Public health is prevailing. Just look at all of the healthy, unvaccinated children.
According to bribed media press-titutes, unvaccinated children are "spreading deadly diseases", yet remain healthy while fully vaccinated children die.
Why don't these posts/articles ever say that both children died? Only the up-to-date vaccinated child died... Curious, don't you think?
32
People learn best from their own mistakes, not the mistakes of others. A few dozen dead children will shut the anti-vaxxers right up.
36
Folks,
I gave both my twins the MMR (all together at once) when they were little (around 2 I think, maybe earlier).
That evening my son began running a fever of 105F. This lasted for four days and peaked at 106F.
When I asked the Doc about this he said: "Sometimes there is a reaction to the vaccine...it is normal".
Nothing at all seemed normal for 5 days. My son never, in my opinion, recovered his former robust self.
You guys want to believe that all of us who have had the "reaction" experience that all docs know exist are making stuff up go ahead.
For my part, I warn parents not to do the combined MMR together.
It is stupid.
67
So far, of the anti-vax commenters I've read here, none have written "MD" after their name and none identified themselves as epidemiologists. My guess is that most of their information is from the internet, the home of Breitbart and Russian trolls.
In the past 24 hours I've had conversations with 3 separate people regarding tonight's lunar eclipse. All 3 were uncertain whether it was safe to look at the eclipse. The level of ignorance about science is astounding. You shouldn't get your health advice from such people.
148
A lot of what’s going on here from the antivaxx crowd—beyond the peoplemwho make a living off spreading this guff, of course—is the fantasy of perfect safety and eternal life.
You cannot guarantee that a simple glass of water won’ t kill you or your kid. What you can do is take reasonable precautions, and keep a bit of a taxpayer’s eye on the local water board.
It is stupid, and hysterical, to be unable to process, “Look, we cannot 100% promise you perfect safety, but we can tell you the odds, show you the dangers if you don’t vaccinate, and then...keep your kid out of school. Because we can demonstrate that you’re creating far, far worse risks than the ones you’re fussing over.”
That’s all there ever is, in matters of medicine and public health. If that’s not good enough for you, I guess you’re gonna have to go with what Sagan used to call, “the demon-haunted world,” and being played for suckers by the shabby likes of Andrew Wakefield.
83
I worked in Papua New Guinea and in the Phillipines 2012-2013 where hundreds, probably thousands of babies died largely due to lack of available Measles vaccine, especially in remote and low SES regions. I wish the anti vaxxer mothers could sit down with women in the Philippines whose babies died from pneumonia and other complications stemming from measles infection.
The fake science of the first fraudulent paper published in Lancet that claimed an association between MMR vaccine and Autism has had a dark legacy. Mercury - what some anti vaxxers claim as the toxin leading to Autism - is not even a part of today's Measles vaccine.
The NYT editorial board is doing yeoman's work with this editorial. Kudos.
126
Today, I was struck by how much the Anti-Vaxxers resemble the simpletons who read BuzzFeed News. Both BuzzFeed readers and Anti-Vaxxers seem to be gullible people who gorge themselves upon trash journalism and junk science with minimal skepticism.
30
Like climate change, a lack of scientific literacy by some may doom us all.
73
All the open-minded "scientific" people commenting need to read through these studies before bashing people who are philosophically and medically opposed to vaccination - especially the Editorial Board of the New York Times.
http://mainevaxchoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/VaccineAutismStudies.pdf
32
The statement that critics of vaccination are only rebutted by "just a handful of academics" is radically divorced from reality. We are constantly deluged by uncritical endorsements of vaccines by the CDC, the medical establishment, the Gates Foundation, the pharmaceutical companies, and nearly all of the mass media (including of course the New York Times). If they are losing the public opinion battle to some amateur-run websites, then this is one of the most stunning propaganda failures of all time. Moreover, the Times (and the rest of the mass media) conspicuously fail to mention the recent affidavit by Dr. Andrew Zimmerman, in which he states that Health and Human Services misrepresented his expert testimony in the 2007 Omnibus Autism Proceedings. A DOJ attorney claimed that he had ruled out any link between autism and vaccines, when in fact Dr. Zimmerman clearly stated that in some cases vaccination could lead to autism. This was reported on Sharyl Attkisson's Full Measure broadcast last week, and you can find the affidavit on her website. So why is the Times avoiding any mention of this? Shouldn't we reconsider old conclusions when new evidence comes to light?
46
How many parents who refused vaccination for their children will nevertheless get Shingrix for themselves?
23
We the pro-Vaccine group also should explain not a side show but a real possibility, Vaccines are not different than any other medicine.
Menas it has complications, Vaccines may kill you , or leave permanently ill for life long. May damage your organs. etc.
Than some anti-Vaccine people rising up and demanding why We are not producing safe vaccines or instead of vaccine why we are not doing much safer treatments.
Without delving in to the details : two things : Vaccines are the most effective and economic way to eradicate many diseases. Nothing beats so far.
Some may anger this explanation, so money is the issue, Yeah. What do you think is Obamacare and NHS or free medical care issues about , not your individual health , it is about Money.
If anti-vaxxers can come about a prevention-eradication method as vaccine and as cheap as vaccine, I am open to listen.
Otherwise they are plain illiterate and hypocrites.
8
CORRECTED VERSION
This article is an ideological folly, and it is also deceptive - it is deceptive because vaccine critics are already and have always been completely outgunned in the mainstream media. If the NYT are paranoid enough to claim otherwise there is surely something else going on.
Secondly, what is currently at issue is both freedom of choice and freedom of speech, and this is a dangerous combination. It is coming that we may not either criticize these liability free products or the lobby that produces them. Nor may we refuse the products. And this is entirely unreasonable - they are being placed on a pedestal, yet there are hundreds of things that can go wrong both singly and in combination (with the certainty that all or anything will be denied in advance as in this editorial). Furthermore, the industry has hundred of more products in the pipeline, which in turn can and will be mandated for our children. The industry needs this debate kicked into oblivion because it cannot stand scrutiny.
There is nothing in the history of either medicine or the pharmaceutical industry which suggests that this is a safe or wise way to proceed, nor is it as if all doctors or medical scientists are in agreement about it.
To want ward off serious disease is an honorable thing but that does not mean that everything done in its name is safe or beyond criticism, and if we get into a state where we think this we have a problem.
John Stone, UK Editor, Age of Autism
53
I wonder if there is any link between anti-vaxxer and conservative anti-science thinking? There was the tea party movement, then birtherism, and now the talk about “fake news” and resurgence of white supremacy. Could all this be a sign of a terrible shift toward illogical thinking in society? There seems to be a more widespread acceptance of conspiracy theory. How did this happen?
43
My son was born in Santiago de Cuba...yes, Cuba...in 1980, and grew up receiving vaccination against 13 childhood diseases. He grew up healthy and strong, with no adverse reactions, like millions of other children. But Cuba's health system monitors adverse events closely, and so this article may be of interest to parents sitting on the fence about vaccinating their kids. It presents in detail all adverse events after applying some 45.2 million vaccine doses to Cuban children over a ten-year period. See MEDICC Review at http://mediccreview.org/vaccine-related-adverse-events-in-cuban-children-1999-2008/
23
My, such vitriol and bias. What ever happened to respecting freedom of choice? I don't believe illness is a devil to be rooted out and annihilated (as if that were possible) by "health" gestapo. Illness is a symptom of a much greater picture and plays an important role in our evolution. For my and my family's wellbeing, I focus on true prevention through lifestyle medicine. I don't feel animosity toward those who choose not to vaccinate. I believe it's my responsibility to keep myself and my family healthy through informed, mindful choices. I believe others should be able to choose their own path as well. If the public health police are truly in support of sound public health policy, they need to add diet, lifestyle, exercise, and mental/emotional and spiritual health to their list of mandatory and enforceable rules and regulations.
38
People don’t want vaccines because they don’t trust the institution that recommends vaccines. You don’t earn people’s trust by calling people stupid and irrational conspiracy theorists and forcing needles into their children’s arms. Government health institutions have given people real reasons in past decades to distrust them, and it’s not possible to say that there is 0% risk of failure from groupthink, arrogance, or unknown systemic risks. Many people associate all government institutions together. Is it reasonable that the trust in CDC is associated with a public housing system that’s dishonest about lead poisoning? These risks probably are correlated to some degree, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable.
36
@barbaraJames do you know that the measle rate is rising in Japan? People are asked/required to be vaccinated because of the social contract. We do our best for all not just our own. What selfishness to put others at risk ie those who truly cannot be vaccinated, because of biblical prohibitions.
9
Ok pro-vaxxers: I got every single vaccine available to man, but now I have a three-week old cold I can't shake. Please advise.
8
The one redeeming thing about this entire issue is the simple fact that it's the children of the Anti-Vaxxers who suffer. One would think the fact there are many amongst us still who lived through the devastation of tuberculosis and polio would be enough to ensure this nonsense never happens. Apparently that's not the case. Oh well. I'm OK and so are my kids. That's what I care about. Those who can't see what's plainly obvious can have their polio.
13
I will share some interesting observations one of my colleagues had studying some literature in Measles.
When the vaccine was introduced in the global erradication campaign, there was an interesting affect on childhood mortality: it dropped, but dropped further than what was expected from the decreased mortality from measles itself. But less mortality is a great thing, and it was chalked up as possibly due to children getting taken to medical help perhaps for the first time and getting other care, and also other vaccines. A win!
More recently, other researchers have been studying measles and trying to figure out how it evades the immune system and cause the disease in the unvaccinated. They discovered the measles virus destroys the Memory B Cells. Memory B cells are a reserve of B cells that are kept by the body after an infection, ready to go out and ramp up quickly if the antigen (virus/bacteria) appears again. However, measles destroys these, and not just the ones targeting measles--all of them. The destructive effect lingers for years.
Current day scenario:Timmy gets a dozen vaccines as scheduled. But he doesn't get measles because the adults who are supposed to protect him read something on the internet. He gets measles. Later, he starts getting the diseases he WAS vaccinated against! AHA go the unwitting parents: "he got sick....vaccines don't work!" So these societal pressures opposing vaccines give this virus and others new room to flourish, in your kids.
14
put this under the heading of " how crazy is THAT?" what possible combination of ignorance, animus, and paranoia could account for widespread fear of vaccinating kids? just another symptom of our fact-challenged, fringe-influenced times. this seems on the spectrum of the rise of religious fundamentalism on one side and the medical establishment's decades-long campaign to persuade people that ordinary food in ordinary amounts is toxic (no butter, eggs. cheese, red meat, tuna fish, gluten - everything will get you!) I am scared of where these manias go next.
9
Are you really sure that you got it right, first of all? The way I see it, NOBODY is against vaccines, what they are against is the way they are given, period: too many at the same time & way too early!
It's full alright to administer them all, the benefits are indisputable, granted, but some (many) kids seem to over react, so slow down a bit Doc, that's it!
20
In the early twentieth century, 25% of American children died before their fifth birthday. This death rate was lowered by vaccines, antibiotics, sanitation and improvements in obstetrical care. There is a reason no one advocates for the benefits of open sewage in the streets, contaminated water and unsanitary obstetrical practices.
36
i am an m.d. born 1950. i remember polio fears. no pool in the summer. stay indoors. children with braces. iron lungs. etc. i agree that of all human accomplishments, vaccination is our greatest achievement (no more smallpox!). and yet we have otherwise educated people believing lies and their children suffer, and become a threat to others.
California and Michigan have the right idea. but we have a president that supports these conspiracy theorists, and is anti-science. a vice president who refutes the claim that cigarettes are lethal!
more aggressive actions are available: major government ad campaigns; tax penalties; fines to families in areas where outbreaks occur; criminal charges if your child contracts a vaccine preventable infection; civil lawsuits; no private or government insurance bnenefits for treatment of these diseases. seems harsh but will send the strong message that we as a society won't do Stupid when the health of our children and our population is the consequence.
also counter antivax propagandists with fines, public shaming, criminal charges. rebut their pseudo-science websites with massive scientific information.
Science itself is being attacked today by our own government, think climate change, for one. Facts are being challenged in our upside down world with "alternative facts".
we have our climate deniers, holocaust deniers, flat earthers, birthers, moon landing conspirators, anti vaxxers, etc. there is no limit to our loathsomeness.
27
One step I take is to assign Invisible Enemies to my classes. This YA book tells the stories of seven infectious diseases -- their history, and how the mystery of each on was solved: smallpox, leprosy, plague, tuberculosis, malaria, cholera, and AIDS. The story of each is equally the story of the misinformation that the public accepted and acted on before the diseases were understood. Unlike longer books on the history of a single disease such as influenza or yellow fever, this collection of short "stories" packs a punch by showing public hysteria in seven eras.
16
In Australia the Guardasil HPV vaccine is free. All 3 of my children received the series at school. The other alternative where it was free was at our GP’s office. All the other common vaccines are free as well. We do pay for travel vacinations, but those are often covered by private health cover in our public-private health care sytem.
The US could do so much better with health care. Travelers to the US are well aware that restaurant staff in the US are often unable to afford to go to a doctor. The high cost of Travel Insurance to the US is a big chunk of a visitor’s travel budget. The US Tourism Industry should get behind Medicare-for-All.
23
Every molecule containing more than one atom is a chemical. Water is a chemical. Our bodies are made of chemicals - some are extraordinarily beautiful and complex on the molecular level, like DNA, some very simple, like methane (CH4). Medicine uses chemicals, some invented by man, some invented by Nature, to treat and prevent disease.
Six times, my baby daughter's life was saved when she was in heart failure due the the injection of a synthetic, man-made chemical, "adenosine," manufactured in a Chinese factory, no less. This man-made chemical is composed of carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen, and caused her heart to stop and then re-start again with a regular, life-saving rhythm. My son carries an Epi-pen filled with a man-made chemical composed of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. This chemical is also found in nature: it's an exact molecular copy of the molecules made by human adrenal glands (epinephrine, aka adrenaline), which may save his life someday, too.
Yes, there are some man-made chemicals AND some natural chemicals (see arsenic, cyanide, etc.) that are harmful to humans. Other chemicals - natural or not - are life-sustaining and life-saving. Millions of people have benefited from the "chemicals" in vaccines and other medicines, and millions of lives have been saved. Your children should be among them.
39
I remember the a polio epidemic when I was young child. My grandparents would not let me out of the house all summer. The only people I could talk to or play with were my cousins who we only saw occasionally. They were also kept in their homes, except the 3 who lived out in the country on a farm.
Our neighbors across the street had a son who came down with polio. He and I were the same age. He was 4. The Health Department put a tape up around the entire property along with signs that the house was under quarantine and no one could enter or leave. Someone from the Health Dept brought in food. There were 5 children and 2 adults living in that house. The ambulance came and took my friend to the hospital. I remember being bored and hot. My grandma explained to me that polio could kill children so we needed to pray for Richard every day and I could not go out side until frost came. I think it was a year before I saw Richard again. He had a wheel chair and would need one the rest of his life the adults said. They also many children and some adults died from polio that year.
I can also remember having whooping cough measles. I had a great aunt who was complete deaf at 8 from measles.
I can not understand anyone who would rather see their child in a wheelchair or casket than to protect them with a quick inoculation. I think it borders on child endangerment and should be treated as such.
65
Some simple logic and reason would help most people overcome susceptibility to internet-fueled misinformation.
All they have to do is ask some basic questions, such as: Is it really possible or likely that the entire scientific community, who include some of our smartest and most highly educated and least money-driven professionals, is in cahoots with dark forces who want to harm children? How were many childhood diseases eradicated in the past, and how will these dreaded diseases not come roaring back if children are not vaccinated? There's proof that vaccines prevent disease - is there any real proof that vaccines harm people on anything even remotely close to the same scale?
Unfortunately, simple logic and reason seem to be in short supply among too much of the population. Thus also climate denial and other painfully maddening phenomena that stand in the way of human progress.
23
I am 71 years old. Back in the late '40s and early '50s the only vaccines we received were DPT and smallpox. There was no polio vaccine, no MMR vaccine. I remember parents being terrified of polio every summer. When the Salk vaccine became available (1954 or '55 I think), there were long lines at school clinics for the vaccine. As others have mentioned, the very success of vaccination programs has led to complacency, where parents have never seen the effects of many of these diseases.
33
The science illiteracy of some in the anti-vaccine movement is just breath-taking. Just because you claim to be an Influencer does not make you an expert in disease prevention.
As wonderful as the human immune system is, the boost provide by vaccinations is likely as responsible (with the development of anti-biotics and lifestyle changes) for the increased life expectancy of most of the world's population.
This entire episode has the potential to undo one of the most important public health triumphs that man has ever achieved. A bully pulpit, reminding what we could return to, may be necessary to undo the damage that the anti-vaccine people are doing.
21
@dmanuta I would recommend you check out the presentations given by independent experts at the Vaccine Safety Conference, they are freely available online. You will see that many experts are speaking out against the current vaccines.
6
@Pedro
Many people who claim to be experts aren't what they profess to be. I did not attend this conference, so I don't know what was said.
The reality is that none of the vaccines are entirely risk free.
Yet, we have to look at the use of vaccines from the Public Health perspective. When otherwise well-meaning people do not opt to vaccinate their children, one of the more predictable outcomes is the Measles break-out in NYC.
13
As a veterinarian, a potential solution to part of the problem occurred to me as I read this piece. In practicing my profession, those of us who are accredited have the responsibility of creating interstate health certificates for animals being taken across state lines. These certificates are time limited and attest to the current health of the animal, the apparent lack of signs of any communicable disease, and document current vaccine status. All states, as well as all other countries, have strict requirements for, among other things, rabies vaccines.
If we were to require all people of an appropriate age range to present health certificates with this type of documentation, or a certified medical excuse precluding vaccination, at all airports, seaports, and state lines, it might help to encourage at least a portion of the anti-vaxxer, free-riding on the herd immunity that they are eroding, contingent to rethink their poorly thought out positions.
Might be an inconvenience for some, but might also help primary care physicians build their practices.
15
@Mark Terry What do you propose for those who directly through their health choices require far higher medical costs than those who chose to eat well and exercise? Should they get the same treatment and be excluded from health plans which we all pay more for because of the majority behavior? What about that free-riding behavior? What about people on cell phones and those who text and drive? When will they be appropriately treated given the impact of their behavior? Maybe people should live healthier lives and not take as many toxins into their systems. Maybe vets and farmers are a huge part of the toxic load we all carry because you believe too much in science that suits you rather than all the science and finding the correct path.
