Fear, Misinformation, and Measles Spread in Brooklyn
For Wired, Amanda Schaffer reports on the battle inside Brooklyn’s Hasidic Jewish community, where misinformation about vaccines spread through a tight-knit parents network and contributed to a measles outbreak in New York City. The piece focuses on an Orthodox nurse’s efforts to educate parents about vaccine safety, as well as one woman’s campaign to spread fears of vaccines through conference calls and a popular handbook. Schaffer writes, “Roughly 40,000 copies of the pamphlet appeared in kosher grocery stores and by apartment doors in Williamsburg and Borough Park, as well as in ultra-Orthodox communities in upstate New York and New Jersey.”