By Justine Griffin for the Tampa Bay Times

DUNEDIN — England Miano greeted every woman who walked into the Escape Root Juicery with open arms, wrapping each in a warm hug.

Some of the faces she had seen only on Facebook. Others, fellow parents, she’d known for some time.

Miano, 40, was hosting a meetup for people like her who challenge traditional health norms, like vaccinating their kids.

A mother of three who lives and works in north Pinellas County, Miano chose not to vaccinate her youngest after dealing with developmental issues with her second child. She believes vaccinations are the reason her son, Davis, has autism.

At the juicery, she and other Tampa Bay area moms gathered around plush chairs and colorful couches, sharing stories and self-care tips over lattes, veggie smoothies and organic champagne. Among the topics: CBD oil, yoga, whole foods and activated charcoal.

Miano and her guests are part of a small but increasingly vocal slice of the U.S. population who distrust doctors and federal health agencies, and who often base their positions on misinformation from fringe sources.

The medical community has sounded alarms. But so too have tech companies like Amazon and Instagram, which are trying to keep false information from spreading on their platforms.

Miano sees this resistance and works to push past it.

“Before Facebook started censoring so much, it’s where we shared a lot of facts and information,” she says. “Now our posts get deleted all the time. It’s so time-consuming to do the research. It’s not easy. But they don’t want it to be shared.”

At the same time, vaccine-preventable diseases are mounting a comeback.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reporting the largest number of measles cases nationally in 25 years. New York, Washington and Texas are seeing outbreaks.

Florida investigated 15 measles cases in 2018, up from the previous five years, when fewer than 10 cases was the norm.

Pinellas County reported three cases in unvaccinated adults last year — the first the county has seen in 20 years. And last month, researchers identified Hillsborough as the 17th most at-risk county in the nation for a measles outbreak.

Some doctors fear they’ll never be able to convince people like Miano and her friends that vaccines are safe and effective.

The mindset is similar to that of Joshua McAdams and Taylor Bland-Ball, the Tampa couple who recently ended chemotherapy for their 3-year-old son, Noah, in favor of alternative remedies, only to have a Hillsborough County judge order last month that the treatment resume.

“It’s hard to compete with these personal stories that people share on social media, and what parents see in front of their own eyes with their own children,” said Dr. Rebecca Plant, a pediatrician at Tampa General Hospital and an assistant professor with USF Health. “The latter is going to carry a lot heavier of a weight in their own hearts and minds than if I can sit there and spout all the numbers and recent publications.”

The conversation at Miano’s meetup turns to all the backlash they get, not only from doctors, but from neighbors and Facebook friends as well.

“I make suggestions that I think can help their children, who just look so sickly all the time, and they are so defensive,” one woman says. “I wish them no harm. I just want to help them.”

Another compares the reaction to how Nazis treated Jews: “We’re the most hated people in America right now.”

Read more here.