10
Reluctant parents need to understand that refusing to vaccinate their kids can be even more ethically challenging than aborting fetuses: An abortion takes one life; epidemics take hundreds or thousands of lives. Laws should reflect this reality: Let parents refuse to vaccinate their kids; let them be proud of their bad decisions; but do NOT let those kids into public schools, where they endanger other kids. And, BTW, where they endanger THEMSELVES -- because public schools are where unvaccinated kids could be in greatest danger.
13
I am totally mystified by this attitude of young modern parents that vaccinating their children is optional. But I am a member of a generation that was vaccinated for everything going, because my parents remembered their childhoods when there were few vaccines, and "childhood diseases" were serious matters. They remembered children their own age in leg braces and iron lungs due to polio.
22
@Susanna the science needs to prove that vaccines are bringing a net benefit, unfortunately some of the vaccines like DPT are clearly causing a lot more harm than good.
7
If the we as a society: (a) deny medical treatment to adults who come down with a preventable disease to which they had been offered - but refused - a vaccine, and (b) charge parents with felony child abuse whose children become ill with a vaccine-preventable disease after parents refused the vaccine, this serious problem would go away lickety-split.
5
@GBR what about all the lifelong autoimmune diseases and allergies which vaccines are causing, far wore than mild short term viruses. People who have done their homework are avoiding vaccines to protect their health, while the rest head off into the mouse trap of vaccination, get their health damaged and end up dependent on expensive Big Pharma drugs for the rest of their lives.
13
@Pedro
(1) vaccines prevent against serious infectious illnesses that can cause death or disability, not "mild short-term viruses"... which we all come down with frequently and are no big deal.
(2) there is no credible data linking vaccines with auto-immune diseases.
30
The entertainment media didn't help, either. Actress Jenny McCarthy, who is not a doctor or scientist, decided in her mind that her child's autism was due to vaccines. She was invited onto numerous talk shows to disseminate her fantasies, thereby misleading millions. That was so irresponsible of the producers. And in Jill Stein we had a presidential candidate and physician who is an anti-vaxxer. Again, irresponsible of her.
I suffered through measles, chicken pox, and rubella before vaccines against these diseases were available. I would much rather have had the vaccination. In addition to children, adults may suffer needless pain, even death, by refusing to get vaccinated against shingles, pneumococcal pneumonia, and influenza.
I am puzzled why so many, in person and on the Internet, seek to dissuade people from getting vaccinated against preventable diseases. What do they gain by this? Yes, we do need a public education campaign.
23
@CH she is a good Mum trying to get her story out to protect more children, well done to her. If you prefer to listen to doctors there are many speaking out too, check out the Vaccine Safety Conference videos (freely available online)
7
Unfortunately there is a lack of respect for “experts “ anymore. It’s part of our society now.
It’s sad people put teachers and doctors into the establishment category vs leaders of the community.
It’s a deterioration of basic principles of society.
As a doctor I live in a world of ambiguity and uncertainty…However, the vaccine issue is not an issue… Vaccines are safe and necessary!
41
If there's a theme here, it's that our culture has largely abandoned History as a pillar of American education. How many posts start off "I'm old enough to remember...", or "If only people knew what it was like..." Teaching History has been widely replaced by feel-good Cultural Studies, and as a leftist academic, I blame both the left and the right for this agenda-filled, intellectually vapid scandal. Facts are actively disdained by the right and actively ignored by the left, in favor of inculcating righteous feelings and "process" into students and children. For this conversation, just imagine what benefit might accrue if Biology classes (my area) would include films of the polio era during a discussion of immunology and how vaccines function. But Biology? History? I'm not seeing it...
9
@Allan many experts now believe that what we thought of as polio outbreaks were actually DDT poisoning,DDT causes the same symptoms
6
False. The spreading of false information with the intention of harming children should be a felony.
12
Name your “experts.” Bet you can’t.
By the way, anybody with a half-decent science education wouldn’t need to be asked.
8
The world-wide influenza epidemic of 1918 killed between 50 million and 60 million people around the world.
if you are an "anti-vaxxer," you should remember this epidemic and make sure you get your flu shot every year and that your family members are also vaccinated.
It is hard to believe that people, particularly in the developed world today, are willing to expose their lives and the lives of their children to the ravages of diseases like the flue, polio, et al.
The risks and after effects, if you survive, of contracting a disease for which there is vaccine far outweigh the chance of a negative side effect from the vaccine itself.
15
@NRK back then they were giving high doses of Aspirin to those who caught the flu, enough to cause exactly the type of death being experienced
2
@NRK...check this out please. I usually don't post links, but this is an eye-opener.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3136032/
2
My extended family lives in an area where there are many people who have chosen to forego vaccines. I know many of them, having lived there, and we are friendly. And not one of them is anti-vaccination. Anti implies that they wish to eradicate vaccines or prevent people from using them, and that is simply not the case with the people I know. "Anti-vax" is not only inaccurate, but a demeaning term, aimed at stirring up controversy and pitting them against us. In what way does that contribute towards conversation, education and reconciliation?
Each family I know is doing what they consider best for their families -- for a variety of reasons -- in the same way that I hope each parent would. Some of them observe the biblical prohibition of not mixing blood (vaccines are biologicals); others have children with health issues. But not a single one of them has ever mentioned autism.
Some of the most successful democracies that we might point to as having good healthcare systems (England, Canada, Japan, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Belgium, to name a few), all support exemptions. And Japan actually pulled the HPV vaccine out of circulation because of safety concerns.
With systemic healthcare issues in this country its hard to think that this is what needs our attention most. The issue is blown out of proportion to what is shown by the facts and the tone of pieces such as this are unlikely to spark education, debate and conversation.
23
The right of the few to risk the health of the many is not absolute. As a choice to vaccinate or not to vaccinate has incurred greater and greater risk to the "larger" community a counter force will force the decision. Religious choice does not negate the rights of the children to be protected against the bad decisions of their parents. Psudeo Science is willful ignorance tolerated until it places the many at unnecessary risk.
24
Someone please tell his family vaccines are not toxic.
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/01/11/health/yellow-fever-vaccination-martin-gore-death-gbr-scli-intl/index.html?utm_term=link&utm_medium=social&utm_source=fbCNN&utm_content=2019-01-11T19%3A01%3A25
8
@Alex
No vaccines are not toxic. That is not what toxic means. Peanuts are not toxic either because there is a small fraction of people who have severe allergies to them.
Every single medical procedure has associated risk rates. Vaccines' are much, much lower than those of antibiotics, blood transfusions or any form of surgery, for example. But specially those risks are smaller by several orders of magnitude than the prevalence and morbidity of the diseases they prevent. On top of it, vaccines reduce the future need for antibiotics, and with it decisively not only the appearance of drug-resistant pathogens, but also future drug-related risks for the people receiving the vaccine and for the community in which they live.
24
@Luis
Hi Luis,
Peanuts are toxic to people who are allergic to them.
Every single medical procedure has associated risks but they are not mandatory.
If you want to get vaccinated, by all means do so, just don't make me or my kids.
Thank you
3
Perhaps pro-vaccination - heck, pro-science - voices need to apply the same techniques the antivaxxers do: fear and anger. Create non-government websites that talk about real stories of life before vaccines. Those stories are out there and easily found: my older sister lost her hearing one ear as a child thanks to measles, and an in-law contracted polio as a child and spent her life in a wheelchair. Anyone of a certain age can relate their own personal stories. Rile up those who choose to vaccinate and who choose science-based health against anti-science believers, to get the public initiative necessary to require vaccination before entry in public schools, fear and religion be damned. Just as non-smokers have the right to a healthy environment around them in public, vaccinated citizens also deserve a healthy environment for themselves and their children.
17
@mike And...ask me: Would you prefer your son have the measles and lose the hearing in one ear for the rest of his life and/or live in a wheelchair OR would you prefer your son suffer from Regressive Autism for the rest of his life from the vaccine? I too have a personal experience of this to share. Regressive Autism is FAR worse than a hearing loss or living in a wheelchair. Our son's quality of life was taken from him...he cannot communicate or care for himself.
6
@mike there are already tens of thousands of pro-vaccine shills out there posting all kinds of annoying unscientific soundbites, these astroturfers are often associated which specific pro-vaccine propaganda websites
4
As long as anti-vaxxers are a tiny part of the population and warned, they usually don’t do much harm. But every outbreak of a preventable disease is a threat to the public. This is particularly true for children and adults with serious underlying diseases. It’s best if they don’t encounter these life threatening germs.
Vaccinations have had the paradoxical effect of largely removing the presence of various illnesses as motivators for seeking protection. As others recall, I too remember standing in long lines to get a polio vaccination. Human psychology, the internet, and self styled experts on scientific matters have all contributed to communities of misinformed parents.
As long as preventable diseases remain rare, it’s fine for individual families to ignore medical advice and decline vaccinations. But those children are a potential vector for dangerous illnesses that can be highly contagious even before symptoms appear. If outbreaks become frequent or serious enough, as they have in states like California, then public safety mandates vaccinations be required at least to be in public school. We may also need to add a registry kept by public health departments that can require unvaccinated children to stay home until a particular contagion has passed.
Some serious illnesses are less a matter of contagion than bad luck. Common germs can temporarily colonize the nose and throat but occasionally lead to ear infections, pneumonia, and meningitis. Vaccines can protect here.
4
Just part of a wider trend toward junk healthcare, “wellness”, and pseudo-science. I have so many friends (most women and moms) who have slid down a rabbit hole of needless blood testing, insane dietary regimens, self-diagnosis, naturopathy, homeopathy and the widely-debunked like. What’s really happening is fear, not of disease but of medical science. Not vaccinating creates the illusion of control over the inevitable, but ironically cedes all control to a virus or a bacterium.
22
Lets calm down here and think this through. The data is published.
The larger the herd, the dumber the animal. Nature has a way if culling the herd. For thise grazing on the other side of the fence when the gate's open - well, I'm sorry. Open your Heart. Open your Mind and gaze upon your Soul. Peace and Love all around.
1
@ggb
The problem is that there is also something called herd (community) immunity. The people who decide not to vaccinate their kids are not just putting their own kids at risk, but also everybody else's. Particularly those who could not receive the vaccine due to age or poverty, and those who are immunosuppressed due to chemotherapy or other treatments.
14
Logic of the pro-vaxxer medical community: Doctors and nurses recommend pregnant women to get the flu vaccine to protect themselves and their unborn children. According to the flu vaccine package insert, no studies have established the safety or effectiveness for pregnant women or children under 6 months. Read and educate yourselves, stop listening to the opinions of the uninformed pro-vaxxer community that only present silly, entitled, and anxiety-filled comments. Flu vaccine package insert: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.fda.gov/downloads/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/ApprovedProducts/UCM513242.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwi-6IrO8PzfAhUlpoMKHT6JBKYQFjABegQIBBAB&usg=AOvVaw293AhgYr_KysSXCotZSZMG
17
The anti- vaccination crew are helping prove another “theory”. They will show that natural selection really works. All the dopes who are anti- science and barely understand anything that requires critical thinking, will simply vanish from the earth.
The best the rest of us can do is try to protect their offspring from a similar demise by mandating vaccination without exception (other then medical)
It’s hard to argue with stupid
11
Downthread, assorted antivaxxers are howling at pertussis vaccines, based on studies of results in central Africa from 35 years ago that show some increased mortality. The authors aren’t sure why; in typical quack fashion, the calls to find out what’s going on are being taken as “proof.”
Here’s what we know.
https://www.cdc.gov/pertussis/about/faqs.html
Note the drop in infected from 200-400 K, down to 20K; note the death rate drop from thousands to maybe 20 a year.
8
@Robert CDC is compromised, captured by industry, not a good place to look for unbiased information
6
It’s a shame there isn’t a vaccine for the prevention of idiocy and willful ignorance.
19
Would that there were.
1
So, here's your biggest mistake: most of the parents you call “anti-vaxxers” are actually “ex-vaxxers”, who did vaccinate. Vaccines cause harm. Until you acknowledge that and stop over emphasizing the benefits while completely ignoring the risks, you’ll find smart parents prefer to empathize with the parents of vaccine injured children and not the pharmaceutical complex.. the one that can’t be sued when their products cause harm, thanks to the 1986 NVICP act. Until that is repealed no thinking parent wants your liability-free vaccines. Another HUGE one is this: if you want pro-life “anti-vaxxers” to use your pharmaceutical products, you have to stop using fetal cells to make them.. while it’s been purposely kept quiet by the Vaccine Machine, healthy babies were aborted at Wistar Insitute so Stanley Plotkin could use their organs and tissues to create a cell line listed in vaccine ingredients WI-38)to develop the MMR. So how many murdered babies did Stanley Plotkin go through in his “research”? Parents are waking up. There is nothing you could ever say to convince those who KNOW abortion is murder to take part in such darkness. It is 1st amendment stuff, people serve God not the WHO, CDC or any smug scientists who believe they are god.
16
@Aj:Nonsense. There were no healthy babies aborted in order to develop vaccines. There were fetal cells used from two fetuses from abortions for reasons that had nothing to do with vaccine research and development. Just like people don't have accidents just so their organs can be used for transplantation.
14
Yes, NYT, yes, yes, and yes! This is why we subscribe to the Times.
10
While you can't fix stupid, it can and should be quarantined.
20
I have strong feelings on this subject since I have both seen
the benefits of vaccination as well as the harm it brings.
At an early age I was hospitalized from the effects of a vaccination. My father later told me, The doctors told us that you might not make it.
I made it though not without significant long term health issues, and later became a physician.
I have been in private practice in general medicine since 1991. Without exception, every single child who has presented with autism has led, in very careful history taking, to issues which only began following vaccination. Many other emotional and neurological issues have led to identification of links to the side effects of vaccination.
Those in the trenches who see patients daily and who take the time to truly inquire and uncover the cause of many diseases will learn that many are related directly to sequelae of vaccinations.
No amount of "public health" propaganda and screaming by editorial boards and "concerned citizens" can undo the immense harm that mandatory vaccination has done.
Someday, in a more enlightened and honest world, mandatory vaccination will be identified as one of the biggest public health disasters ever.
In the meantime, I advise my patients ( 30% pediatric) to take responsibility for their health and that of their children.
I lead by example and refuse to vaccinate.
Caveat emptor.
30
@simon sez
Thank you for sharing. You are one brave physician!
9
@simon sez good post, thanks for sharing!
7
Shame on you, not least for allowing your childhood fear to permanently dominate your thinking and endanger not only your patients, but everybody they get near.
15
The denial of science by anti-vaxxers is no less shocking and dangerous than the denial of science by those who reject man made-climate change.
There was a publication in Lancet, a major British medical journal in 1998 that claimed vaccines were the cause of autism. The lead author, Andrew Wakefield, faked the data but the article was widely quoted and created a powerful backlash against vaccines for children. After much published legitimate research and investigative journalism, Lancet finally withdrew the paper in 2010. Wakefield was condemned as a total fraud who was actually making money from the vaccine scare.
Despite the proof that the autism/vaccine link is completely untrue many parents still reject vaccines because of the anti-science anti-vax social movement that arose from the initial scare.
Wakefield's publication has resulted in the deaths or serious illness of untold thousands of children. The major media, which widely broadcast the results of Wakefield's fraudulent publication, must constantly remind parents that vaccines are safe and that they have a moral obligation to protect their children and the friends and schoolmates of their children.
18
I have visited a polio ward full of young children. Why would anti-vaxxers even think it's ok to allow polio to do such harm? And that's just polio.
17
People have problems with vaccines because media like NYT and government agencies like CDC do not allow an honest discussion of vaccine safety. Instead, all we hear is the glib mantra “Vaccines are safe and effective” which is not true. The fact is some people are seriously harmed by vaccines, perhaps because they are more sensitive to vaccine ingredients, e.g., aluminum, thymerosal, formaldehyde, polysorbate 80, DNA from aborted fetuses, etc. This is why in 1986 U.S. Congress passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA) and 2 years later funded the National Childhood Vaccine Compensation Program (NCVCP) which has to date paid out about 4 billion dollars for injuries such as anaphylaxis, brain damage, seizure disorders, death. This was done because of increasing lawsuits against pharmaceutical producers of vaccine by people who had been harmed; companies threatened to stop making vaccines if the government did not protect them from liability. This is also why the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) was established, which receives thousands of reports every year of vaccine injury. Most people are not told about this, so there are likely thousands more who do not report. Most people are unaware that in 2011 US Supreme Court ruled that vaccines are “unavoidably unsafe” in Bruesewitz v Wyeth (https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/09-152.pdf) This is why many who do their homework are reticent about vaccines.
22
@RuthS
Yes and yes! Couldn't have said it better myself.
6
As to how we got here, The Times overlooks its own role.
Before the anti-vaxxers, there were the anti-psychiatry people, largely a front for Scientology, who claimed psychiatric drugs were evil and were just a way to control people and make money for psychiatrists (even though the vast majority of these drugs were prescribed by non-psychiatrists) and drug companies. The Times' mental health correspondent, Benedict Carey, has written article after article spewing this line.
It wasn't a big step from this, which wasn't based on any scientific evidence but just the "expert knowledge" of such scientists (and, not coincidentally, Scientologists) like Tom Cruise, to the phony stories of the dangerousness of vaccines.
It's easy to criticize others. The Times should also look inward as its own hands are far from clean in this affair. Once you start throwing mud, you don't know what you'll hit.
2
The silliest story I've heard about vaccines- always from fundamental evangelical extremists, of many denominations- is that "Vaccines must cause Autism, because there was never any autism discovered before vaccines were invented."
15
I don't understand all the worry over antivaxxers opinions and their refusal to be and have their wards be vaccinated. This seem to be a self correcting situation. Just let them be infected and die (or survive and bear witness to the consequences) There need be no pity or compassion for fools so long as they have had an opportunity to be educated. Seems to be a survival of the fittest issue. I survived the measles as a child. I do vaccinate when warned to and it appropriate for my situation. Let them cause their own elimination from the gene pool.
4
@J Hartnett according to classified documents released vis WikiLeaks there have been chemicals added to specific vaccines to reduce fertility rates, so it is the vaccinated who will hence be less likely to remain on the genepool.
