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Today, let's go through a bit of a CDC update, both in terms of some viral outbreaks aboard cruise ships and also some major changes that are coming down the pike in terms of the childhood vaccine schedule across the whole country. Let's start though, with the ships. Up on your screen right now is a report that was released by the CDC detailing a large viral outbreak on a cruise ship which was traveling from Colombia back to the U.S. in their official release, the CDC said that 98 people of aboard a cruise ship called the Serenade of the Seas became sick with something known as norovirus. According to the breakdown, 94 passengers alongside four members of the crew began to experience symptoms of diarrhea, abdominal cramps, vomiting and headaches, all of which are symptoms of the norovirus. Furthermore, it's perhaps worth noting that this is actually the 19th time this year that the CDC reported on an outbreak of one of these gastrointestinal illnesses onboard a cruise ship. In fact, as you can see up on your screen, out of the 19 reported chips thus far this year, 14 of them were discovered to be infected with the norovirus. And for the others, you have three unknown outbreaks. You have one outbreak of E. Coli and another one that was presumed to be fish poisoning. Now getting back to this most recent outbreak. Once the passengers on board the Serenade of the Seas, once they began to get sick one after another, the cruise line took a number of steps to try and mitigate the level of damage, including they disinfected the common areas as well as, funny enough, they began to collect stool samples from the passengers in order to send them back to a laboratory at the CDC for testing. I bet that's not what people assumed they were signing up for when they were scheduling that cruise adventure. Regardless, though, in terms of what the norovirus actually is, the symptoms of it are very similar to those of the stomach flu. Here's in fact, how the CDC describes the norovirus over on their website. Norovirus is a very contagious virus that causes vomiting and diarrhea. It is sometimes called the stomach flu or the stomach bug. However, norovirus illness is not related to the flu. The flu is caused by the influenza virus. Norovirus causes acute gastroenteritis and inflammation of the stomach or intestines. A person usually develops symptoms 12 to 48 hours after being exposed to norovirus. Most common symptoms are diarrhea, vomiting, nausea, stomach pain. Other symptoms include fever, headache and body aches. Now, in general, for healthy individuals, there is not too much to worry about, no more than worrying for, let's say, the common cold or the seasonal flu. However, in tight enclosed spaces like cruise ships, for instance, the whole thing becomes a bigger issue. Here's the CDC again, quite a Norovirus can be especially challenging to control on cruise ships because of the closed living quarters, shared dining areas and rapid turnover of passengers when the ship docks. Norovirus can be brought on board in contaminated food or water or by passengers who were infected while ashore. Repeated outbreaks on consecutive cruises may also result from infected crew or environmental contamination. This is because norovirus can persist on surfaces for days or weeks and and is resistant to many common disinfectants. And as such, you had Royal Caribbean, which is the company that operates the ship, the Serenade of the Seas. They said to us here at the Epoch Times via email when we reached out to them, they said as a response to this recent outbreak, quote, the health and safety of our guests, crew and the communities we visit are our top priority. Our staff implement rigorous cleaning procedures, many of which far exceed public health guidelines. We will increase cleaning and disinfection procedures on board the ship, collect stool specimens for testing, isolate crew and passengers who have symptoms, and consult with the CDC on its procedures and report cases to the agency. If you want to go ahead and read the full CDC report on this latest incident, I'll throw a link to it. You can find it down in the description box below. However, since we're on the topic of the cdc, let me give you a few updates on what the agency has been up to and other areas most related to vaccines, because that seems to be the crux of their focus right now. To start with, on Monday, October 6th, you had the current acting director of the CDC call on big Pharma manufacturers to split up the MMR vaccine into three separate shots. For your reference, the MMR vaccine is a three in one shot. It targets measles, mumps as well as rubella in one syringe. And if you look at the current CDC vaccine schedule for kids, children need to get two doses of the shot. The first dose is given just around the time the kid turns one, and then the second dose is given around the time the kid turns four. And it's given as one shot. It's a single injection which contains three different things. And based on that CDC immunization schedule, well, pretty much all states require that kids get two shots of the measles vaccine in order to be able to attend school. Now back in September, you had President Trump released a statement that was advising all Americans to, quote, break up the MMR shot into three totally separate shots, not mixed. However, that actually does not exist as an option right now. According to the cdc, there is currently no separate vaccines for measles, mumps and or rubella. They're all a three in one shot. And so that's exactly where this statement from Jim o', Neill, the current acting director of the CDC comes in. He was calling on the manufacturers to sponsor split them up so people have that option. Quote, I call on vaccine manufacturers to develop safe monovalent vaccines to replace the combined MMR and break up the MMR shot into three totally separate shots. Now, thus far, none of the large manufacturers have issued a reply to that request. However, there was a somewhat of a statement from a large pharmaceutical company executive late September that touched on the issue of why these three are combined into one shot in the first place. Quote Richard Haupt, Merck's head of Global Medicine and Scientific Affairs, Vaccines and Infectious Diseases, said during a meeting in September that combination vaccines improve completion and on time vaccination, leading to higher adherence and fewer delays in disease prevention. Likewise, along that same vein, you had Dr. Paul Offit, who was a former member of the FDA's advisory panel on Vaccines. He said something similar about this plan. He released a short video basically criticizing this request from hhs. And here was his argument. I won't play the full video, just the tail end where he kind of breaks down the argument against breaking up the shot.
