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Anti-Vaccine Moms are Risking Children’s Lives
In 1956, an infant contracted whooping cough. It was agonizing for the family to watch a child suffer through this illness. She was so sick one day that her parents had to call the fire department; they were able to revive her and likely saved her life. This incident took place just before the whooping cough vaccine came out.
That infant was my sister.
We are now experiencing a serious measles outbreak in this country, primarily because so many parents still believe the myth that vaccines cause autism. Even though the study that made this claim was debunked, the lie has remained alive. Now we have children coming down with measles currently at alarming levels, because so many children have not been vaccinated:
The Centers for Disease Control said so far this year, there are 101 cases of the measles in ten states and 58 cases of the mumps in 18 states. As these outbreaks grow, experts said vaccines are the key to stopping them.
‘It’s incredibly effective; 97 percent effectiveness with two doses of the vaccine, which is what’s recommended for children – and it’s inexpensive,’ Clark County Public Health Director Dr. Alan Melnick said.
The MMR vaccine is for measles, mumps and rubella; there is also an MMRV vaccine which also covers chicken pox.
Although people downplay the dangers of these childhood diseases, the CDC doesn’t :
Measles can be dangerous, especially for babies and young children. From 2001-2013, 28% of children younger than 5 years old who had measles had to be treated in the hospital.
For some children, measles can lead to:
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Pneumonia (a serious lung infection)
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Lifelong brain damage
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Deafness
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Death
So refusing to vaccinate children has serious implications for all children. If we want to see what happens when vaccination levels drop, we only need to look at the Philippines:
The Philippines is in the midst of a growing measles crisis, with at least 70 deaths, mainly of children, in the past month. In January, there were 4,302 reported cases of measles in the country, an increase of 122% on the same period last year. The outbreak has been blamed on a backlash against vaccinations. The outbreak has continued into February. Last week, a measles outbreak was declared in Metro Manila – populated by 12 million people with many living in poverty-stricken slums. This follows 196 reported cases in January, compared to just 20 recorded in the same period last year. In Manila, 55 children under the age of four have died of measles since the beginning of the year.
In addition, there is a worldwide increase in cases:
The outbreak in the Philippines follows an alarming wave of measles cases worldwide, which has been blamed mainly on conspiracies and misinformation around vaccinations, particularly in Europe and the US. There has been a 30% increase on measles cases worldwide since 2016, according to WHO.
Overall, south-east Asia is one of the few regions where measles vaccinations are on the rise but other countries in the region have seen recent outbreaks similar to the Philippines. In November last year, a measles crisis was declared in the majority-Muslim southern regions of Thailand, which have high levels of poverty, even though the disease was said to be almost eradicated in Thailand. There were 4,000 measles cases reported in Thailand last year, causing the deaths of at least 22 children.
In a global society that travels a great deal, we are going to be exposed in this country to those in Europe and Asia who come here and bring this highly contagious disease with them.
Due to the drop in immunizations in the U.S., we are also losing our “herd immunity.” That provides resistance to a contagious disease if a high proportion of the population is immune to the disease, i.e., has been vaccinated. With so many parents refusing to immunize their children, this mass protection is disappearing.
What can be done? Many people understandably do not want the government to step in and legislate a requirement for vaccinations; I agree. I also think that using a rational approach to a highly emotional issue has proven to be less than effective. I recommend that we take a dramatic approach.
Have you seen the whooping cough advertisement for a vaccination? I think the times call for this type of approach.
Any other suggestions?
Published in Healthcare
I wasn’t trying to draw an analogy. I’m trying to make the point that if you want your kids to make difficult choices in life, being willing to risk even the wrath of the Nazis, you are working against your own goals if in their lives you treat safety as the ultimate good. Of course you can’t go to the other extreme, either, and teach them to be completely irresponsible. It’s a difficult balance, and we shouldn’t pretend it isn’t. The thing is, pay attention to the messages you are sending your own children by your behavior. It makes me nervous when even conservatives start sending the message that safety always overrides everything else, and that risk-taking is always bad.
This sort of problem often comes to the fore when we are dealing with issues of public health. I doubt that any of the university curricula that deal with public health treat this kind of conflict adequately.