6
@J Hartnett
Exactly. It's called freedom.
1
@Pedro: Conspiracy theory. Any evidence? Cam you provide a link to those classified documents?
8
The parents in my parent's generation were much smarter than many parents of current generations. I remember standing in line on a Sunday afternoon with other hundred and hundreds of kids and their parents getting the polio vaccine. That was just 50 years ago. No one then thought, "Oh, I am not going to vaccinate and protect my child from this deadly disease." Maybe because the parents in my parent's generation saw first hand the awful affects of many diseases we now take for granted.
12
Thank you so very, very much for this editorial. Please, continue insisting on the message, and make it one of the central issues in your news coverage.
It is articles like this, and the effective progress that responsible news media can bring and support, that makes me proud to be a NYT subscriber.
9
@Luis They have sold out to Big Pharma, not something to be respected, if they were working for the people they would be demanding safer vaccines
6
I am 100% pro vaccinations. Having had a medically fragile daughter who was protected by herd immunity until she ultimately died from a virus for which there is no vaccine, I saw their value firsthand.
However, I have also spent a lot of time up close and personal with the for-profit medical industry and our disastrous healthcare system, so I also understand why people are so afraid of entrusting their newborn to this system.
So much of medicine is incredibly violent and doctors often don't spend much time addressing the psychological effects of what they need to do to people, even if it helps them (if you've ever tried to put a nasogastric feeding tube down an infant's nose so it won't come out of their throat you know what I mean). The system itself is so stressful to navigate that I actually suffer from no small amount of PTSD from my weekly hours on the phone managing her healthcare.
Perhaps if healthcare in this country were, in fact, a public health system rather than a capitalist free-for-all that manipulates our vulnerabilities for profit (my daughter had one med that had jumped in price from $75 to $20,000 per vial) we would be more trusting of its intentions.
Vaccines are probably the best medical breakthrough in history, but the system that delivers them to us is manipulative, fear-mongering, and corrupt. That kind of cognitive dissonance is difficult to overcome, but if it should be done for anything in healthcare it is indeed vaccines.
17
@Micaelady the concept of vaccination is fine, but the current vaccines are not well tested and are made by untrustworthy companies, there are some experts warning that the current vaccines are likely doing more harm than good.
9
Vaccination is one of the earlier and most effective methods of modern medicine. The technique has saved millions if not hundreds of millions of lives. As a public health measure, I support a legal requirement that children be vaccinated unless there is a medical reason not to. Full Stop.
That is where 'full stop' is appropriate, not where the editors place it. To imply that there are no potential risks for SOME individual when given a particular agent is absurd, whether it is a vaccine or Tylenol.
The editors rightly recognize that scientists (like me) are not comfortable with un-nuanced, 'full stop' arguments. What they fail to grasp is that in the current climate of paranoia, the greatest risk to science is to have a 'full stop' argument later disproved by some incontrovertible evidence, thus exposing the experts as at best fallible, at worst part of some conspiracy. Did the Times editors not apologize just in the last week for a previous stance of the paper, warning against the societal catastrophe that 'crack babies' would pose, predictions later shown to be incredibly overblown and likely based more on prejudice than good science?
A strategy that serves public health AND science is to make vaccinations mandatory, and at the same time take seriously reports of adverse reactions, and to investigate these promptly.
13
@zauhar
No honest person has a any time denied that there are risks.
The problem is that some people have made the argument that a infinitesimal risk like say .00001% chance of negative outcome is too high a risk and that is simply nonsensical.
Its NIMBYism by self centered malignant narcissists.
10
@zauhar
The best place to start would be to actually improve the science, making vaccines safer. Then we would need to make a law so as the industry cannot profit from vaccine injury, so anytime that a vaccine induces asthma, ezcema, diabetes type 1, MS etc the industry should have to give out lifetime treatment free of charge, that why the goalposts will be at the right end of the pitch, pharma will be forced to fix their vaccines instead of being able to profit from causing vaccine injury.
8
@magicisnotreal
The DPT vaccine has been found to reduce life expectancy, experts are demanding it gets removed from the schedule. We are not talking about small risks, it is only pharma PR agents who want you to believe that. DPT vaccine causes asthma in a significant percentage of recipients, people die of asthma every day, those are vaccine deaths, and no doubt one of the key reasons why the vaccine increases mortality.
7
This article is an ideological folly, and it is also deceptive - it is deceptive because vaccine critics are already and have always been completely outgunned in the mainstream media. If the NYT are paranoid enough to claim otherwise there is surely something else going on.
Secondly, what is currently at issue is both freedom of choice and freedom of speech, and this is a dangerous combination. It is coming that we may not either criticise these liability free products or the lobby that produces them. Nor may we refuse the products. And this is entirely unreasonable - they are being placed on a pedestal, yet there are hundreds of things that can go wrong both singly and in combination (with the certainty that all or anything will be denied in advance as in this editorial). Furthermore, the industry has hundred of more products in the pipeline, which in turn can and will mandated for our children. The industry needs this debate kicked into oblivion because it cannot stand scrutiny.
There is nothing in the history of either medicine or the pharmaceutical industry which suggests that this is a safe or wise way to proceed, not is it as if all doctors or medical scientists are in agreement about it.
To want ward off serious disease is an honourable thing but that does not mean that everything done in its name is safe or beyond criticism, and if we get into a state where we think this we have a problem.
John Stone, UK Editor, Age of Autism
19
@John Stone outstanding post John, you have summed up the situation perfectly.
5
What precisely is your scientific background, Mr. Stone? In what research studies have you participated?
How much money does “Age of Autism,” bring in per year, and who are your major advertisers and funders? What are your affiliations within the “holistic health,” and “alternative medicine,” industries, and what do those affiliations earn you on a yearly basis?
7
My local pharmacy is pushing the flu vaccine more and more every year. In the meantime, it’s hard not to see the irony in their flu shot ads being placed right next to large stacks of soda, beer and junk food. A lot of people are now walking around with this idea that they can eat and drink whatever they want and be protected from the flu because they got their shot. I want to see more public health education on the importance of good nutrition, rest and exercise in the prevention of illness; and less promotion of this vaccine as the answer!
18
So... eating junk food makes you more vulnerable to the flu? Hmm.... I get that plenty of people think that “clean foods” and upright living will protect them against viruses, but that is, erm, pardon the bluntness... bunk. If you are malnourished or starving, sure, it matters, but kale and quinoa are not “boosting your immune system,” no matter what the kid at the juice bar tells you.
17
There of course are documented reactions to some vaccines, albeit relatively rare. But given the consequences of the diseases themselves, the benefits far outweigh the risks. Unfortunately, anti-vax activists have found a convenient excuse for what are arguably genetic problems and thus blame others for their problems. But having grown up in an era when polio was not unheard of I can't imagine anyone wishing such a disabling disease on their children as a result of misinformation. The truth is autism may not be preventable but polio certainly is.
13
Let's acknowledge a few facts that may be influencing peoples attitudes:
1. People distrust drug manufacturers, and with good reasons. For these purposes the most important of those reasons is the drug companies' manipulation of testing to bring profitable drugs to market.
2. Vaccines are not particularly profitable.
3. There's an epidemic of autism (don't tell me it's just better testing--it's much bigger than that). There are also epidemics of allergies. Because these are unexplained, people, including parents, who want to protect their children suspect everything.
4. If it turns out that vaccinations have anything to do with autism, the liability for manufacturers could be crippling. So drug companies are unlikely to carry out testing.
5. These epidemics coincided with a dramatic increase in vaccination.
6. Correlation is not causation. But it is likely to raise suspicions.
7. Science repeatedly reminds us that we don't know as much as we think we know.
13
@Justin
1. vaccines have existed for hundreds of years - we know what works
2. I have no idea what that means
3. OK I won't tell you - but it is demonstrably true
4. The research on the purported link was not done by drug companies - so they have no role.
5&6. my fav correlation: the yearly number of people drowning in pools and the yearly number of films Nicolas Cage is highly correlated as is per capita cheese consumption and dying by entanglement in bedsheets (95%)
7. Science doesn't really do that - ever.
7
You comments are problematic because they are sort-of facts.
Not entirely false, but don’t tell the whole story.
If you apply scientific vigor to all of your points you would find the ultimate conclusion is:
Vaccines are safe
Vaccines prevent or lessen illness
Vaccines save lives
Vaccines don’t cause autism
There is no conspiracy by drug companies to not help people.
15
One issue left out here is that there are children who are immune suppressed either through genetic illness or through treatment for autoimmune diseases. These kids can often not have many of the important vaccinations. Those who chose to not have their healthy children vaccinated are putting these immune compromised child at risk of severe illness and even death. Vaccination is a community issue and those who don't get their children vaccinated should seriously think about whether they want the death of someone else's child on their hands and conscience.
15
Given that our government does not regulate false reporting, thus the rise of Fox News, individuals have to learn to evaluate online information. As people become more used to research, perhaps this anti-vax nonsense will be limited. There will always be pockets of society open to scare tactics of extreme voices.
5
While parents may have the right to not vaccinate their children, it is fair to say that they can keep their kids at home and home school them then.
12
Scott
“The flu doesn’t ruin lives. Vaccines do.”
This is just plain wrong! Spend five minutes to find out about the millions of people that died from the Spanish Flu in the early 1900s and stop relying on fake news and pseudoscientific scare stories. Ditto polio, measles, mumps, polio etc.
Ignorance like this will cost many lives in years to come.
17
@Andrew
The influenza epidemic of 1918 killed one pair of my great-grandparents.
3
It's a strange time in which we live. It's as if people have stopped thinking critically and have put their trust in what they see on a computer screen from some website that espouses conspiracies at every turn; non-scientists acting like they know the science they didn't take in school based on degrees they never earned. Parents, if your kids are going to play with other kids, make sure those kids are vaccinated before you send them over.
10
Perhaps there should be an all out push to figure out why children get autism, the poster child of the anti-vax movement. Once the cause of autism is understood, and it is understood to have no relationship to vaccines, that knowledge should finally put the nail in the coffin of the anti-vaxers.
7
@Gregor Pigafatta
Government whistleblowers have admitted the vaccine/autism coverup, but the amount of compensation money required means it can never be officially admitted
7
@Gregor Pigafatta
It is already understood to have no connection to vaccines. Even the lowlife who invented that lie could not produce evidence to back it up when he was still being funded before he was caught and then admitted to his lie.
12
@Pedro Yeah, man! It’s like, a huge conspiracy. Like how the moon landing was faked.
This here is why all of the “how do we convince anti-vac people?” arguments are silly. How are you going to convince a guy like Pedro here, who “knows” about the government conspiracy to cover up the real cause of autism? Just keep this guy’s kids out of public schools, doctor’s waiting rooms, public schools, etc. until they are eighteen and can leave the compound and go get their vaccines.
10
Non vaccinated children and their parents should be shunned. Arguments are a waste. Don’t allow them in school if possible.
And in the absence of responsible no-exceptions law, ask your kids’ classmates parents if their kids are vaccinated. If they say no or won’t answer, do not allow your kids to associate with them outside of school and let your views be known widely.
Not a pleasant position but beats indulging fantasies and reducing herd immunity.
And prosecute for abuse those parents who knowingly denied vaccinations, whose child is damaged or dies as a result.
18
@Seeking Truth
What about adults that are not vaccinated? Not all vaccinations provide lifetime immunity. And what about people where were not vaccinated in the past according to today's schedule? There are many more vaccinations on the schedule today than when I was a child and was vaccinated. I guess that makes me only partially vaccinated, right?
So what's your idea for getting around that? Do we have mandatory vaccination for adults? Create registries? How do we force adults to comply and prove immunity?
The amount of unvaccinated children seems to be small by all accounts. The potential amount of adults without immunity to any given disease seems huge. If we are concerned about coming in contact with one of these unvaccinated children, why do we not live in fear of going out in public at all, given the huge amount of potential contact with adults without immunity?
11
The New York Times is calling for the elimination of religious and secular exemptions from forced vaccination in the US.
The Times argues for the elimination of a basic human right using the sky-is-falling rhetoric with no basis in fact.
Since 1986 when vaccine manufacturers and physicians were relieved of any legal liability for injuries caused by their products, the number, sales and profitability of vaccines have exploded. In 1986, 24 vaccine doses were recommended for American children, today it is more than 80 doses. Nonetheless, uptake of vaccines are still at all-time highs.
"Nationally, coverage with vaccines recommended by the (ACIP) for children aged 18-35 months remains high and stable," according to the CDC's analysis of the most recent numbers, and less than 1% of all children have never received a vaccine.
Yet the Times claims vaccination rates are falling.
Sales and profits have never been higher for the four massive drug corporations, Merck, Pfizer, Sanofi and Glaxo that control more than 80% of the global vaccine market. The drug industry is both the second largest advertiser in the United States (after cars), and the largest source of political campaign contributions. Perhaps the Times is looking after the best interests of advertisers and political allies rather than public health and liberty.
Please do all that you can to protect families' and individuals' right to chose what, if any vaccines they use.
15
@Mark
You are conflating and connecting things improperly.
I very much doubt your economic analogy as the de-regulation crowd was busy making medical profiteering seem moral after having made it legal.
A no fault system for claims made it better for victims when all concerned knew that making victims fight to prove harm in litigation was harmful to real victims.
1
I think NYT EB tried this before. Or, at least, the paper did when you printed at least two scientific views on the pros and cons of vaccines written by very credible scientists. Now the EB comes out with "Vaccines are not toxic. and they do not cause autism. Full stop." Is there not one working scientist at the Yale medical labs in New Haven who might disagree? While this subject is not akin to abortion, I think it is a matter between a doctor and his or her patients.
9
No, it is a matter between parents and the community. Herd immunity protects the herd and when some opt out, unacceptable risks are introduced.
9
@ann
It is products such as vaccines which are leaving people immunocompromised in the first place, so it is wrong to risk the health of other healthy children so as to protect the vaccine damaged ones.
Keep in mind that live vaccines warn on their insert that the recipient must keep away from the immunocompromised, so perhaps we should start quarantining the recently vaccinated.
8
Somehing to ask before a playdate? Is everyone up to date on their vaccines? Perhaps could open a non-judg mental conversation.
6
@NJA
Check if they have recently received a live vaccine, as the recipient can shed the virus for a few weeks after vaccination
4
More lying. And dumb lying; do you think that you don’t “shed the virus,” when you’re sick?
4
After reading through a lot of anti-vaxxers' comments online, I believe that public health campaigns and also the gist of this article are missing a large and important part of the picture. Anti-vaxxers are not only misinformed. They are making deliberate choices to believe what they believe for emotional reasons.
Intentionally doing something that causes their child pain and distress is very difficult for parents to do. When a new parent weighs the 100% guaranteed pain of their child being vaccinated against a potential harm they've never seen or heard of anyone actually experiencing, it can be easy for emotions to tip the scales in favor of not vaccinating.
When a child has a negative reaction to a vaccine, the problem is much worse. It comes as a surprise to the parents who have been assured that vaccines are completely safe. That, I believe, is why so many anti-vaxxers distrust doctors so much. When they weren't prepared for a reaction and don't have support when a reaction happens, I'm sure it's easy to feel that their trust has been betrayed. Then they look at the schedule of vaccines their child is supposed to receive and imagine their child experiencing same reaction every time. It's not hard to see why a scared parent wouldn't want to go through that.
I think more education and most importantly support for parents whose kids have bad reactions would go a long way. As would developing more oral vaccines to the extent that it's possible.
10
@Sarah Owen The most important thing of all is funding for proper studies, we need to find out all the harms vaccines are causing and then research how to make safer vaccines.
3
Why not hold parents who choose not to vaccinate criminally and civically responsible for the spread of diseases carried by their children?
8
@Ernie Cohen - oh my, Ernie. It's come to this? If one is charged and ends up defending themselves in court over this, the previous case probably involved a pedestrian hit and run by a driverless car.
It will eventually happen once we have a major outbreak. We rationed food during World War II. You better believe if Diseases that were eradicated start making their appearance again, it Will be criminal to refuse...
6
The impact of fake news is YUGE as we know.
And conspiracy theories abound, sometimes spread by uninformed celebrities like Jim Carrey and faux celebrity Jenny McCarthy.
And I have no doubt some kids are genetically predisposed to being sensitive to vaccines because I know parents whose kids changed immediately after getting a dose and I’m not going to argue with them about it.
There’s no easy answer and it’s amazing that people fail to use Google where it’s so easy to find articles like this one, and instead let their kids drink bleach and undergo dangerous procedures like chelation, but many parents are desperate for a “cure” or something to blame.
http://bit.ly/AutismVaccineMythTimeMagazine2018
“The vaccine-autism myth is one chilling example of fraudulent science. February 28, 2018 marks the 20th anniversary of an infamous article published in the prestigious medical journal, The Lancet, in which Andrew Wakefield, a former British doctor, falsely linked the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine to autism. The paper eventually was retracted by the co-authors and the journal. Wakefield was de-licensed by medical authorities for his deceit and “callous disregard” for children in his care. It took nearly two decades for the UK immunization rates to recover. By the end, UK families had experienced more than 12,000 cases of measles, hundreds of hospitalizations — many with serious complications — and at least three deaths.”
14
Just make vaccinations legally mandatory and be done with it. Fools with irrational values that kill people, especially innocent kids, should have no more protection under the law than someone who claims “God” told him to kill the President.
7
I agree with you. Unfortunately this is going to take time. Unfortunately it may take an Outbreak to declare this emergency measure.
4
It is easy to lump all anti-medication attitudes together into a single anti-science message, but that unfortunately retards communication by polarizing the matter.
In addition, I'm not sure how you can reconcile an editorial that encourages conflict between polarized viewpoints with advocacy of resolution.
I don't know any anti-vaxxers personally, but I know a great many people who are stereotyped as anti-vaxxer because they advocate staggering childhood vaccinations or further investigation of that topic.
3
I do know quite a bit of patients who Let me vaccinate their children But are on easy about it because of what they read. I know a few patients who refuse to vaccinate. So one can conclude that in general the population is frustrated that the pro vaccine medical community needs to improve their communication with the public.
1
Anybody grow up in the 80’s when you got antibiotics for everything? Nowadays doctors and hospital caution against them even though they “work”. Why? Because it took the medical community half a century to get (slightly) more holistic in its view. It’s not the benefits of vaccines most people object to. It’s the absolute lack of transparency and rigor about the possibility of a better way to do it and the unwillingness to enter your child in what amounts to a very profitable experiment. Calling anti vaccers idiots follows the same time honored technique and will result in the same outcome.
