COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina continues to seize national attention in surprising — and not-so-surprising — ways. As to the former, the Palmetto State is the fastest-growing state in the country at a time when it has the nation’s biggest measles outbreak, owing in part to religious objections to vaccines. Go figure.
The rapid population growth, driven by affordability, job availability and climate, is statewide, judging from all the insta-developments along highways from the Upstate to the Lowcountry. The measles outbreak is concentrated in the Upstate, a region in the northwestern part of South Carolina, specifically in Spartanburg County, the center of which is Spartanburg. The city of roughly 40,000 is in what was known as “Bob Jones Country,” referring to the namesake evangelical Christian university in nearby Greenville. It’s a church-going, family town.
This leads us to the not-so-surprising part. Suffice to say, when religion and science butt heads in the Deep South, you can confidently bet on God.
The area of the county where measles has found a home — 876 cases and counting — offers public, charter and private schools, and Pentecostal and fundamentalist churches where the Bible is interpreted literally. Never mind that the Bible doesn’t mention measles vaccines; religious conviction is partly responsible for the decision of far too many residents to put their children and families at risk. Some schools have vaccination rates as low as 20 percent.
Last year, 10 percent of Spartanburg County school students — nearly 6,000 children — got exemptions from vaccination rules or did not meet certain requirements. Of Spartanburg County students, about 8 percent had religious exemptions, which are easy to come by. The state requires only a notarized request but no doctor’s or preacher’s imprimatur.
Anti-vaccine messaging from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has said no vaccines are safe and effective, has led to mixed messages about the MMR vaccine, which protects against measles, mumps and rubella. Kennedy has said the vaccine is the best way to ward off the viruses while also casting doubt on its safety. Many in the anti-vaccine community are convinced that the vaccine causes autism, a debunked Kennedy claim. They are also concerned that the vaccine contains fetal cells — or that they have “a lot of aborted fetus debris,” in Kennedy’s words.
Moral objections to abortion have fueled the fetal-cell debate in recent years. There’s a speck of truth to Kennedy’s obscene statement but only in the most tangential way. Put another way, it’s inaccurate. Kennedy hath neither shame nor expertise. His pharmaceutical background and training can be traced to a years-long heroin addiction. Otherwise, his last name is Kennedy, which President Donald Trump seemingly can’t resist for its cachet, associated wealth and performing arts center. Trump put his name before John F. Kennedy’s and placed the late president’s nephew in charge of the nation’s health.
A short primer on the vaccine Kennedy has sowed confusion about: Each of the three viruses in the MMR vaccine is created separately. The viruses are grown in cultured cells, which are purified to remove cellular material.
The measles virus is grown in chick embryo cell cultures, not fetal cells. But cell lines used to produce rubella, among other viruses, do come from fetal cells procured from two elective abortions performed in the early 1960s in Europe. Cells, or rather fetal fibroblast cell lines, were taken from the ill-fated fetuses once, and every MMR vaccine since has been created from those same cells.
While many Christians and others abhor using fetal material for any reason, the ultimate theological take on the issue comes not from Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), who recently tried to school Pope Leo XIV about the Bible’s stance on immigration, but from the Vatican. While still condemning fetal stem cell research, the Vatican has said that Catholic moral theology allows vaccines from those cell lines if no other alternatives exist.
It is, indeed, odd to be wading through these discussions in the 21st century, but stranger things happen often these days, not least in South Carolina. Even so, those who call this state home would rather live here than anywhere else and, apparently, so would everybody else. Just please, before you cross the state line, be sure to get your shots. All of them. If you insist on joining the human deluge heading this way, you’re going to need them.
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