It wasn’t my intention to suggest that safety is the ultimate good. In fact, I would say that’s nonsense (no offense). But when we can take steps to be safe (I choose to wear a safety belt in the car), I do. And I don’t think I’m sacrificing any principles to wear safety belts or get vaccines. I agree that we need to make all this clear to children; these distinctions are very important.
This may sound contradictory to what I said in my other comments, but I would support government-mandated vaccinations. However, I would not support them quickly or easily. I also prefer that children be raised by their parents rather than the government, which means I would bend over backwards, even taking personal risk or accepting public risk to let this be an area of parental control and decision-making. The one thing I have little patience with is people who think it’s an easy call.
I respect your viewpoint, but I’m reluctant to give further power to government over our lives especially over parental authority, and now with the ascendant Left thinking it can bully us in almost every aspect of our lives (Obamacare and Green New Deal). I agree it’s a tough call — it’s life or death, freedom or tyranny.
I think an information campaign would be appropriate and I would have no problem with a family’s pediatrician saying, “Look, if you won’t take my recommendation on vaccinations, I can’t treat your children. You’ll have to find another doctor.”
How can I hit “Like” on this? I remember the end of these times.
This sort of thing will (has?) become more common as we move away from our historical status as a high-trust society. Is the government telling the truth? They’ve lied to us before. Is the women’s magazine telling the truth? They’ve peddled nonsense before. Are scientists telling the truth? They’ve been wrong too many times to count.
Increasingly, people have the sense they’re on their own. That outlook will have widespread and surprising effects in the future.
Let me be clear at the start, my wife and I were vaccinated (when I received polio vaccination it was brand spanking new), and I vaccinated my children. I wholeheartedly endorse vaccinations, last year this old man got a DPT vaccination to partially protect my unvaccinated grandbaby.
I would absolutely love to have one of our resident experts on statistical analyses weigh in.
When I hear things like “28% of children younger than 5 years old who had measles had to be treated in the hospital,” I immediately wonder how that compares with the general population of little ones – and the consequences in both populations, and how they compare.
Likewise with “In Manila, 55 children under the age of four have died of measles since the beginning of the year.” How many of them would have died before age four anyhow?
In any case, the one thing I simply disregard are the anecdotal stories given by otherwise smart people why they don’t believe in vaccinations: “My friend’s child got vaccinated and he still got sick,” – or “sick from the vaccination” (how do you know?) – “Henry doesn’t vaccinate his kids and they are all healthy as horses. Or the stories beginning, “Lots of people…”
As a man with a strong libertarian streak I think it perfectly fine for companies to require vaccines as part of their employment agreement. Certainly hospitals and medical facilities should.
True in the same way that saying Cholera is just an upset stomach.
You might also point out that in some areas over half the school-age kids are home schooled. I endorse your libertarian streak.
And Facebook now is talking about banning the anti-vaxers. I think the anti-vaxers are in large part peddling harmful nonsense, but that’s not the only harmful nonsense being peddled these days, and marginalizing them just gives credence to the idea that there is something untrustworthy going on the part of the government/medical establishment. It makes me wonder, too.
Actually, I take that back, in part. Marginalizing them may be what’s needed. Censoring them is not. Driving them underground is not.
Facebook, in my opinion, accounts for the majority of the spread and acceptance of misinformation and foolishness such as, but not limited to, this particular issue. In my opinion.
It might be Facebook users, i.e. people, who account for it. There were anti-vaxers before there was Facebook.
From the CDC:
How rare are these “extremely rare” life-threatening allergic reactions? Also from the CDC, there were 327 measles cases in the US in 2018. Google says the US population is about 325M. I’d call measles “extremely rare” in this country. What is irrational about a parent choosing to accept the risk for an extremely rare disease over the risk for extremely rare side effects from the vaccine? When my wife and I were having the vaccine discussions when our children were little, I found it very difficult to quantify those risks. Even if you can quantify them, everyone will balance the risks differently.
Regarding the “you don’t have the right to put me in danger” argument. People put you in danger every time they get in their car and hurtle it down the freeway at 70 mph. For some reason, nobody screams about people taking unnecessary trips in their cars to get an ice cream, or go to the movies, or get their hair done. Those are socially acceptable ways to endanger other people’s lives (including children) because nearly everyone judges the risk to be sufficiently low. Heck, how many children have died from drowning in someone else’s pool. Shall I inform my neighbor that he’s not allowed to have a pool because there’s some tiny risk that my child will get through his fence somehow and fall in?