9
Anti-Vaxxers think their many hours of intense googling is the equivalent of a medical degree. Most are stay-at-home mommies with too much free time to read conspiracy theories on social media.
7
Since we can no longer "nip it in the bud" we need to pull it out root and branch starting with removal from this country of the man who started this evil campaign for his personal profit, Andrew Wakefield.
He lives in Texas and is still spreading his lies after admitting to inventing the whole idea in concert with an attorney at a children's BD party to make money and being struck off for it in Britain. Why don't republicans get worked up over "immigrants" like him who are spreading lies that actually kill people? Isn't immigrant caused death one of the things they are so in "crisis" about!?
One more thing, Vaccination is the one thing you can do that will effect the entire human race for the better. There is nothing else anyone can do that will have that much positive impact on humanity.
8
Let them do as they please, it wont hurt the gene pool. We wont loose the best and brightest.
3
This would be fine, except babies, cancer patients, and the immunocompromised rely on herd immunity. Also, sometimes vaccines don’t “take” or wear off - when I was pregnant the first time, we discovered I didn’t have rubella antibodies, despite having been vaccinated on schedule as a child. I needed a booster.
So unfortunately, anti-vaxxers actually are a danger to the best and brightest. Also, real ding-dongs can sometimes have smart or decent children. It’s hardly fair to let the ding-dongs treat those kids like disposable property when there’s no guarantee that they will grow up to be like their parents.
6
Travel to countries in Africa and see firsthand what polio does. If you knowingly expose your child to that disease, God have mercy on you.
10
The ancient NYT editorial board so arrogant. Of course they write a long, hectoring, condescending editorial advocating for American children to be denied their public education because they know best. Apparently, the NYT knows every American child better than their parents and gives sweeping, compulsory medical orders to every parent in the USA. At no time does the editorial board even speak with parents of children who suffered a severe adverse vaccine reaction. The editorial board writes endlessly about corruption and greed in the pharmaceutical business but we MUST be required to our total and complete trust to the same companies when it comes to vaccines. Oh and if u dare to even ask a question about safety u must be immediately labeled an anti vaccination hysteric.
13
I agree there should be a discussion. However at one point people have to acknowledge that there is no controversy about giving vaccines in the medical community. It’s like saying that the world is round versus flat. Believe me as a position I deal with a lot of uncertainty and ambiguity. The vaccine issue lucky for me is clear… Vaccine save lives and they’re safe. Here’s the bottom line: if people start refusing vaccines kids will start dying the government will get involved and you will not have a choice anyway.
16
As a physician **
2
How stupid can people be. The only exception for mandatory vaccines should be medical.
8
A newer wrinkle-- bots and vaccination misinformation
Weaponized Health Communication: Twitter Bots and Russian Trolls Amplify the Vaccine Debate
American journal of public Health Oct 2018
David A. Broniatowsk
https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2018.304567
6
Even if it's not the vaccinations, when something traumatic happens to a child we have to blame something or someone. The thought that I had committed this malady would be doubling damning. It's only natural that someone would want to compensate by blaming someone or something else.
1
I notice that both the article and many commentators are suggesting that some form of an educational campaign should be under taken to push back against anti-vaxxers. However, this idea is operating under the premise that if we educate more people on the facts they will (hopefully) reject the misinformation and propaganda surrounding vaccines. The problem I see with this is that a lot of anti-vaxxers are college-educated people who you think would be more receptive fact-based research that can be corroborated. But they aren’t. I work with someone who has their B.S. in Biology (of all fields!) and they are skeptical of vaccines and is unsure if their kids should get vaccinated because they believe that it’s more “natural” to build an immunity to diseases with ones own immune system. I agree with others that we should simply require by law all children to be vaccinated. Anything less would be a form of child negligence.
11
My husband and I are old enough to remember the mass polio vaccinations; more importantly, we also know several people in the family who actually had polio. We also had all of the "usual childhood diseases"- measles, mumps and so forth- because vaccines for those weren't available then. We came out ok, but it wasn't fun and I wouldn't care to repeat the experience. But in researching my family tree, I discovered several people who had died of these same diseases. This includes my 2 times great grandfather, who died during a measles epidemic in the New Jersey military camp he was serving with during the Civil War. Measles and other now preventable diseases probably carried off as many soldiers as the fighting did.
10
@D.T. in MD I believe it is true that most wars (historically; don't know about current, but it wouldn't surprise me) have killed more people via war-spread disease, than in battle.
1
There is no way to argue anti-vaxxers into believing; logic just doesn't work. Instead we need to bombard them with photographs--seeing IS believing. My recommendation is child tombstones. The historical graveyard at Newport, RI contains row after row of heartbreakingly beautiful children's tombstones. You'll find runs of 4-6 stones for one family over a decade or more--ie the parents lost child after child after child. The beauty makes the sorrow all the more poignant. Every historical graveyard in this country tells the same tale.
It's not too late, I don't think, to record short interviews with the elderly of this country, recalling how many siblings they lost, growing up. (Lots!)
You might also want to go to countries like Vietnam, as M. Morris points out, to photograph the aftermath of non-vaccination. The brave but crippled survivors.
You might also want to show photos of our citizens who are protected by vaccinations. Getting a vac isn't just about you, as this narcissistic country thinks. It's about the pregnant, the elderly, the infants less than 6 months old, those being treated for cancer..
Slogans could help too. I always tell my patients, "Germs haven't gone away. Germs are as old as the dirt."
I'd also use: "Vaccinations. Because it's not just about you."
19
Whomever penned this editorial has missed the boat and sunk into the deep-water of assumption.
The base premise expressed is that it's an irrefutable truth that every vaccine contributes to more health/years lived for every person in every situation & is at all times more safe/health-producing than any experience w/ any disease. The conclusion linked to this premise is that anyone who believes otherwise can only be a dupe of propaganda.
Only the premise is simply wrong. Circumstances matter. Not all vaccines have equal impact. Vaccine injury occurs. Hence, the National Vaccine Injury Program run by HHS. A consultant hired by the CDC to investigate the situation (Harvard Pilgrim) estimated that 1% of vaccine injuries are recorded.
It's not "propaganda" that has caused thinking parents to question the wisdom of our current vaccine program. It's the force of direct experience w/ vaccine injury coupled w/ investigation into accumulating science. It's science that has provided evidence of "non-specific effects" which-- in case of the DPT vaccine used around the world -- was shown to be associated with 5x the mortality rate of a matching group of unvaccinated children. See 2017 and 2018 studies by Morgensen/Aaby et al https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5360569/ It's science that has described the mechanisms by which vaccines can induce autoimmune issues, allergies, asthma, paralysis in susceptible subpopulations. See immunology textbook "Vaccines and Autoimmunity".
12
Those studies are of vaccination results from over 35 years ago, and the authors say again and again that they’re not sure what’s going on.
5
@Jennifer Downey
You are correct to point out that vaccines, just like any medical intervention or even seatbelts, are not always good for all individuals in all instances. The problem is knowing prospectively who might be the unfortunate ones with the rare serious condition potentially caused by a vaccine. On balance all conventional vaccinations are beneficial to the larger population. That’s a scientific fact. If you want a guarantee of your personal safety in all circumstances you’ll have to go to another planet.
6
@Robert If "they" want parents to embrace all recommended vaccines, they'd better figure out what's going on - by asking the obvious questions without delay. Namely, what are the TOTAL HEALTH OUTCOMES for vaccinated versus unvaccinated children. And please don't suggest such studies would be "unethical". There are plenty of parents who choose not to partake of vaccines. Prospective studies are doable. Independent scientists struggle to ask the right enlightening scientific questions for lack of money. In-the-know parents can see the science holes. They are obvious. Such parents are not going to substitute political cant for real risk/benefit analysis when it comes to making the best decisions they can for the children they love.
8
My maternal grandfather’s baby sister died of whooping cough in a bitterly cold winter storm in the early 1900s. Her parents lived on a remote ranch and drove a horse and buggy miles through a storm to try to find a doctor. In the end she died, of what is today an entirely preventable disease. One of his uncles died at the age of four of diphtheria — totally preventable today. My paternal grandfather also had a baby sister who died at 19 months of an unspecified illness that is also now probably completely preventable through vaccination. She died in her devastated parents’ bedroom and they shut the door and had to go out to milk the cows, after telling their other kids not to go in that room. Her five year old sister, my great aunt, never forgot. Someone should take these idiots out to a graveyard and show them the rows of headstones belonging to all the babies and toddlers who died in years past of these horrible diseases that can now be prevented.
13
The debate is polarized these days, but we need to break away from that and weigh up the pros/cons of each vaccine individually.
Here's a TEDx given this month by Professor in Global Health, Christine Stabell Benn, on what changes need to be made to the vaccine schedule and which vaccines should be withdrawn from the schedule, as some are causing more harm than good and actually increasing mortality rates.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d8PNlXHJ48
9
This is shameful and just plain nuts. I remember my younger brothers when they were afflicted with whooping cough, mumps and measles. There was no vaccine for those diseases 65 years ago. What a terrible fate for toddlers to endure just because their parents are anti-vaccine, anti-science wackos.
7
I would like to say that the stupidity of the anti-vaccination movement is simply an example of evolution in action. Their children will be wiped out by the epidemic that they caused to happen. The trouble is that there are also innocent victims of those willful ignoramuses.
6
Let's jab everybody. Whether they want it or not.
We should especially load newborns with everything there is. More power to big pharma.
5
I know you’re being sarcastic but I actually agree with you. We need to vaccinate all children!!!. Overall the benefit Vastly outweighs any risk. I know it Seems wrong but trust me it is right. As I told a previous commentor, I am so thankful that I do not have to carry a penknife in my pocket The doctors just 40 years ago to do an emergency tracheotomy In the office when kids have emergency breathing problems from HIB disease.
If we stop vaccinating and there is an outbreak you can Be certain that your rights will be taken away from you and you will have to vaccinate. Most likely we will get to that point.
9
The greatest contribution to public health - #1 clean water and sanitation, #2 vaccines. It is simply irresponsible to call oneself a member of society and not believe in the science and facts. As a practicing physician I have rarely seen measles, mumps or rubella. I have never seen acute polio or smallpox (although I have my smallpox vaccination scar). It will likely take large outbreaks or lawsuits by injured parties infected by non vaccinated children to turn the tide unfortunately. No vaccination is 100% effective and I know of no action is 100% effective without a potential negative. Truly a situation where the needs of the many outweigh the needs/desires of a few.
12
I remember lining up in school to get a polio shot and the tremendous sense of relief that adults spoke about in whispers. Relief because they knew their children would not be among those fighting for life in an iron lung and living with leg braces and deformity if they survive. As an adult and an advanced practice nurse, I saw the long term results of polio - the virus lives on in the body to reemerge in later life with new horror. This phenomenon shows how lax and complacent we have been about the right strategies to use to combat the misinformation and ignorance that is both word of mouth and tv and internet based. We need new language, new campaigns.
15
The road to eliminating this nonsense is straightforward: health insurance coverage. If you don't immunize your kids, and you don't have a valid medical exemption for refusing to do so, they are ineligible for health insurance coverage. That would end these shensnigans in under two annual insurance coverage renewal cycles....
9
Let’s be clear: parents who do not vaccinate their children are the parasites of the health community, dependent on vaccinated children to keep their own healthy.
13
My cousin is deaf because his mother contracted German Measles while she was pregnant with him. This was before MMR was widely available and GM was thought to be the “better” measles. I have no patience with anti-vaxers, I have seen the results of not vaccinating. Why would anyone want to risk sterility (boys from measles), blindness, disfigurement - again all from measles. BTW, whooping cough kills babies, that’s a good outcome?
13
This is an issue created by propagating a lie: the lie is vaccination do no harm.
The reality is a tiny percentage of vaccinated children have very severe and at times devastating reactions (considerably less than 2 out of 1000). The US government runs the “Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) to deal with this. The are a tiny number of very serious reactions.
https://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/SafetyAvailability/ReportaProblem/VaccineAdverseEvents/QuestionsabouttheVaccineAdverseEventReportingSystemVAERS/default.htm
The information that vaccines are completely safe is false. The American Academy of Pediatrics has propagated that lie and many parents are aware of adverse reactions. The distrust that emerges, motivates the decision to not vaccinate. The truth is the risk is slight for serious consequences and the public heath benefits and the benefit to vaccinated children are greater than than the likelihood of a dangerous adverse reaction. Each year about 4 million babies in the US are vaccinated so the gamble for parents is a very low risk benefit compared to a public heath benefit of great magnitude.
Tell the truth and people can assess real risk instead of knowing they are being lied to by their own doctors and the prevaricating AAP. The confusion and distrust that results, left unaddressed to concerned parents, leads to an illogical decision that expands in scope over time.
16
Why don’t children sue their parents for failing to vaccinate them?
4
My firm opinion on the vaccine debate is #1: no name calling (one who questions is not necessarily "anti" anything. #2: Let the individual and family decide, no mandates. Government has no place in health care decisions. #3: Educate yourself and know your family health history. #4. Be responsible, if you are sick STAY HOME.
8
Many communicable diseases are contagious for days without any symptoms manifested. Very young children are not fully vaccinated and many immune compromised people are susceptible to infection. Unlike abortion, vaccination implicates the health of the community.
6
Sorry. I’m just down on self-serving ignoramuses who endanger kids and adults, and very often make tidy sums telling lies, selling lying books, and hawking quack nostrums.
7
There are few things that make me as furious as listening to anti-vaxxers being politely treated as though they are something other than the superstitious, imbecilic menace that they are. (Oh I know, name-calling won't get us anywhere. But apparently neither will facts, so where does that leave us?)
People who reject science should have to give up all of the benefits science has brought them, and be forced to live in special reservations under medieval conditions.
10
The anti-vaxers, like the chem trailers, are convinced only they know the truth even though the scientific evidence doesn’t support their position. They live in their alternate reality for all manner of reasons. The Internet and talk radio, spew forth a constant stream of nonsense to support them. Yet the larger issue here is about creating a distrust in the public sector that has undermined belief and faith in democratic institutions.
“The split in America, rather than simply economic, is between those who embrace reason, who function in the real world of cause and effect, and those who, numbed by isolation and despair, now seek meaning in a mythical world of intuition, a world that is no longer reality-based, a world of magic.”
― Chris Hedges, American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America
9
Our children will reap the consequences of the rise of the anti-intellectual movement (again) in the United States. With all the facts and science at our fingertips, grifters and celebrity (Jenny McCarthy) non-experts are preferred sources of non-facts and non-scientific approaches to vaccinations. And the consequences will be lethal.
7
"Yes, there are chemicals in vaccines, but they are not toxic. " Has the NYT actually analyzed the constituents and done the math or toxicology to back up this statement, or just relied on "experts" to make this assertion? NO. In fact, the amount of aluminum--a highly toxic metal that causes serious occupational neurological disease in aluminum pot room workers and welders--used as an "adjuvant" in the first set of vaccinations received by a 1-month old infant directly into the bloodstream is more than that child would otherwise absorb through his/her diet over the course of most of a lifetime. That's a big reason so many parents have opted out--not because they're "anti-vaxx" but because they're anti-injecting-aluminum-straight-into-a-child's-bloodstream." Pharmaceutical companies could readily find truly non-toxic substitutes but they don't and they won't--because they rely on unreliable animal tests, have big gov propaganda and legislated demand for their products as is, and have legal immunity against lawsuits.
9
Not remotely true.
6
Early census questions asked how many children did you have and how many are still living?
3
Asbestos.
Cigarettes.
Thalidomide.
Maybe so many people are primed to receive the message that vaccines are harmful because - given big business's history of lying about the health effects of their products - so many people wouldn't be surprised if vaccines were harmful.
Too bad about vaccines. But whatever the opposite of crying wolf is, Pharma and its cohort have done their share of it.
11
I have cared for children who were immune suppressed and died from measles.
I have cared for infants not immunized from pertussis and had not only pneumonia but encephalitis.
We should call the Anti-Vaxxers what they are : Biological terrorists endangering the lives of the rest of society based on non scientific evidence. When your immune compromised spouse, mother, father or grand parent becomes incapacitate and dies from a preventable illness all because your neighbor refused to vaccinate their child maybe you will change your mind.
But I doubt it
14
Vaccines are not all good or all bad. The truth is in between and it does no good to label anyone with concerns as part of the lunatic anti-vaxxer crusade. As a scientific-minded person, I struggle with the fact that for all practical purposes the industry is self-regulated, the number of “necessary” vaccines has grown from 8 when I was a kid to 32, and testing for vaccines is on an individual level (ie per dose, not collectively which is how most vaccines are administered). I do not think vaccines cause autism. I believe and know they have saved hundreds of millions of lives. But I’m not going to give my kids the sexually transmitted Hep B shot when they are two months old as suggested by the American Academy of Pediatrics. How can anyone argue that at two months the benefits outweigh the risks?
8
@Vic
A quick Google search shows that Hep B is not only sexually transmitted.
6
@Vic
Hep B is transmitted through body fluids, including blood. Therefore, if someone who is a carrier has a cut, touched someone and person also has a cut, even a small one, transmission can take place. Healthcare workers are required to be vaccinated for Hep B if they have direct patient contact, to protect the healthcare workers.
5
Ignorance is expensive. It's also profitable. I suppose taxpayers have to bear the costs.
1
What about the prominent Cancer researcher who was recently killed by a yellow fever vaccination? Would you want to have one now or let your child have one?
3
@jimfaye
I believe the doctor was traveling abroad to an endemic area and needed tha vaccine. His chance of getting yellow fever was much higher than adverse vaccine reaction. He had to make a choice based on probability.
4
Vaccinating against everything is debatable - against truly ravaging diseases isn’t.
Do those against the latter even realize they only have a lower risk option of making that choice today because all the rest of us didn’t? Wake up and get some perspective before we return to more needless deaths because of your lack of it. I wonder, would you want your unvaccinated kids to Travel to Africa or parts of Asia or would you vaccinate them before going?
1
As a doctor I agree Trump and the government needs to declare a vaccine crisis. Anybody who refuses is a DCFS case for child abuse. Enough of this misinformation and nonsense. We are going to have a National security crisis called polio, flu, diphtheria, etc that will knock out a large portion of our children ( or leave them crippled) ...
