George Skelton at the LA Times observes that we all tend to value health very highly, and that that makes it surprising that so many people are hostile to vaccinations.
You parents who won’t permit vaccinations because of a personal belief, well, you’re free to practice that belief any way you’d like — as long as it doesn’t threaten other people’s kids.
Americans do have freedom of religion — but not the freedom to jeopardize the health of other Americans.
That’s the way it should be, anyway, and how a bill struggling through the Legislature would make it in California.
It passed one Senate committee; it has to pass two more; if it’s passed by the Senate it will get a stiff fight in the Assembly. If it passes Jerry Brown might sign it.
Besides polio, kids are required, before entering school or child care, to be immunized for such communicable diseases as diphtheria, measles, mumps, whooping cough, chickenpox and hepatitis B.
But California has the “personal belief” exemption that increasingly has resulted in parents refusing to inoculate their children. Besides a religious belief, many are scared that vaccinations can cause other ailments.
Many mistakenly believe, for example, that a measles shot can lead to autism — a discredited theory promoted in 1998 by a lying researcher. His study later was retracted by the journal that published it. And many studies since have shown there is no link between vaccinations and autism.
But Wakefield injected it into the memestream, and it may never get out.
Experts say that low vaccination rates fueled the measles outbreak that started at Disneyland in December, sickening 157 people and inspiring the legislation.
“Each year we’re adding to the number of unvaccinated,” Pan says. “If it gets low enough, that’s when disease is able to spread. Because so many people haven’t experienced these diseases, they don’t know how serious they are.”
I haven’t experienced falling off a tall building, but I know how serious it is. People should pay better attention.
During the Senate Education Committee’s fiery hearing last week — attended by hundreds of angry parents — a polio survivor told about being stricken at age 7. She urged passage of the bill, speaking in a voice apparently weakened by respiratory problems.
Later, she was mocked on Facebook by two opponents of the bill. “Lisa” referred to “the hysterical polio survivor” and added: “Poor woman needs emotional therapy.” “Annika” responded: “Polio was really DDT poisoning.”
Oh, man, that’s revolting.
In 1951, before there was a vaccine, more than 10,000 Americans were afflicted with paralytic polio. I was one. My strong single mom guided me through the ordeal. She was a saint.
But if there had been a polio vaccine that she had prevented me from receiving, I never would have forgiven her.
Parents who won’t allow their children to be vaccinated are — let’s put it politely — misguided. That’s their problem — and their kids’.
The Legislature should gather enough courage to make sure it’s not also everyone else’s problem.
It should indeed.
Not enough of their children have died yet, obviously. Shame it has to come down to that.
“But Wakefield injected it into the memestream, and it may never get out.”
It had 12 YEARS to become firmly established before it was widely acknowledged as fallacious. How many invasive species remain entrenched after 12 years of running wild within our native ecosystems before being put on the Invasive Species List? (Most of them O_O)
Maybe if these parents could be sued, but it is probably difficult to do
Some little municpal health department near Vernal, Utah, was trying to figure out how to up the vaccination rate. The vaccination cost $25. A personal belief exemption involved ticking a box on a form.
Well, a local live wire figured they should reverse the incentives. They made the vaccination free and charged $25 for administrative costs to fill out a more time-consuming exemption form.
Presto, vaccination levels shot up into herd immunity levels (above 95%) and the problem was solved.
What struck me about this story that I heard from a relative is how little it took for people to decide their deeply held personal beliefs were totally negotiable.
Add to that the entirely justifiable costs of billing anti-vaxxers for all the contact tracing and unnecessary medical expenses incurred by their BS, and I bet you could get vaccination rates back up where they belong.
@quixote: I remember discussing opt-out rather than opt-in policies in health law class when we were talking about organ donor registration. One country (I don’t recall which) changed the box on the form from opting in to organ donation to being a donor by default. They saw the same effect you’re talking about. When people had to actively say, “No, I don’t want my organs going to anyone else once I’m dead,” they suddenly were much more likely to register as organ donors.
My state senator is one of the coauthors, so that vote is secured. Now I just have to make sure my assemblyperson is on board, but she never replied to a email I sent her about prosecuting cops who kill minorities, so we’ll see.
Ophelia, could you provide a link to whoever asserts this? I’d like to see the analysis. It passed the Senate Health committee 6-2, with 1 abstention and the Education committee 7-2, so that seems like it has pretty good support. Of course that is without most of the spittle-flecked screams of the ignorant masses yet to be heard, so its support could wither away.
Oops, I see that quote was actually part of the quoted article, rather than from Ophelia.
Why other people’s kids? Why not their own kids? Children should be protected from abuse and neglect, by others or by their own parents. Some ask whether we have the right to force parents to have their children vaccinated. Counter-question: do parents have the right to deny their children necessary health care?
Microbes really don’t recognise municipal, state and federal boundaries, so for a more practical and nationally effective approach try this one.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/apr/19/vaccination-crackdown-australia-announces-end-to-religious-exemptions