My four children are all vaccinated. Vaccines are a wonderful thing. But I reject the notion that there is only one rational assessment of vaccine risk. And the more the anti-anti-vaxxers ridicule, condemn, and dismiss, the more those who have come to a different conclusion through honest and considered reasoning may feel justified.
I think there must be something beyond the placebo effect. We had a Brittany Spaniel (the ultimate “go” dog) who lived to be about 15. Towards the end, he was hobbled by pain and it was recommended that we see a veterinary acupuncturist. I would have to pick him up to get him into the car, but after the treatment, he would jump up on his own and when we got home, would jump down and run around the yard. He was a smart dog, but I don’t think understood what was going on enough for the placebo effect to be relevant.
I am not responsible for people’s irrational, yes, irrational assessments of the issue. I reject your rejection (!) that they are making decisions on rational assessments. They may have a rationale, but it’s not rational. And I’m not making fun of them. In fact, I haven’t heard anyone, here or anywhere else, make fun of them; this is serious stuff.
Amen! Humans are notoriously awful at risk assessment. Even people who are experts at it in one area are likely to be ignorant and/or irrational in another.
The reason they are rare is because most people get the shot!
Here we have people free riding on the herd immunity. If everyone did that, it would all come back.
We’ve had it so good for so long that people don’t realize that their refusal to get the vaccines jeopardizes the health of the community. Someone said maybe we need a really nasty outbreak for them to get it. I’d rather we didn’t, though.
You are probably correct, but they had a much more difficult time reaching the gullible.
I love Homeopathy.
They work by taking a “toxin” and diluting it over and over and over until there is a tiny remnant left that supposedly stimulates the body to , something. Please note the chart….
Common homeopathic “medicines” are sold at 30C and 200 C dilutions.
At 13 C ( 10 to the 26th power dilution) not one molecule of the original substance is left.
So you are buying pure distilled water….
Yes, but does it work?
Hey, the Dr. Keeps saying to drink more water…
Exactly!
Already true. Even the private schools in our area require vaccination. The only out is home schooling.
I think Elizabeth Warren did a really good job with this issue in 2015:
See this MSNBC article as well on the congressional hearings:
I think Senator Warren took a much-needed and effective leadership role here in asking these questions directly in a public setting. I commend her for it, even though I disagree with just about everything else she has said and done. :-)
Of course, she represents a state that is somewhat fanatical about vaccines–they are required for all school kids, from daycare to graduate schools. :-) And quite a few vaccines are researched and manufactured here.
No argument that the vaccines are effective and have nearly eradicated many horrible diseases. My point is only that these diseases are so rare now that the risk equation may not be clear cut anymore. If there was a 1 in a billion chance of getting measles but a 1 in 100,000 chance of a serious side effect, would more people choose to go unvaccinated? I’d guess yes. And that would seem a completely rational decision to me. Then as the disease became more common again due to all the unvaccinated, the risk equation changes and people start getting vaccinated again. I think this is exactly what we’re seeing happen. People are assessing the risk now much differently than they were in the 60’s. I have no idea what the actual numbers are, but even if we knew them people would disagree over which risk they would prefer to assume.
Sure. Placebo.
“Estimates of the placebo cure rate range from a low of 15 percent to a high of 72 percent. The longer the period of treatment and the larger the number of physician visits, the greater the placebo effect.”
The fact that we all don’t agree on the assessment is exactly my point. Reasonable people can come to different conclusions. When I was trying to understand this issue I was quickly frustrated by the proliferation of statements exactly like this one from the CDC. How rare is extremely rare? It’s a euphemism for “we the experts have decided you shouldn’t worry about it.” It’s instructive that they don’t recommend some of these vaccines for infants under 12 months. Presumably the risk goes up enough to make the experts uncomfortable. But why should the experts have the final say in assessing what level of risk I should accept for my children?
As for autism, I have no idea what percentage of parents who don’t vaccinate their children do it out of fear of autism. Personally, I did not find any reason to question the conclusions of the various studies that failed to find any links. But I wouldn’t judge someone who did. I find it ironic that on a site where people are routinely skeptical of the scientific consensus on global warming, questioning the scientific consensus on vaccines is held in such contempt.