1
Vaccines should be mandatory, with only medical exceptions, for public school attendance. That would get the compliance rate up to the level needed for herd immunity. But it requires legislation, and most candidates for office are cowards. Too bad. It will probably take a bad outbreak of something in each state before action, state by state as in California.
6
Haven't had a flu shot in over ten years. (The Navy made me get them blah) and haven't had the flu.
I'm down with being an anti-vaxxer. This means if I get sick, and well, you did your diligence and vaccinated yourself against everything including binge-watching the Sopranos?
You don't!
Let me pick my own poison: coffee/beer/vodka/lemon water/hands out of my face/eating right.
Stay out of my bloodstream.
By the way?
My son has Asperger's
He had the mmr shot (mama did it)
Thanks.
3
Your son has autism. I am sorry for that. But his mother also gave him milk and cookies. Correlation is not causation. Therein lies the problem with lack of scientific education in the masses.
5
@Seeking Truth...no need to say sorry. He's a great kid. That's all anyone can ask from a child: don't be a jerk.
With that being said? Pro-vaxxers like you are always fighting things you can't see!
Therein lies the problem with the lack of common sense in the masses.
2
Seems like a solution to climate change! Since the human population is growing exponentially to an unsustainable number, a panepidemic or two may actually be the planet’s salvation.
The anti-vaccine movement has some bases similar to the home-schooling movement: people with no scientific training, let alone medical or epidemiology degrees, decide, and society lets them, that they know more than the experts. (Perniciously, home-schooling breeds more ignorance—and arrogance, a deadly combination [see President Trump]—leading more people to decide that they know better than experts do, about a lot of things, from global warming to medicine. “My doctor and I chose Zarelto,” says a female motorcyclist on a commercial. I’ll bet that the doctor was pleased that his “colleague” approved his choice.) Of course, most climate-change deniers oddly are proud to announce, “I am not a scientist,” when airing their manifestly unscientific “views”: curiously, they never preface wacky ideas about tax policy by saying, “I am not an economist.” Society should not be afraid to tell parents who think they know best/better that nobody is going to validate their crackpot opinions about matters pertaining to the public good—like vaccination.
6
The key phrase in this article is that actions were taken "after an outbreak". Once parents' young children actually start dying or ending up damaged for life, there will be a stampede for the vaccines.
3
There are many (as evidenced by the posters on this thread) who recall the “good ole days” before vaccinations were widely available for childhood diseases.
I bet many of these people would be happy to make public service announcements about how bad these diseases were.
5
Thank you for addressing this issue.
1
Great ideas, but permit me to suggest another one: get parents who vaccinate to understand that parents who don't vaccinate are using children who are vaccinated as a shield.
It's been said that your freedom to swing your fist ends at my face. Just so with anti-vaxxers. Their selfish choices for their kids place your kids at risk.
Lastly, understand the truth about the concept of "herd immunity," i.e., that as long as 90% or so of kids are immunized, vaccine refusniks are nothing to worry about. But, the "herd" in herd immunity is not your state or your school district, it's the other kids on the bus or in the playground.
Anti-vaxxers need to be confronted with their exploitation of other people's kids.
3
My son missed the whooping cough vaccine as an infant due to medical reasons. As a young adult he contracted whooping cough. It was nearly six months of constant coughing and misery. Anti-vaxxers are either willfully clueless or anti-children.
7
I see.
Pro-vaccine materials are called "information" and anti-vaccine materials are called "propaganda". And, to make it more convincing, it's useful to call the supporters of the anti-vaccine movement, the "enemy". Nothing emotionally loaded about that characterization. No.
It is unhelpful for a news organization, like the NY Times, to analyze things in such a non-objective manner.
The scientific community has - surprise, surprise - made mistakes in the past. Might over-vaccination be another one? The number of vaccines administered to children has exploded.
The USA ranks #34 in the word, with respect to the mortality rate of children under the age of 5. Maybe, the USA could look at the vaccine policies of those ranking ahead of it. It's a bit like college football - if a football program was ranked 34th in the country, the coaching staff would not hesitate to look for improvement by examining the methods of the ranked teams ahead of it.
The NY Times could play a useful role for its readers, by (objectively) figuring out what's going on in countries ranked #1 through #33 - and not by calling anti-vaccination people the "enemy".
8
Most discourse about anti vaxxers is limited to throwing up our hands, and complaining how clueless they are. But finally, an actionable game plan.
2
Simple solution. No vaccination proof, no enrollment in school.
2
The danger of vaccines to babies is now the unconscionable
*number of vaccines required all at once.
Babies do need to be protected from standard Mumps, Measles, Whooping Cough, etc., but babies are *HARMED BY *KNOWN *POISONS used in the vaccines as "preservatives", to include *both mercury and aluminum, and Big Pharma is pushing for
babies to have *MORE vaccinations than ever before ?
First, Do No Harm ! Pumping babies full of poisons is *not
a recommended method of "doing no harm".
Do you really think Big Pharma, pushing for Laws *forcing the public to buy their product, often under threat of jail time, *can
be "all about" the health of your Baby ?
Medical Doctors used to endorse cigarettes on TV back in the Fifties and even later into the early Sixties in some places.
Think about it.
6
Astonishing that anti-vaxxers have exerted this much power, given the well known public health risks. For decades, it was a given that kids could not attend school without proof of immunizations provided by their doctors. Parents who cause their child's profound and possibly permanent suffering or death from a 100% preventable disease is just plain ignorance. The inmates are running the prison. The uneducated inmates. How dare they think they know more than MDs and epidemiologists. How dare they not see the countless examples of the catastrophic cause and effect of failing to vaccinate in the Third World. When dimwitted Hollywood celebrities dictate public health policy - FOR CHILDREN NO LESS - its time to stop and hit reset.
4
So... let’s say some hostile foreign government was looking for ways to use the internet and social media to destabilize American society...
Wouldn’t spreading false information about vaccines, and convincing Americans not to immunize against dangerous diseases be a logical pursuit?
7
I wonder, are any of those anti-vax websites traceable to foreign governments? Asking for an enemy.
5
I think natural selection is ultimate tool against ignorance. Let nature take its course and hopefully in a couple generations these anti- vaxxers will no longer be an issue.
Except that it’s innocent children who are harmed by the actions of clueless parents.
4
I am a doctor and struggle with this almost daily. Having given this alot of thought I feel it is actually a failure of our educational system. The basic science is like magic to most people and what they do not understand they fear. This lack of fundamental education in basic science and the resulting inability to think critically allows people to be manipulated by the unscrupulous and frankly evil.
8
A friend's daughter is anti-vaccine and after giving her all the information I get this meme about MMR containing fetal tissue from an aborted fetus. In fact, the MMR vaccine is grown in a medium created from the fetal tissue of one fetus obtained legally from Sweden in 1964. My point is that some of this anti-vaccine obsession may be coming from the pro-birthers and can't be overlooked.
7
It is so sad that so many Americans do not understand the basic principles of evidenced-based medicine. Instead they rely on internet baloney to make decisions.
5
Parents who refuse to vaccinate their children endanger the rest of the population. Period.
They also, hypocritically, rely on the rest of us vaccinating so that the risk of their own children encountering dangerous viruses remains low.
Meanwhile, they demand access to all public spaces and services that the less-contagious population uses.
Unvaccinated kids should be treated just like those who carry HIV yet purposely do not tell their sexual partners. Isolate them and punish them if they persist in exposing the rest of us to lethal disease.
Decisions have consequences. Thus far, the anti-vaxxers have refused to accept the consequences of their actions. Time for that to change.
4
It is against the law for anyone who isn't a doctor to be dispensing "medical advice". Perhaps jail time is necessary for some of these celebrity anti-vaxxers.
3
While I tend to side with the position of this article, I’m surprised the Editorial Board’s argument against the vaxxers was to simply say that vaccines don’t cause Autism, full stop, before indicating why that is. To toss out your primary argument without basis is to give your detractors room to disagree.
1
I'm a clinical laboratory scientist and work in medical labs and am obviously pro vaccine. What's more my wife's mother is an anti vaxxer as she's an uneducated hippie. I've heard all the arguments against them and for the most part disagree.
The standard vaccine rounds we do in the US like the Measles, Mumps, Rubella, and the Tetanus, Diptheria, Pertussis shots are safe for 99.9% of the population. Hepatitis A/B is also very safe.
The other travel ones often may not work though. Yellow Fever is a notable exception and is necessary if you are going to a place like Africa with it.
I got a typhoid shot recently a while back travelling abroad to surf. I found the shot was only good for 3 years, only works 70% of the time with rapidly diminishing effectiveness. Cost $240 and made me feel ill for a bit. I wouldn't bother again.
Newer vaccines often do have health issues until they're fixed. There is evidence of pro vaccine crowds berating anyone that disagrees with any new vaccines for fear of being an anti-vaxxer even in clinical trials. We need to be careful we don't harm people with newer ones.
1
I am very suspicious of this post; there’ve been a lot of these “I’m a pro-vaccine scientist, but...,” posts around lately.
Get the vaccine, okay? Not perfect but even a day of so of discomfort beat the heck out of getting typhoid fever.
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/typhoid-fever/vaccination/
3
I am 80. When I was little vaccines were not available for many childhood diseases. We did get vaccinated for small pox. I contracted whooping cough at six weeks. It was touch and go. Later I had two kinds of measles and chicken pox. My sister and I were kept at home in the summer during polio epidemics but had friends for whom the precautions were not adequate and who suffered lifelong disabilities. I took the polio vaccine as soon as it was available and my three children got all available vaccines. It is not responsible to do otherwise unless the child has an immune deficiency certified by a qualified physician. No exceptions in my view are acceptable.
17
With the increasing levels of sickness throughout US society today caused, for the most part, by what people put into their bodies and their lack of exercise, as reflected in the sorry state of US health care costs, it seems many parents should not be telling anyone else what is right for others' children when they can barely look after themselves.
Before the pro-vaccination parents decide to aggressively tell the rest of us how to behave, I would politely suggest they first consider how their political and lifestyle choices have destroyed/are slowly destroying their country, the environment, the quality of the foods we eat, not to mention needlessly creating enemies around the world, which will be far more destructive to their children than a few not vaccinating.
Choosing to ostracize one small part of society (including economically through excluding them from tax payer funded support), when the majority making that decision have done significantly more damage to their children's future through their lifestyle and political choices, only reinforces much of the hypocrisy on the pro-vaccination side.
Cleaning up the vaccines, having a reasonable schedule for vaccination and holding health companies responsible for the quality of their product will go a very long way to encouraging more responsible, caring, and concerned parents to go this path. The carrot always works a lot better than the stick!
12
@Face Facts This screed is a strange diversion from the issue , so maybe you should actually face some facts - do you have some sort of evidence that pro-vaxxer parents en -masse lead a toxic lifestyle that somehow endangers their fellow citizens? And what are the "political choices" they have made that endanger their children? The fact is that anti-vaxxers represent a clear public health threat to others, and their anti-fact views should not be allowed to endanger their own children as well as other immune compromised people in the population.
6
And I’m tired of uneducated, thoughtless baboons attacking the vaccines that save millions a year, often because they’re shilling for a multibillion-dollar antivaxx and “organic medicine,” industry.
Ever helped resuscitate a kid with h. Influenza epiglottitis? I have. It’s quite a thing. Had the measles? I have. Happen to know the consequences? I do; about four orders of magnitude more brain damage, death, or fetal deformation than the most rabid antivazzer claims for the vaccines. Ever seen anybody with post-polio syndrome? How about cervical cancer?
I’ve never seen smallpox, bit was innoculated against it as a kid. Charming disease; in many cases, your skin sloughs off. How about diptheria? Pertussis? No?
Guess why that might be.
So in short, thanks a bunch for helping endanger millions, including me. You want nice manners, try next door. They sell fox lungs for asthma.
7
I believe the CDC also needs to adequately address how the flu vaccine is different from those vaccines with 100% efficacy. The "vaccine" most Americans are familiar with is the annual flu vaccine which, due to the vagaries of how different influenza strains can mix and share their genes, are unfortunately never close to 100% effective. Even though I work in a fact-based medical research institute, I have often heard, "I got the flu vaccine last year, but I still got the flu. So I am never getting it again!" If people hear the word "vaccine" and immediately think of their personal experience with the flu vaccine, enlisting the public to get themselves and their children vaccinated against other pathogens - with vaccines that do, indeed, have 100% efficacy and safety records, will always be an uphill battle.
7
They’ve explained this again and again, every year. Takes fifteen seconds to find out.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/season/flu-season-2018-2019.htm
Sorry. Really took 11 seconds.
2
@Robert You sorta missed my point - general public doesn't want to, and shouldn't have to, go to CDC.gov. If they are trying to get ppl vaccinated against measles, the public, lay-person's voice of the CDC needs to mention that it is NOT like the flu vaccine.
2
Please, "anti-vaxxers", also consider the consequences of your actions on your adult neighbors and family members. It is not only your own kids and their friends who may contract these truly awful illnesses. Pregnant women who are exposed to measles may lose a fetus, or if born alive, the baby may be irreparably injured. And if you have an older neighbor, family member or friend who is immuno-compromised, exposing them to measles or other illnesses that could be prevented by immunizations could kill them. This includes people with systemic arthritis who take immuno-suppressant medications. I suppose anti-vaxxers would never think of these consequences. So if you do not allow your kids to be vaccinated, you may need to prevent them from seeing your older relatives when there are outbreaks of childhood illnesses. And you should keep them off mass transit and out of restaurants, movie theaters, and stores, as well as school.
11
Last year, a scientific journal (Health Psychology) published a 24-nation study of the psychological roots of anti-vaccination attitudes.
Across countries, people who scored high on conspiratorial thinking had the strongest anti-vaccination attitudes.
Anti-vaccination attitudes were also strong among people who are strongly individualistic or who react badly to any restrictions on their personal freedom. And they're also strong among people who feel disgusted by blood or needles.
There are ways to help people overcome fears about needles or other medical procedures so that they can accept necessary or even life-saving medical care.
It's harder to help people overcome their paranoia, isolation, and alienation. But it seems that we're going to have to try to help people with these problems in order to prevent some terrible epidemics. And it's not only Americans who need this help; anti-vaccination attitudes are problematic in many different countries.
11
It's a shame that the editorial did not mention the names of some of the most prominent anti-vaxxers, like Jenny McCarthy and Don Imus. If this newspaper can specify those scientists and politicians and celebrities who are climate change deniers, it is equally important that those scientists, politicians, and, in this case, celebrities, who are against vaccinations, are also known to the public.
11
Rising resistance to vaccination? Really? Funny how these articles never show numbers. The US has had a steady measles vaccination rate for decades, right around 92% (4% higher than the UK for reference, but 6% lower than Germany, which had a far more severe measles outbreak a few years ago than the US has had in decades.)
My kids are fully vaccinated, and I always tell them how great vaccines are. But I am so tired of the scaremongering. Our current vaccination rates have been very effective in every area except flu. And when they come up with a flu vaccine that's as effective as the measles vaccine, I'm sure that will be widely adopted as well.
The sky is not falling. There's no need to exert government control over people's choices. Let us have control over our own bodies. Voluntary compliance has been working for decades. With current levels of vaccination, you are far more likely to die from eating lettuce than the measles.
Signed - A measles survivor (I grew up in a country that hadn't yet started vaccinating)
8
It is not safe not to vaccinate. For example you need to immunize 95% of the population to prevent measles. So less than that (more than 5 kids per 100 kids who didn’t get vaccinated) like will start developing measles and spread rate (at a park for example) is something like 90 plus percentage that everyone exposed to that kid will develop measles.
People will start dying or at least suffer morbidity. Every kindergarten class has one kid in braces thanks to polio. Government must remove your choice!
6
I meant to say in the old days every kindergarten class HAD someone affected by polio.
@Ohana Too bad those from your country who did not survive these diseases can't post here.
4
I am for disease, we need a planet wide check on unabated human reproduction. It sounds cold (and it is a bit), but without the normal cycles of nature, our planet is doomed. I don't wish ill on families , but the reality is humans are going to wipe out all large mammals shortly and crop priorities will be for feeding our unending appetite will destroy all the wild parts of the planet. People who put faith in only science and our people first policies are the first to think that colonizing in space is the next step in our evolution. We were born to a wonderful garden planet and have never stopped in our quest for full dominance. Time to reassess our priorities.
1
@fred
Human overpopulation is definitely a concern for it's effects on the overall environment. That being said, the only remedy is more people dying. You're free to remove yourself from the equation at any time.
3
Don’t worry: If we vaccinate I can assure you: As a busy family doctor I will still continue to make money seeing lots of diseases that there are no vaccines for. Therefore let’s give kids these vaccines so that I don’t have to deal with more diseases. In the old days and family doctor used to carry a pen knife in their pocket in case they had to do an emergency tracheotomy Before the HIB vaccine came out.
I don’t want to reinvest in a pen knife. The Plastic handle will not be good for the environment.
6
@fred Good - I hope re anti-vaxxers are more honest about their motivations - they want more children to die. The should help their movement.
3
The article misses an important point. Vaccines don't provide immunity for 100% of those for whome a vaccine is administered. They work for most, not all. The reason they are effective is broad immunity to disease accross a population of people who have received the vaccine. The broad immunity effectively prevents exposure in those rare instances where the vaccine is ineffective.
The other side of this is that where a population lacks broad-based immunity, diseases do spread, and even some children who have been vaccinated will succumb to illness.
These "anti-vaccers" are not just poorly informed, they are selfishly endangering public health. History will judge the anti-vaccine movement harshly.
12
I was a child in the 50s, and saw a cousin forced to walk half bent over for the rest of her life, because of polio. In the early 60s, my Boy Scout troop helped hand out the Sabin oral polio vaccine, and there were long lines of people wanting it.
There is something perverse in the human soul that makes some people risk their children's suffering, and even death, so they can feel "smarter" than medical science, because some nude model for Playboy magazine wants to blame vaccines for her child's autism.
I also suspect that anti-vaxxers exist because people love to be frightened. Hence the popularity of scary movies, and the persistence of the various rumors that regularly sweep middle schools, and have no more substance than the folly of "vaccines kill!"
