Wisconsin 'Concerned Moms' Call Out Anti-Vax Neighbor In Letter

SUSSEX, WI -- A Wisconsin woman says she received an angry letter in the mail, claiming that one of her neighbors does not have her children vaccinated.

According to Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report this week, a woman who lives in Sussex read the letter, redacted the sender's name, and posted it on Reddit. She talked with the paper on a condition of anonymity, saying: "I was surprised. I didn't know my neighbor didn't believe in vaccination."

The letter states that a group of "concerned Wisconsin parents" are worried that an anti-vax neighbor is making their community unsafe.

According to the author of the letter, area residents are urged to "use caution when sharing work or personal space with this individual, eating foods prepared by this individual, or attending gatherings at this individual’s house if you or the people who are important to you fall into medically at-risk categories."

The authors of the letter continue, making claims that those who don't believe in vaccination as a public health safeguard are out-of-step with social norms and scientific conventions. "Protect yourself, your family, and your community by using caution when interacting with these people," they wrote.

An Issue That Touches Every Community

The vaccination issue in the U.S. is a touch point for strong opinions. Though it is legal for residents in 17 states to opt out of vaccinations, the issue reaches into just about every neighborhood.

Earlier, Patch reported that a Chicago-area special education teacher revised her anti-vaccination views after her three children contracted rotavirus — something innoculations could've prevented, she wrote in an op-ed piece in the New York Post.

"All three of my kids had rotavirus, the potentially deadly form of diarrhea that could so easily have been prevented if I'd gotten them vaccinated," Kristen O'Meara wrote in the article that was published Sept. 20. "The guilt was overwhelming. But I thanked my lucky stars that they were neither newborn babies nor medically fragile, the type of children rotavirus can snatch from this world in a heartbeat."

More than 300 measles cases have been reported in 15 states between January and March 21, 2019, according to preliminary numbers released this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

So far, the CDC says there have been 314 measles cases in the U.S. in 2019, which is already higher than the total number of cases reported in seven of the last nine years. In 2018, there were a total of 372 measles cases reported in the U.S., according to the CDC's preliminary statistics.

"Anyone who is unvaccinated is at risk for measles and puts other unvaccinated people, both in and outside their community, at risk of contracting this dreaded disease," the CDC said.