassidim” as the source of the measles outbreak is putting all Yidden at risk in the world: remember the false accusations of the middle ages that we poisoned the drinking water wells of the Goyim, that resulted in the plague? This time it’s not false and we are guilty.

    4 years ago

    One of the possible adverse reactions of the mmr shot is measles.
    Another issue that comes with the mmr shot is shedding. Where the vaccinee may not show signs of measles, but may be contagious to others.
    I’m wondering, since there’s a large outbreak in our community there would be a larger than usual rate of vaccinations. Could it be a possibility that this can be adding to the numbers of measles cases?
    Would anyone know what the vaccination rate is among the measles cases?
    I’m looking for real numbers. I read enough articles that say that they were mostly unvaccinated.

    qazxc
    qazxc
    4 years ago

    I wish VIN would require people posting opinions regarding vaccines and other health issues to provide proof of education level to the moderators by private email before their opinions are posted.

    4 years ago

    Wait! Do I sense antisemitism?? If it’s only the Jews that did not vaccinate, and they are making everybody vaccinate, then they are targeting only the Jews. No different than making them wear a yellow star… Won’t you agree? Please note the sarcasm…

    hmmmm
    hmmmm
    4 years ago

    I tell this to my kids and all the people I know. Kids going To camp should keep their suitcases and boxes ready, i predict there will be more then 1 camp closed down by the health Dept.

    chaimyhirsch
    chaimyhirsch
    4 years ago

    There are 2 ways of looking on every subject.
    1) In general there is the concept of “stay out of my business” and let me decide whats good for me,
    2) Then there is the mutual responsibility that a society has to each other,

    When it affects other people you can’t claim that your only making a hole under your seat.

    Vaccination according to a Super majority of medical professionals fit in to the 2nd category.

    Seat belts mandated for passengers and children are also considered protecting other peoples lives.
    Seat belt for driver? argument can be made that its his own risk and the government should mix out, but at the same time could be argued that if you have no respect for you your own life we can’t trust you to care for someone else live, and driving on the roads is only a “Privilege ” not a “Right”.

    long island bubby
    long island bubby
    4 years ago

    Sometimes we do things for ourselves and sometime for others.

    As a Bubby of 4 (BH”) grandkids under a year, I and their mothers are terrified of them catching the measles. They no longer go to public parks or allow non-vaccinated kids in their homes.

    I am also very, very involved in an organization for Jewish kids with cancer & other life threatening diseases. EVERY single staff member is also terrified of this lack of consideration. These kids won’t get measles, they will DIE from measles.

    Please, please, keep politics out of it. Keep self-determination out of it, just think of the lives you can save !!