12
Does anyone have information on the risks to babies that are too young to receive vaccinations? Is it safe for an infant to be in a park, for example, where children who have not been vaccinated are running around?
1
It is not safe. For example you need to immunize 95% of the population to prevent measles. So less than that (more than 5 kids per 100 kids who didn’t get vaccinated) like will start developing measles and spread rate (at a park for example) is something like 90 plus percentage that everyone exposed to that kid will develop measles.
11
I live in a state with many home schoolers, and practically no regulations around home schooling.
We need a stronger better solution than not allowing unvaccinated kids in school.
19
I wish your article mentioned Voices for Vaccines as a group that enlists vaccine facts support. A project of the Task Force for Global Health, the organization is led by parents and a Scientific Advisory Board that supports on-time immunization and the reduction of vaccine-preventable diseases. They gave me "tools" and a platform to tell my story about my sister, who contracted measles encephalitis in 1960 before the vaccine was available, and how her life was forever changed. And, at that time, my family lived in Rockland County, NY, where today one of the worst measles outbreaks in the U.S. is reported.
9
@Emmi Herman
I have just been checking out Voices for Vaccines, but they seem more like propagandists unfortunately
The root cause of this problem is than many people have absolutely no trust in the medical industrial complex. People are lied to about medical care, charged astronomical prices for drugs without justification and bombarded with advertising to take this and that that they don't really need. The way to rebuild trust is to put the interests of people first, before return on investment. And too many doctors make too much money besides.
10
@Tibby Elgato
It would help if the pharmaceuticals were not allowed to profit from common vaccine damage such as asthma, ezcema, autoimmune diseases etc, if we move the goalposts so as the industry actually loses money everytime a vaccine causes harm, then that will get them interested in fixing their dodgy jabs.
12
@Pedro
Actually it's already difficult to get pharma companies to invent and distribute vaccines because they are so unprofitable. A single cheap jab prevents a lifetime of disability. Very little profit there; pharma companies would rather churn out the next iteration of expensive new insulin or antidepressants, drugs they can keep selling forever to a captive audience. The government has to subsidize vaccine research or there wouldn't be any.
7
@Pedro
Please do not peddle these fake news stories. How about sharing details of the numerous harms caused by the many diseases countered by vaccines instead, as well as the numbers harmed by the so-called anti-vaccine movement and its pseudoscience.
7
I am a retired pediatric nurse. In my career I saw at least 6 infants with pertussis, all of whom wound up in PICU. They were too young for the vaccine so they depended on “herd” immunity. Luckily they all survived.
My parents’ wedding was postponed for a year to mourn my uncle, who died of polio. He survived wars, to come home from the army and die of polio in less than a week. Very few attended his funeral for fear of the disease.
Look at all those adults, who had polio as a child, now with polio complications decades after they thought they “beat it.”
Look at all the graves in an old cemetery with children before vaccines and antibiotics. In doing my family tree I found several children who died in early childhood, especially during 1917-1918, the “Spanish influenza” epidemic.
Look at pediatric textbooks on how to care for a child with epiglottis prior to the HIB vaccine. Those now outdated textbooks said to let the mother hold the baby to keep it calm while wheeling the child to the OR for a tracheotomy to keep the airway open.
That’s why I believe in vaccinations. I do think we have a duty to protect children.
31
My wife and I only vaccinated those of our children that we really love.
The others can take their chances.
37
Keep in mind that there is actually no proof that vaccinations work, whereas there is abundant proof that they can be highly damaging. Why else did the companies making the vaccinations push for legislation to protect them from all claims of liability. Oh and by the way if you follow the money it leads back to those same companies. Surprising? Not really.
12
@Mark adams. The complete opposite is true. There is no evidence that vaccines do harm. Children that aren’t vaccinated should not be allowed in public schools. Perhaps you can explain the recent measles episode at Newark Airport.
33
@Mark adams
You are correct in what you say Mark, but many have been misled by mainstream pharma PR campaigns that the opposite is true, it is only those who have taken the time to read the studies who know that they are wholly inadequate to be used to backup vaccine efficacy and safety.
5
@Jackson
There are thousands of studies showing the harm vaccines can cause, the government even have codes for every type of harm they can cause.
5
A perfect example of the authoritarian/invulnerable position that created this mess. No willingness to truly consider the potential non-linear health impacts because you view the world, and humans, through a non-linear and allopathic bias. If you want people to listen, start by opening up to the possibility that you have some truths but not all of them.
13
“The fact that we have some truths but not all of them” should be inscribed on the plaque of a bronze telescope dedicated to science.
Science requires three assumptions: there are facts; we can discover them; we should be suspicious of our facts.
While the anti-vaxxers have latched onto step three, they’re completely ignorant of the difficulty of achieving steps one and two. In general, the evangelists of this movement are fundamentalists with unexamined notions about the human body and the biome in general.
Scientist and their institutions are far from perfect. They’re subject to the same failings that all other humans and their institutions are subject to.
*And* so are anti-vaxxers and their movement. Be suspicious of your own facts and scientists will do the same, and we’ll end up in a better place because of it.
3
Your comments are well received. To me it is clear that vaccines are safe as a family doctor. But there is a certain frustration on patients standpoint that they cannot get the information on the Internet that is valid and I have a logical discussion.
We live in times where people are suspicious of authoritarian leaders. We live in times where big Pharma has secondary Motives. Unfortunately it is very difficult for patients to trust doctors anymore. Unfortunately people in positions of power have abused this power.
1
You mean like how rubbing juniper oil on a doll keeps the demons away? Pass, thanks.
Or as a good teacher of mine usedta say, “never keep your mind so open that your brain falls out.”
3
When I clumsily expressed concern about the schedule of vaccines (worrying that too many were given too close together), my son's pediatrician cut through with their practice's policy: follow the schedule or find another doctor. Every pediatric and family practice should insist on vaccinations with no exceptions other than medical necessity.
32
@R. T. Keeney
The pediatrian loses a substantial bonus if they allow you to skip/delay vaccines. Much of the time they do not vaccinate their own children.
5
And the vaccines are already spaced out...
Unfortunately, "anti-vaxxers" is really synonymous with anti-education and anti-intelligence. Worse, those that tend to be among the vocal "anti-vaccer" crowd also tend to be part of the overtly religious crowd. I used to think that those living in their religious bubbles were only compromising themselves. That's really not the case; all too often, those living in their bubbles of misinformation literally infect those on the outside, and in the case of anti-vaxxers, once they compromise the herd-effect, everyone can be affected.
21
@JB
The CDC found that those who don’t vaccinate are more likely to have degrees. It is very weathy areas that are not vaccinating.
6
True! In California very educated patients are refusing vaccines.
Not true. I know some seemingly well educated, not religious folks who are firm anti-vaxxers.
My father, now gone, contracted scarlet fever when he was six years old. His fever was so high, his eardrums burst, causing permanent hearlng loss, and he missed a year of school. He was physically and emotinally scared for the remainder of his life. I also remember children who contracted polio; some lived in iron lungs; some didn't live.
Anti-vaxxers need to revisit their history texts for a reminder that infectious diseases wiped out generations of people.
23
@SCoon
It has been found that what we thought of as polio outbreaks in the US were more likely DDT poisoning, which causes the same symptoms
2
@Pedro
Any Scientific studies / reports/ charts/ graphs to back this astounding claim you’re making ?
If there are no credible sources, your fear-mongering makes you complicit in the misinformation game.
I am old enough to remember the children struggling with the effects of polio. I wonder how many parents who choose not to vaccinate their children have ever heard of an iron lung.
8
I am very provaccine but scarlet fever is not preventable with vaccines it’s due to strep
1
I was born in 1955, just after the polio vaccines became available... Nobody gets polio now except in remote, unstable parts of the world but I remember children just a little older than me who hobbled around on crutches because of polio and we all knew what an iron lung was... (Look that up if you are interested.) As the article says, the very success of vaccines has caused a good deal of complacency.
My doctor recently gave me a tetanus booster shot and remarked that in his entire career he had never had a patient who actually contracted tetanus... According to Wikipedia, 59,000 people died of tetanus world wide... In the US the number was 31 and those were mainly folks that had not been vaccinated or had not received a booster. Vaccination has been as much of a miracle, if not more, than antibiotics.
38
@Engineer
The problrm with the tetanus vaccine is that the data shows it reduces your life expectancy. With all vaccines it is important to look at the big picture rather than focusing on just one variable.
2
Not true. Smoking does however.
4
@Pedro link to credible source?
5
For those claiming there is “science” behind anti-vax, are the hundred of millions of people who have been vaccinated and are NOT autistic statically insignificant?
More likely, the increase in autism has genetic and environmental causes (plastics in our food chain, pesticides, etc.). In addition there is more attention to identifying and labeling children with disabilities, resulting in a higher frequency of diagnosis.
There is a seemingly growing overly litigious zeal and need to place blame, rather than a focus on supporting individuals with genuine needs and a reliance on actual science.
Let’s remember that the flu of 1918 affected a third of the world’s population. Polio paralyzed >15K people per year in the US prior to the introduction of a vaccine. Measles deaths decreased an estimated 79% from 2000 to 2014 globally (546,800 to 114,900) due to vaccination programs. And the list of lives saved and reduced complications goes on (see the CDC website for further details)....
26
@Correlation Is Not Causation A big reason for the increase of autism diagnoses is the expanded inclusion criteria for making the diagnosis. That, and a much broader awareness of the symptoms that cause parents to have their kids evaluated. Back in the day, many of those kids would just have been considered odd.
15
@Correlation Is Not Causation
There are now two government whistleblowers who have admitted that there is a coverup going on, and that vaccines are causing some of the autism. One study from the University of California found that it was those who receive Tylenol after vaccination who are most likely to then regress into autism.
3
please share link
2
A few years ago I discovered that a close family friend was an anti-vaxxer. He and his wife had many odd ideas about health, and his Facebook page had frequent posts on alternative medicine that was just snake oil. Since he was a documentary filmmaker, though not a particularly successful one, I merely pointed out the extensive research done on the safety and efficacy of vaccines, and that as a documentary filmmaker, he should know this because research should be in his DNA.
A while later that evening, he went on one of his usual rants about Republicans, concluding with the statement that they were totally anti-science! What to say in response...
Well, I asked him what he thought were science's crowning achievements, vis-a-vis their impact on human well-being. When he'd finished his list, I added a glaring omission: vaccines.
Somehow it still didn't register.
14
@hammond
The most important research on vaccines is not carried out because the industry claims it would be unethical, that leaves us with studies which tell us very little, meaning the current vaccines are simply shots in the dark.
3
Ignorance doesn’t respect political boundaries!
2
@Pedro
Withholding effective vaccines is "unethical," by definition. That's not an "industry" position, it's basic medical ethics.
1
After reading many of the comments, I was curious to see who was the head of the Health and Human Service. Mr. Azar is a lawyer and politician who was a drug lobbyist with no apparent medical degree appointed in 2017. If the government was truly serious to present an educated and scientifically fact based stance on vaccination, they started right ouf of the gate with little credibility. Sad.
23
Once again, this is more like a press release for the CDC, not a responsible look at this very complex issue. Rarely does the mainstream media such as this piece - another lazy scolding - bother to do any careful examination of the ineffectiveness of numerous vaccines, their value to public health in light of budgetary strains with far more serious emerging health risks, or a look at how dramatic new developments in the science of the immune system may call into question this decades-old approach to public health. It is astonishing how little acknowledgment is given to the reality that some vaccines have been - and still are - problematic, even useless, and that thousands of children, teenagers and adults have suffered serious side effects from them. There is a huge national database going back decades, and this issue has been a concern for many years before anyone even heard of autism.
27
so far off the mark....alluding to data that only proves the effectiveness of vaccines.
1
Instead of hurling unfounded generalizations about "ineffective" vaccines that have been foisted upon an unsuspecting public, please delineate some specific examples...but that is par for the course for the anti-vaccine propagandists. Instead and in opposition to your screed of fear-based generalizations, let me offer some specific gifts to humanity by way of tremendous reduction in disease rates brought by vaccines through their use in animals and in humans...polio, hep A, measles, mumps, rubella, smallpox, rabies -- thank you science...
3
Smh! Vaccines are indeed so ineffective, that the diseases we vaccinate against are pretty much eradicated. If that’s your definition of “ineffective,” I’d like to know what your definition of “effective” is.
Where are the measles outbreaks, or polio or whooping cough, or, or, or? Yes, they occur in places where vaccinations have gone DOWN, whereas incidents of these diseases are practically non-existent in places where vaccine rates are high. Ample evidence of vaccines ineffectiveness? Really? That’s a whole new level of bogus argument. Unreal!
5
In many ways its about mistrust. A mistrust driven by government and private industries that put profit and self protection before any other consideration. I'm not a anti-vaxxer and believe that it like veganism is an extreme reaction to an understandable concern. The pharmaceutical industry has a well documented history of duplicity and cupidity in the production and marketing of their products as well as lawyer speak and coverups when caught at mischief or incompetence. That governments often enable such behavior makes them a poor advocate for public policy and undermines its role in promoting the common good. The people who are best suited to advocate for vaccination are the people who have benefited from or are knowledgeable about the consequences of not having these tools available. Their stories supported by an aggressive campaign against misinformation (not people) and education. Perhaps financed by an organization not compromised by financial connections to big pharma and its desire to buy as much legitimacy as possible. Cultivation of trust takes time and effort coupled with the knowledge that mistrust based hysteria and rumor will always carry more weight than rational argumentation. Its how we are wired and evolution is a had wall to scale.
12
@John Chastain
This is an after the fact invented excuse.
This problem was not a problem though some extremists existed until Andrew Wakefield and an attorney came up with a scam idea at a children's birthday party to make the false connection between vaccine and autism. He even used the children at that party about 6 of them in total as the basis of "proof" for his lie. He admitted to this when he was being held to account before his medical license was taken away.
It was Wakefield's depraved avarice combined with a medical degree and the fact that he succeeded in perpetrating his fraud for several lucrative years at many highly regarded institutions before anyone started to seriously question him that gave this issue life.
12
Great analysis. Thank you!
Right, just like the mistrust of villagers in the congo who accuse doctors of being witches as they try and assist with ebola outbreaks. Ignorance and misinformation is the issue.
2
We could get a lot more people vaccinated if the vax manufacturers were to take aluminum, mercury and other toxins out of vaccines. There never seems to be an attempt to do this, and it's never acknowledged that these ingredients pose a risk, so we lose people's trust.
16
@SpecialMom
I have tired of trying to spread the facts on various on-line forums where this kind of misinformation is still very common. I am a former biomedical scientist and have read a large number of studies and scientific articles on this subject as well as many scare-mongering tracts written by antivaxxers.
The toxins you mention are present in such minuscule amounts that there is very little possibility of them causing any problems. There is no mercury in any childhood vaccines on the US schedule, and hasn't been since 2001, and even when there was it was less than that legally found in a can of tuna and in a less toxic form (ethylmercury in vaccines as opposed to methylmercury in seafood).
The amount of aluminum in some vaccines is similar to that present in a normal diet, and is easily and rapidly eliminated by the kidneys. An adult taking aluminum-based antacids will absorb far more aluminum in a single day than is present in the entire US childhood vaccine schedule.
Other 'toxins' such as formaldehyde are present in the diet in far greater amounts than in vaccines. For example, a 250 ml glass of orange juice contains 105 mg of formaldehyde while a vaccine contains a maximum of 0.1 mg. A child's body produces thousands of times more formaldehyde every day from metabolizing methanol and methylated amino acids in her diet than is present in any vaccine.
The reason "it's never acknowledged that these ingredients pose a risk" is because they do not.
9
@SpecialMom. Not quite. See https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/patient-ed/conversations/downloads/vacsafe-thimerosal-color-office.pdf
All misinformation.. vaccines totally safe.
1
Anti-vaxxers are living dangerously, they have no skin in public health related costs, nor do they embrace the consequences of their dogma. Their dogma will cause massive problems with mumps, measles, cholera, polio, small pox, chicken pox (to name a few) - with horrendous personal and societal costs.
Hence, I am okay if anti-vaxxers are are taxed significantly higher to defray the costs they inflict on the nation. Because they are a threat to national health, I will let them define the perimeter, height, and perforations in the walls they might want to build around them (which I suspect Mexico will not be paying for).
I have the same solution for anti-choice demonstrators and advocates of disempowering women; advocates for mercury, coal, PCB and dioxin (i.e., all republicans).
12
@Kalidan And I assume this also goes for those who only eat unhealthy food and do not look after themselves who then push up healthcare costs for those who do look after themselves. And for those who chose not to exercise and incur significant health costs later in life. And for those who support US military action for the sake of a chosen few...
If one group in society is to be held to a higher standard of responsibility with respect to a behavior, should not all groups be held to that same higher standard in poor choices they make?
7
@Face Facts
Obesity and the effects of unhealthy eating aren't contagious, diseases are. Their impact is greater.
3
Parents have the right to make decisions for their children. They do not have the right to use other children as shields to protect their own. Neither has avoiding vaccines provided protection against autism. A recently aired PBS documentary included the fact that rates of autism were similar in both vaccinated and unvaccinated children.
As a veterinarian, I am well acquainted with the concept of herd immunity. And I certainly had my own child vaccinated. For clients that were hesitant to vaccinate their pets, it was often acceptable to space out the recommended vaccines.
No public schools including colleges, should allow students to enroll without vaccinations unless a medically necessary exemption is proven. Similar to the requirement that all my patients be vaccinated against rabies. No exceptions other than medical conditions.
34
Every time I read a piece like this one, I think of the story about outbreaks of diseases among dogs in NYC because owners didn't want their dogs to become autistic. Where do you begin? The fact that vaccines don't cause autism, or the fact that dogs can't become autistic in the first place?
20
@Andy
A CDC whistleblower has now come forward and admitted that vaccines are causing autism, and that there is a coverup going on.
2
@Pedro Wow - what a news breaking story - yet you provide no link to a credible source to document this claim.
4
Often at family gatherings, my niece, who is a physician, is asked a medical question. I am always in awe of her level of knowledge and expertise about the topic under discussion and how open she is about not offering information on topics that are beyond her specialization: "Let me look into that." Then, periodically, I catch one of these celebrity anti-vaxxers voicing their views, and cannot understand how these individuals gain any traction at all--there level of medical ignorance is startling.