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In 1998, Andrew Wakefield published a paper in Lancet claiming that the measles mumps rubella vaccine caused autism. He claimed that the reason it caused autism was because it was given as a combination rather than as three separate shots. Now, over time, there have been 24 separate studies, retrospective studies, looking at children who received the MMR vaccine, compared them to children who didn't receive the MMR vaccine and found that your chance of getting autism was the same in both groups. So there was no reason to believe that the measles, mumps rbella vaccine caused autism. Therefore, there was no reason to believe that separating the vaccine into its three component parts will lessen the risk of autism. All it will do is make vaccines less affordable, more expensive and less feared. All it will mean is that children will be getting six shots instead of two shots for no reason. So it is a wholly irresponsible thing for Jim o' Neill to have said. And I can only imagine that the two companies that make MMR vaccine in this country, Merck and Glaxosmithkline, will refuse to do it because to do anything less than that, to actually agree to separate this vaccine into its three component parts, would be bad for the public's health and an example of corporate irresponsibility.
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And so all that was the MMR vaccine. However, on that very Same day, Monday, October 6th, the CDC actually came out with a new recommendation regarding the MMRV vaccine as well. You see, besides the MMR shot, some pediatricians give something called the mmrv, which is the measles mumps rubella as well as varicella, otherwise known as chickenpox shot. It's basically a 4 in 1 vaccine that combines the the MMR shot with chickenpox. However, that shot is no longer getting recommended by the cdc. Quote In September, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices said that the CDC should stop recommending the measles mumps rubella varicella vaccine due to data showing that younger children faced an elevated risk of febrile seizures if they received the vaccine. Instead, children should receive the measles mumps rubella MMR vaccine and and separately a chickenpox shot, the panel said in a split vote. And so again back in September, this panel voted for this change in recommendation. But it was still up to the CDC whether to actually take that advice. And they did. On Monday, October 6, Jim O', Neill, who is again both the current acting director of the CDC and he's also the deputy health secretary right below RFK Jr. He released the following via an HHS statement. Quote the CDC Child and Adolescent Immunization Schedule's new recommendation of standalone chickenpox vaccination for toddlers through age three follows evidence presented to acip, which is the Advisory Committee on Immunization practices by the CDC immunization safety offices, that healthy 12 to 23 months old toddlers have increased risk of febrile seizure 7 to 10 days after vaccination for the combined measles MO, mumps rubella and varicella vaccine compared to those given immunization for chickenpox. Separately, the combination vaccine doubles the risk of febrile seizures without conferring additional protection from varicella compared to standalone vaccination. And so with that as the justification, On Monday, the 4 in 1 MMRV vaccine was split up on the schedule. And then furthermore, the CDC acting director, he also advised the manufacturers to to begin splitting up the MMR vaccine as well, which might be alluding to changes in the official recommendations that are coming down the pike in the near future. And so that is where we are currently at. However, I will make a quick mention that I checked and as of right now the official CDC childhood immunization schedule has yet to be updated because that notice of a change in recommendations is so new it only just came out last Monday that the actual schedule, the one with the actual sort of grid and pictures on it that has yet to be updated. It'll likely be updated in the following weeks. Regardless though, if you'd like to go deeper into the subject of either the immunization schedule, the sort of evidence of why the MMRV vaccine had to be split up and or what's going on in the cruise ships, I will throw all of my research notes. You'll be able to find them down in the description box below if you're the type of person that likes to dig into the wheat. And then until next time, I'm your host Roman from the Epoch Times. Stay informed and most importantly, stay free.