19
@Amanda Jones
The celebrities are often aware of corruption or perhaps they have a vaccine injuried child. There are many experts speaking out against vaccination, such as the ones who gave presentations at the Vaccine Safety Conference (freely available online)
1
Most insurance companies do not charge any co-pay for vaccines. Maybe, in turn, they should exempt the costs of medical care as a result of failure to vaccinate. Money is a pretty good motivator.
11
Born in 1940, I remember polio and it's consequences. As a pediatric nurse, I saw the devastation of whooping cough in infants, meningitis, and even tetanus. My mother's brother died of measles and my father's sister died of meningitis. When I hear of a well-meaning mother refusing vaccination for her kids, I invite her to walk through an old cemetery, view the markers of the children and understand that they died so young, by and large, from diseases that are preventable today. The thought of refusing immunization makes me cringe.
41
The CDC needs to invest in powerful advertising that reminds everyone what is at stake. I worked for a health care system that had all employees watch a five minute video at the start of flu. The video featured the story of 30 year old woman who became septic from the flu, which resulted in multi-organ failure. Consequently, she needed to have one of her legs amputated. She has used her tragic story to promote vaccinations. The video is effective and powerful. The CDC needs to make advertisements that prompt soul-searching in individuals who are afraid of chemical exposure or don’t believe that these vaccines have any benefits.
13
It's incredibly selfish not to vaccinate your child-- and it bodes poorly that the generation of Americans who are turning their back on vaccination are also the generation who are tasked to deal with climate change. Either we will learn how to work together as a community -- or we will sink.
15
@Mel
It's incredibly selfish to ask people to take on the risk of medical procedures for others' perceived benefits.
2
@Mel You do realize most of the anti-vaxxers are Progressive organic vegan natural mothers living in some of the richest zip codes in America?
You are right. It's selfish not to vaccinate your child.
You're also wrong in that it's the public's right to insist on varying schedules for vaccinations (they're much more complex and much more compact than when you got vaccines; and now contain aluminum as an adjuvant vs. mercury).
If the public doesn't push the federal government and NIH and pharma...nobody will.
You might be comfortable with 3 million new cases of autism a year, but most people are asking "Whisky Tango Foxtrot?"
To be totally accepting of the government provided science is the same as being totally accepting of government provide science on climate change, with the power to adjust historical temperatures to make sure people are aware that we're in a state of crisis.
Working together as a community means keeping an open mind that maybe..just maybe...your government is managing the risk side of vaccines more aggressively than the protective side of vaccines.
I for one am for vaccines, but I'm also for allowing parents the power to elongate the schedule and to use vaccines with mercury adjuvant vs. aluminum.
THIS..is the way the larger community comes together and solves the problem.
Sticking your head in the sand and denying it's any more of a problem than stupid people not understanding...does nothing for the community.
2
I remember lining up in the gym for polio, smallpox and other vaccines in grade school in 1964. No one asked our parents - we just did it but my parents’ generation experienced the wonder of defeating deadly diseases and didn’t question the benefit. As a medical student one of the first patients I cared for was an unvaccinated 10 year old with measles pneumonia and persistent pleuritis who had undergone 5 surgeries and had been in the hospital 7 weeks. We don’t remember how bad it was so we don’t understand understand the criticality and miracle of vaccination. Without a true medical reason, non-vaccination should be an absolute barrier to public school enrollment.
33
When my daughter was an infant, chicken pox vaccine was optional. I had seen an adult with shingles, and the suffering was enormous. I decided that if the vaccine could prevent her from getting this terrible disease an adult, it would be worth it. I made the same decisions about all other vaccines, waiting until the latest possible recommended age in case something better came along.
I never thought I needed the flu shot since I have a very strong immune system. But then I realized that I work with the public, and lots of those people have weak immune systems. If my getting a vaccine can help keep a young child or an elderly person from getting a serious illness, it is the least I can do. I will do it every year from now on, to protect others.
31
Great Britain does not mandate the chicken pox vaccine precisely because it may INCREASE the incidence of shingles in adults.
7
@Phillip Schechter
Incorrect
Read the last section
https://www.cdc.gov/shingles/hcp/clinical-overview.html
But the issue is moot with the new vaccine Shingrix which is recombinant ( engineered, not partially live as with the Zostavax).
Science lives!
4
But chicken pic vaccine doesn't protect against shingles. You need to get another vaccine specifically against shingles.
Imagine all of those un-vaccinated children and the threat they pose to public health. This risk is already great, but at least we track them until they're young adults. The MMR is required for college admission, but some still sign that nutty religious exemption waiver. Fast forward to 15 years from now, when those still un-vaccinated young adults enter the work force. The threat to others is greatly magnified as they are of child bearing age, of a generally child bearing interest, and also interacting with older people whose immunity to those diseases is declining. We don't track the un-vaccinated after they enter college. Perhaps we should require proof of immunizations as part of the hiring process for all employment opportunities.
Here's a horror story to consider: Those un-vaccinated children will one day enter the work force, probably in food service or child care...
11
@Beanie
Also worth considering is that many of these diseases are far nastier when contracted as an adult. I remember a young healthy colleague years ago contracted chicken pox he had somehow avoided in childhood and was so unwell he was off work for literally months.
Allowing one's child to grow up without immunity will do her no favors at all.
3
@Paul H
I absolutely agree. A good friend of mine contracted chicken pox in his early 20s and it nearly killed him.
I had chicken pox as a child. I still bear the scars on my shoulders. I remember being kept in a dim room for days on end. Now I fear the secondary, mature adult, version of the disease: Shingles.
And to think parents used to arrange parties around chicken pox outbreaks.
2
In a world of dangerous chemicals and environmental contaminants, kids are exposed to all kinds of health threats. But even the sum of these is in no way greater than that of measles, diphtheria, tetanus, etc in isolation.
As a parent it’s your responsibility to protect your kid. And the most effective way to protect your kid from the same fate of millions if not billions of infants in the past who died of communicable disease in their second year of life is to vaccinate. To not do so is not only reckless but should be considered a form of child endangerment. Period.
12
Having spent the last 20 years living in Vietnam where vaccination against childhood diseases only became widely available in the last 15 - 20 years, I have met so many adults living with the consequences of polio, measles, and meningitis. Metal body braces, limb braces, partial or full blindness, deafness, paralysis, reduced mental capacity, dramatic skin scarring... these diseases have haunted so many lives, long after their resolution. And the after-effects are still visible on a daily basis. Perhaps this is why parents are so diligent in vaccinating their children. When we no longer see the appalling consequences of those diseases, the fuzzy-logic of anti-vaxx arguments become entrancing - with its anti-authoritarian, individualist virtue signally. I notice a hefty dose of anti-social belligerence in people I meet who are self-confessed anti-vaxxers. This is an attitude towards society that is perpetuated in a lot of hero narratives in fiction, tv and movies.
725
@M. Morris
It is not only the hero narratives that discourage trust in authority figures such as doctors and scientists. It is also the current Republican anti-governmental slant, which assumes that anything publicly funded - such as science research - is part of a leftist plot to overturn American independence. Yes, there is a leftist segment in the anti-vaxxers group, but the very notion of interdependency is upsetting to Republican political bedrock. The science of epidemiology exists because we all share the physical space in which we find ourselves. I breathe in what you breathe out and vice versa.
86
@SBK This is not a Republican problem. I have many liberal friends who are vigilant about "toxins" in the food they eat, the water they drink, plastics, clothing, detergent, you name it. I'm not saying that they're wrong to be worried about unscrupulous industrial methods of mass production and the new chemical combinations they put us in contact with, but that kind of skepticism can easily scare people into going overboard, stop trusting our weak system of consumer protections, and spurred on by the internet, you can see how they can become vaccine skeptics. And the thing is, being a "critical reader," and approaching received truths with skepticism are key skills taught in higher education, so again, this is far from a Republican issue.
36
My mother had polio long before there was a vaccine to prevent it. She suffered-- then appeared to recover completely, married, had three children-- and then, years later, was stricken with a horrible thing called post polio syndrome. She died a slow, arduous death as, little by little, the nerves guiding her muscles died.
Imagine what it would be like-- in your sixties, your mind still sharp, full of plans, about to enjoy an adventurous retirement-- and having your muscles shutting down, one by one. Unable to get yourself up if you fall, then unable to get up out of a chair, then unable to swallow without choking--
Her mind was still as clear as ever when she died, but her death still came as a release.
To put even one more person, one more family, through that....
41
My sympathies for your loss and the nature of of your mother’s passing. My grandfather also had childhood polio, but was spared post polio syndrome.
1
Those of us old enough remember the pre-Salk vaccine days will not forget those summers when kids were kept away from any large gatherings - county fairs, movies, swimming pools and suchlike. My mother was particularly vigilant in this regard, having lost one sister to polio and another permanently crippled by it.
On our block in Ottawa (Ontario), we had four cases of polio in the summer of '52 - two primary-school age kids and two teenagers. The younger ones survived with no damage, but for the teenagers it was a different story: one has spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair (he's still alive, as far as I know), and the other spent the few remaining years of her life in an iron lung.
I can't imagine anyone who remembers the horrors of polio not being eternally grateful to Jonas Salk and his colleagues for what we were spared and not wanting everyone to be similarly protected.
p.
850
@Jerry and Peter
You might want to read _The Virus and the Vaccine_, well-researched by medical journalists. Then see what you think about the development and business of vaccines.
8
@GB Your post prompted me to look around on the web for more and I found this article in The Lancet https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(04)16746-9/fulltext
It is indeed disturbing to think of the polio vaccine contaminated with SV40. Will those of us who were exposed see more cancer in our remaining years?
Still, I’m grateful the Salk vaccine appeared in time for me. A neighbor spent years in an iron lung. An older playmate from around the corner was crippled seemingly overnight. It was a terrifying time.
41
@Melissa
Interesting article
The risk/ benefit ratio remains clearly in vaccines’ favor, as you suggest.
The risk of death from motor vehicle accident is much greater than from all vaccines combined, but people accept that risk as they can immediately appreciate the benefit.
Making the benefits of vaccine apparent to a well-vaccinated public is a much harder task, particularly with the breakdown in civic trust and commitment.
58
There are reasoned ideas about how to convince the anti vaccination parents that their children would so much safer if they were vaccinated that are mentioned in this editorial..
I am a retired Pediatric Nephrologist who in addition had a small well child practice. Parents over the last decades were not faced with seeing other parents in anguish over a child crippled with polio, septic from infected varicella lesions, in a coma from measles, seizing with H Influenza or Pneumococcal meningitis etc.
I tried my best to convince the vaccine refusers but in the end simply said:
" I immunize my children. You think vaccines are harmful. I am telling you to vaccinate your children. You have two choices either I am right or a psychopathic murderer."
The only real solution is not to allow children without immune deficiencies or with close family members with same not to be allowed in school if they have not received immunizations.
There can be no exceptions. One could also see the day when children fall ill from a preventable disease their parents charged with neglect.
682
@Edward Blau
I wish keeping the unvaccinated kids out of public schools worked, but many anti-vaxxers are home schooled, or groups of parents use private schools.
25
@GiGi: Remember, now a very large number of home schoolers are insisting that their kids should be able to do the "pick and choose" thing with regard to public education, particularly in regard to participation in sports.
That should be forbidden (as far as I'm concerned, period, but) for kids that do not have up-to-date vaccinations. That could also go a long way toward nudging things back to sanity.
I'm in my mid-50s, and I couldn't be enrolled in kindergarten in Pennsylvania without showing that I had my smallpox vaccine and was up-to-date on a number of others, too.
Herd immunity is necessary to prevent the establishment and spread of these formerly common contagions.
79
@Edward Blau
"...You have two choices either I am right or a psychopathic murderer."
I can only imagine one of my doctors -- any doctor, in any specialty -- saying to me "You have two choices. Either I am right or …..."
While it sounds very dramatic, most things in life are neither black not white, including the reasons that some people choose to forego vaccination. While you say you tried to convince parents, failing to really hear and address the actual issues being communicated by the people you encountered undoubtedly did more harm than good.
I know what I'd think if one of my doctors made such a statement, and even if I gave in to whatever they were asking me to do, my trust in them would be irrevocably damaged.
12
When I get my eyes checked, the doctor always points out a degenerated area on one of my retinas. He comments that this was likely due to childhood measles. The location and size of this area does not affect my vision, so I am lucky in that respect.
I think parents tend to believe that a disease like measles is not a big deal since few people die from it in the USA, but these parents are unaware of other detrimental health consequences.
Vaccination should be required for all except when there are immune system or other negative factors.
487
@vibise How do you know that your doctor is correct? Very likely there is another more plausible explanation. Yet you "believe what you're told" and generalize it. That's a big part of the problem when so many people drink the kool-aid.
5
@JCX What rot - the eye degeneration her doctor notes is a well established result of measles - educate yourself.
67
I'm on older man who contracted polio as an infant in Idaho in 1951. Luckily it passed through me with few complications but enough to make my childhood a bit rough. However, it paralyzed my father resulting in his death 8 long years later. If the younger parents today had gone through what my family did back then they might think differently. Are there possible dangers in vaccines? No more I'd guess than the dangers of driving a car or doing many other activities of modern life.
546
@charlie
It wasn't until I was over 50 and working for an NGO in Nigeria that I saw a child with polio. He was playing just outside our compound with his sister. I suppose he was about 4 and otherwise healthy. From time to time I also other children who also contacted the virus during the 6-7 months I was there. I remember thinking about such unnecessary hardship for them and their families for their entire lives. Mostly the people are extremely poor, but the polio vaccination is free.
Of course there were some very loud voices claiming (polio) vaccination is western tool to sterilize the children. There were others in the communities who were effectively fighting polio in a sort of 'hand on hand' combat trying to ensure every child in their village was vaccinated, but, not in every village.
It was (and is now) terribly sad to see those kids with polio, that could have avoided so easily
121
@charlie. I’m certain that if we checked the statistics, we would find that getting vaccinated is much safer than driving a car, or riding in one either.
134
When making a decision, there are 3 ways to go: 1) trust your gut; 2) do your own research, gather the relevant facts and then decide; or, 3) go with expert opinion. Last night, a friend over for dinner described her optical migraine affliction, how bothersome and worrying it was to her. I asked, “what does your doctor say about it?” A puzzled look came over her face, and she said she never discussed it with her doctor! For my list of 3 ways to make a decision, picking which to go with is a skill we all need to develop, if we wish to avoid serious mistakes.
1
@Edmund #s 2 and 3 are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, for a layperson "doing their own research " should mean consulting credible medical experts and credible medical studies - not quacks and conspiracy theorists. The public at large cannot do their own medical trials lab workups, etc.
1
While I understand there are many fears facing parents today (being a mom with three young children), I personally think we have a social responsibility to establish herd immunity for our children. Do I completely understand the science? No. Do I have to blindly trust medical advice? No, I can read and learn gain information from the medical/ scientific community beforehand. But being able to trust others is part of being in a society. Yes, capitalism has led to us having to have social critical thought and skeptism.
BUT, the CDC is publishing the most important science and mandates for people to follow based on current science not current opinion.
I am all for using personal experience to inform your personal business but when it comes to vaccinations, we have to go on science.
It's a social responsibility to get your children vaccinated so that ALL children benefit, to avoid epidemics of preventable diseases, and so forth. The amount of aluminum in a vaccine is negligible and probably less than in your everyday exposure.
"Each individual decision not to immunize a healthy child with the measles vaccine contributes to a lower community immunization rate. This places not only your healthy child at risk, but also places your neighlbor’s chronically ill/immunosuppressed child at a high risk of disease or death. (Dr. S. Levy)"
Social contract, folks. That's how we've evolved. By collectively working together. Individualism is harming our future together.
20
Spare us from AMA propaganda. How many deaths have resulted from contagious contacts with those who refused the vaccines? Hardly an epidemic. How many vaccinated people caught a disease from the few non-vaccinated people? Who authored this dictatorial doctrine, Nurse Ratchid?
12
This is getting exhausting having to refute all these statements,
It is not safe to not vaccinate. For example you need to immunize 95% of the population to prevent measles. So less than that (more than 5 kids per 100 kids who didn’t get vaccinated) like will start developing measles and spread rate (at a park for example) is something like 90 plus percentage that everyone exposed to that kid will develop measles.
So if kids stop getting vaccines you will eat your words but the consequences will be deadly.
5
@farleysmoot if everyone behaved selfishly and decided their child would not be vaccinated -- we would have an epidemic. Been there. Done that. No thanks.
2
@farleysmoot
So, the "AMA propaganda" is suspect, but your own is not? Got it.
2
It's too bad there's no vaccine against willful stupidity. But then, how to get it to those who need it most?
23
But, that represents only a small fraction of those who actually brought claims to the Vaccine Court. You see, there is a 36 month window to bring the claim. There is no “tolling” granted for minors, unlike all the Civil Courts in the U.S. Guess what? Neurological injuries may not present in infants for long after 36 months. Furthermore, who knows how many cases were never brought by attorneys on behalf of a vaccine injured child, because the statute of limitations ran out?
Don’t let anyone tell you that vaccines don’t cause injury. They have, they do and they will do so in the future. For years, Thimerosal was used as a preservative in multi-dose vials. While still proclaiming it “safe”, vaccine makers “voluntarily” removed Thimerosal. It is still present in trace amounts and in flu vaccine. Thimerosal was never approved by the FDA, as the patents predated the establishment of said regulations. Worried?
With nearly 6,000 cases pending the USCFC held the “Omnibus Autism Hearings.” They decided not to make “autism” a “table injury.” How convenient. Since there would never be enough money to pay for all who claim an “autism” injury. But, there have been many cases compensated for “encephalopathy” as a diagnosis with reference to autism. You can read it: http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1681&context=pelr
13
And how these neurological injuries were shown to be a result of the vaccine but not other factors?
4
This is full of baloney. For anyone wanting to check don’t just google the terms as the anti Vader’s click enough to raise their pseudo science to the top. Google the claim “debunking” to get the real story.
2
@yulia. If you are truly interested you can read the entire public database from the USCFC. These things did not just "happen".:
https://www.mctlawyers.com/vaccine-injury/cases/
https://www.hrsa.gov/vaccine-compensation/data/index.html
1
The aluminum content in brain tissue of autistic subjects is high. Aluminum is the basic adjuvant used in ALL vaccines.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0946672X17308763
11
How much of aluminium is in vaccines? Is it enough to explain the accumulation in the brain, considering how many vaccines a child had? what the other possible sources of aluminium? Why only few children get autism, despite that much more children get vaccinated?
2
@wedge1 Aluminum is present in small amounts in our air, food, and water.
Re your intimation that aluminum in vaccines is causing autism, see
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/adjuvants.html
2
I noticed, "The research is supported by a grant from the Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute". This is a notorious antivaccine organization: https://vaxopedia.org/2017/05/17/what-is-the-childrens-medical-safety-research-institute/
I would like to see their results replicated by independent scientists before getting too excited about this.
1
It makes me sick that the disgraced and discredited former doctor Andrew Wakefield was able to move to the US and become a millionaire by peddling his antivax lies.
Actually it makes a lot of people sick.
26
Two of the first comments I saw here insisted that vaccines cause autism. This has been refuted many times. I grew up before we had the MMR and many other vaccines. Don't risk your child's life because you believe lies. Vaccinate your children.
24
The White House has not been mum. From resident Trump's past tweets, 2012-2014:
"Healthy young child goes to doctor, gets pumped with massive shot of many vaccines, doesn't feel good and changes - AUTISM. Many such cases!"
"Autism rates through the roof--why doesn't the Obama administration do something about doctor-inflicted autism. We lose nothing to try."
"Massive combined inoculations to small children is the cause for big increase in autism...."
A little shot of fear and ignorance keeps us all inoculated against science and reason, and Trump is quite fond of making people bend over.
16
A fine and long overdue editorial about the insanity of allowing a tiny fraction of the population, a fraction too deluded by or just stupid enough to believe the repeatedly and objectively disproven conspiracy theory lies about vaccines, to cause needless damage the health of the nation and the world.
Get tough being listed as the first step to take in combatting them is absolutely right. Enough already of indulging the liars who invent these theories and the fools who buy into them.
18
When Robert Kennedy Jr, isn’t busy funding the release of violent criminals from NYC jails, he is one of the most outspoken and prominent nuts spreading anti vaccination propaganda.
5
Anti-vaxxers have all gone to the Jenny McCarthy School of Medicine. Lucky us.
Apparently it will take deaths by the dozen -- nay, thousands -- to teach these people a lesson. So be it.
8
The POTUS is himself an anti-vaxxer perhaps due to a personal family incident (I will not spread rumors: I have no proof of what I have heard). Do not count on support from this White House.
9
How do these ignoramuses think that Polio and Smallpox were eradicated?
By thoughts and prayers?
25
I don't have autistic kids so I don't have a dog in this fight, but it seems wholly unreasonable to me that the US Government would put more resources towards settling vaccine related lawsuits with government attorneys and experts than actually doing the real science to determine genetic markers trigger bad reactions to vaccines.
It is wholly reasonable to expect parents to not submit their little ones to overly-aggressive schedules of vaccines that have changed dramatically since those aged 40 and older were given vaccines.
Most important was the move from mercury in the vaccines to aluminum, which attaches itself to neurons in ways we still don't know. The fact the NIH isn't even studying this is obscene.
Parents ought to have options to string out the vaccination schedule and they also ought to have the option to use a mercury infused vaccine vs. aluminum.
In the meantime, if the NIH isn't going to even bother doing the science on this..perhaps private industry (23 and me?) can map the genetic markers so new born babies can be tested immediately so parents know how to properly introduced vaccines into these tiny delicate human beings.
17
How do you propose to conduct such studies? First of all, you need to determine that autism is indeed a result of a vaccine/or the vaccine. For that you probably need to randomly select several hundred children and divide it in two groups, and then vaccinate one group and don't vaccinate the another one and follow these groups for quite a sometime (whatever time you think enough to develop the disease if it cause by vaccination). And you need to do so for each vaccine separately. The group should be large enough to include significant number of kids that have a 'bad reaction' to the vaccine.
3
@yulia
For rare diseases, a case-control study is usually more feasible.
Yet when anti-vaxxer above cites Offit's study of 14 purported vaccine injuries that all proved to have underlying genetic defect, anti-vaxxer criticizes the study due to small sample size!
Duh! Vaccine injuries are super rare!
The world is over populated now. Let them self select for thinning out. It's unpleasant and cynical to mention it but people in high places actually consider such things.
1
@Aristotle Gluteus Maximus. Sure, they would be reasonable except we talking about innocents, who rely on responsible adults to protect them- both the children of anti-vacation parents and those with compromised immune systems.
3
@Aristotle Gluteus Maximus
WikiLeaks have released documents showing that some vaccines are to reduce fertility rates, especially so in the Third World.
1
Hate to bring our President into this discussion, but he has, on more than one occasion, said that vaccinations causes autism in children.....
7
"A Dec. 1, 2018 update by the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) on the federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) reported that the total amount of awards to children and adults who have been injured or died after receiving federally recommended childhood vaccines has surpassed $4 billion.1 2
The VICP was created by Congress under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 as a federal compensation system alternative to vaccine injury lawsuits filed in civil court.3
According to an article published in Fair Warning, almost no media attention has been given to payouts made to vaccine victims by the government, which are adjudicated in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims (also known as “Vaccine Court”).1 Fair Warning points out that one of the reasons that the “Vaccine Court” works in relative obscurity is because public health officials maintain that “vaccines provide vast public health benefits” and are reluctant to talk about vaccine casualties for fear that publicity about vaccine injury compensation awards would dissuade the public from getting vaccinated.1"
https://thevaccinereaction.org/2019/01/over-4-billion-paid-for-vaccine-injuries-and-deaths/
3
The anti-vax movement is evolution in action. Its proponents lack a full complement of critical thinking skills, either as a result of indoctrination in philosophies that fail to link belief to evidence, or a failure in the genes.
Either way, their progeny is less likely to reproduce, and their philosophy, or their contribution to the gene pool, will diminish. Human society will be better for it.
8
@Norwester
On the matter of reproduction, WikiLeaks have released classified documents showing that some of the vaccines are to reduce fertility rates.
1
@Norwester Specious reasoning. Its proponents are mostly highly educated. Ever watch the movie Idiocracy?
Needed: a few good tort lawyers and a few judgments against spreading infectious diseases.
6
@Joe Ryan
The inserts on live vaccines do warn that the recipient must keep away from the immunocompromised for a couple of weeks so as not to shed the virus onto them.
Surely we need to think about quarantining those who have been recently vaccinated with a live virus vaccine.
2
Anti-vaxxers at least do one thing for me--They remind me that most people in the U.S. believe thinking about science makes a person a scientist. One of the highest vaccine exemption rates in the U.S. is in the State of Oregon, which went for Obama and Clinton by big margins. Lots of high exemption states are blue. The nut cases hoping for tropical Canada and scorching Ecuador, well they're more typically right wingers.
And so, when it comes to science, liberals and wing-nuts are just about equally brain dead. People with enough social skills to be on TV and run for office aren't engineers, like me. The only way we can influence society is to design a phone that hooks you like heroin and tricks you into giving up all your personal information to Wall St.
Thank God I'm old enough that I went to school with kids disfigured by polio. My uncle could move only his little finger, and used a ventilator for years, thanks to polio. I was one of the first waves of kids vaccinated.
Today, whatever you want to be "true" can be true, on social media. You just say it, like Trump, and then you're brainier than some guy with an MPH and a Ph.D. Climate change denial? Anti-vaxxers--it's all part of the anti-science, anti-nerd bias of the United States. No wonder China is graduating piles more engineers.
15
@Charles Coughlin
It's worth noting that many of the people labeled as 'anti-vaccine' are actually some of the most respected doctors and professors.
5
Please, name them so the rest of us know who to avoid.
3
@Lucy Silverstein
Name two and provide their credentials.
3
While the editorial is well-stated and utterly correct, I would suggest that the Editors take a moment to reflect, and pause to peruse the comments. The pervasive anti-pharma/biotech drumbeat supported by the Times fosters unfounded fears and accusations that not only allow anti-science nonsense to propogate, but is targeted against the very industry we need to innovate and create new vaccines. Baby, bathwater folks.
6
A lot of vaccines were developed by scientists in Universities, not by pharma. Pharma commercialised the vaccines for profit, it is hardly an innovations. And just because on pharma produces vaccine, it doesn't mean that we should tolerate its unreasonable price increase for the medicine that has been around for decades.
1
The problem is ignorance and lack of critical thinking. Many problems, such as autism, begin to manifest around the typical vaccination age. So the parents "think" (actually, falsely conclude without thinking) that a vaccination caused their dear child's autism -- post hoc, ergo propter hoc. This logical fallacy has been the root of backwards beliefs and superstitions throughout history. I would have thought we might outgrow it, but we just keep getting dumber and dumber.
17
In scientific terms the expression is, “correlation does not equal causation”
Don’t let anyone tell you that vaccines don’t cause injury. They have, they do and they will do so in the future. For years, Thimerosal was used as a preservative in multi-dose vials. While still proclaiming it “safe”, vaccine makers “voluntarily” removed Thimerosal. It is still present in trace amounts and in flu vaccine. Thimerosal was never approved by the FDA, as the patents predated the establishment of said regulations. Worried?
With nearly 6,000 cases pending the USCFC held the “Omnibus Autism Hearings.” They decided not to make “autism” a “table injury.” How convenient. Since there would never be enough money to pay for all who claim an “autism” injury. But, there have been many cases compensated for “encephalopathy” as a diagnosis with reference to autism. You can read it: http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1681&context=pelr
For the record, I am not “anti-vaccine.” Both of my children were fully vaccinated. Unfortunately for us, our son was neurologically disabled by vaccines. It is indisputable, yet the government and the vaccine makers still think that there is a “greater good” to be served. They may be right. But, let’s not fool ourselves. Vaccines can be made safer. It is about money.
16
Yes, the vaccine could cause harm to some very few people, but diseases cause much more harm to much more people.
3
"A Dec. 1, 2018 update by the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) on the federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) reported that the total amount of awards to children and adults who have been injured or died after receiving federally recommended childhood vaccines has surpassed $4 billion.1 2
The VICP was created by Congress under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 as a federal compensation system alternative to vaccine injury lawsuits filed in civil court.3"
https://thevaccinereaction.org/2019/01/over-4-billion-paid-for-vaccine-injuries-and-deaths/
5
Deeply disappointed on this one. Yes the chemicals in vaccines are toxic (hint: mercury and aluminum) and yes vaccines cause injury (here is a link to US government website listing vaccine court claims: https://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/vaccine-programoffice-special-masters) This article is as biased as can be and I am nearly nauseous thinking about continuing my subscription to your organization. Research the suppression of scientific information practiced by our public and private scientific institutions, at the hands of Big Pharma.
12
It is difficult to hide the epidemics. If the vaccine were so bad, as diseases that they prevent we would see their I'll effects all around us, and we don't
4
Autism is most likely neuro-developmental, with some genetic underpinning, and not caused by toxins after birth.
13
@Carl
Also, I am very sad that so many people are unable or unwilling to get on-line and read medical or community health or CDC or HHS guidelines. ALL the scientific data and rationales are available on one's computer (its not like the old days when one would have to go to a library and request each article to be printed). Instead people read forums and blogs and other forms of hearsay and gossip . Their analytical and critical minds are completely absent, AWOL. This is also very true in other subject areas , like politics, climate change. "A mind is a terrible thing to waste."
GIGO - garbage in, garbage out Insufficient education or unwillingness to learn. Its too bad ...
2
In the province of Ontario in 1945 all children starting school had to present a certificate of vaccination before being admitted.
Result: Vaccination rate was 100%.
11
A good list of steps, but we should concentrate on the one buried in "Be Savvy": Use propaganda. Early efforts in the 1950s and 60s to get people vaccinated had massive public service announcements behind them. We got into this mess because anti-vaxxers are using modern propaganda tools. We can't afford to shy away from using them ourselves. Success would take a budget/resources. People are dying because America is skittish about spending on public health. Spend what it takes to make the case.
8
If a human is vaccinated against a disease, and then comes *down with the disease, what makes the most sense ?
1. That the *VACCINE did not *WORK.
2, That the person was infected by a person who was NOT vaccinated.
3. How is it even *possible for a person WITH an effective vaccination to GET the disease from *anybody ?
Ask a Big Pharma rep. They will snow you for hours without
as sensible answer.
Flu vaccines can ONLY be created based upon LAST year's
Strain of Flu. No human being can *predict the configuration
of an unknown Flu Bug. The NEW Flu Bug is *unknown every year.
Ask a Big Pharma rep. They will snow you for hours without
a sensible answer.
This scam is worth beyond Billions per year. Big Pharma will
use Tobacco Science until the last Glacier melts.
Put some time and money into a basic course on human microbiology.
We are being *snowed by Big Pharma.
11
But I must tell you the first child I ever knew to die was my childhood friend and neighbor who died of the flu. I can still hear her mother’s wails.
I lost most of my hearing from measles and would not ever take this risk with a child of mine.
9
@Nominae You are wrong about how flu vaccines are created. Thus year’s vaccine protects against 4 different flu strains, just as one little example of where you are misinformed.
There is also quite a lot of progress being made on a universal flu vaccine. The hope is this approach will dramatically improve effectiveness.
Meanwhile, you’re crazy not to get a flu shot.
So are the parents of those poor little unvaccinated kids who have died so far this year. Needlessly.
1
@Nominae So..big pharma to be is not the problem here. It's the corrupt 4th branch of government that's ceded it's authority to the pharma industry whose motives lie more in keeping lawsuits at bay than in actually providing the most appropriate care. Yes..they want to make money but that's not a sin. You can solve societal ills and make money at the same time. That's what makes America great. What makes America suck is when the bureaucracy sells out it's oversight responsibilities to lobbyists, not just with medicine but with pretty much anything/everything that carries risk today.
And now you know why conservatives typically want a smaller federal government. The problems we have today were created by this government. You don't actually think more government is going to fix it, do you?
This is a question of our time related to the intellectual and moral integrity of our institutions. The only way to hold them more accountable is by more sunlight on those who use and abuse the system for personal gain...or to avoid embarrassment and shame.
"the number of dose related relationships [between mercury and autism] are linear and statistically significant. You can play with this all you want. They are linear. They are statistically significant." - Dr. William Weil, American Academy of Pediatrics. Simpsonwood, GA, June 7, 2000
"the issue is that it is impossible, unethical to leave kids unimmunized, so you will never, ever resolve that issue [regarding the impact of mercury]." - Dr. Robert Chen, Chief of Vaccine Safety and Development, Centers For Disease Control, Simpsonwood, GA, June 7, 2000
"Forgive this personal comment, but I got called out at eight o'clock for an emergency call and my daughter-in-law delivered a son by c-section. Our first male in the line of the next generation and I do not want that grandson to get a Thimerosal containing vaccine until we know better what is going on. It will probably take a long time. In the meantime, and I know there are probably implications for this internationally, but in the meanwhile I think I want that grandson to only be given Thimerosal-free vaccines." - Dr. Robert Johnson, Immunologist, University of Colorado, Simpsonwood, GA, June 7, 2000
7
@Mark Thimerosal was removed as a preservative from infant vaccines in the US as of 2001. While it sometimes remains in minute traces, exposures dropped by orders of magnitude. Nothing happened.
2
Conservatives aren't the only ones who ignore science when it's inconvenient.
9
It is very simple:
Anti-vaxxers and their political, celebrity enablers are:
ACCESSORIES TO MURDER!!
I am a retired pediatrician and I have seen children die from these diseases because of having received no vaccinations.
17
That fact that so many “others” have gotten their kids and themselves vaccinated provides antivaxers cover for their specious argument under the concept of “herd immunity.”
I’m curious though. If by some magic a person’s kids here today were to be transported back to the 1930s ( before our vaccine era) where the childhood diseases and polio were common, would that parent, an antivaxer today, send her/his kids back without getting them vaccinated before that trip? The antivaxer can’t use other people doing the right thing (herd immunity) to parasitically offer some protection to their child!
It’s a “put up or shut” question I guess.
4
“An emotional contagion, digitally enabled.”
How many of society’s pathologies now fit this description?
5
Is in not Science as Religion hysteria, when 35 cases of measles in New York as reported as "the worst measles outbreak in decades" as if it were akin to the outbreak of Ebola.
I am 100% in favor of some vaccines. But we actually DO KNOW FROM SCIENCE that when we over-vaccinate we force the immune system to attack the host....I grew up the measles, mumps, and chicken pox, and like everyone else i know, did just fine.
Where does it end? The number of vaccines they give tiny infants all at once defies the logic of how vaccines work. You are asking primitive immune systems to develop antibodies to multiple infections simultaneously. And by so doing, do we improve society?
The biggest fraud is the influenza vaccine, which is marketed as if its were candy (just like birth control drugs are...marketed as "the pill", when in fact its a drug). The flu vaccine has, what, 50% efficacy, if even that?
Why not focus on preventing the flu by promoting healthy lifestyle, which for US residents might involve NOT drinking gallons of iced beverages in the middle of winter for starters; by not having Air conditioning set to 64 degrees, and on even in cold weather; or by doing what the Japanese do, which is wear a surgical mask when you have a cold. And by staying the heck home when ill...
Just today i picked up a medicine at Target pharmacy, and the pharmacy assistant obviously had a cold, was sniffling, and kept touching his nose. Why is he not at home in bed?
12
You did “just fine. “ I lost most of my hearing from measles. You would take this risk for your child?
3
“Vaccines Are Unavoidably Unsafe”
Don’t take my word for it. This is the unmistakable conclusion of the SCOTUS in Bruesewitz v. Wyeth, LLC in a decision in 2011. Unfortunately, due to the protections afforded the vaccine maker in the National Childhood Vaccine Act of 1986, the Court ruled against a vaccine injured plaintiff in the case. How?
In the 1980s, children were having adverse reactions to the DTP (diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis) vaccine. Lots of lawsuits were being filed against docs and vaccine manufacturers. This caused the pharmaceutical industry to threaten pulling out of the vaccine market, and the alarm bells rang that the nation’s health and safety were at risk. Why were vaccine manufacturers getting ready to take their ball and go home? Because vaccines fall into a class of products considered “unavoidably unsafe.” I am not kidding you. This “unavoidable” word comes from the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act itself “products which, in the present state of human knowledge, are quite incapable of being made safe.”
In 1986, Congress decided on a way to compensate folks for these avoidable injuries and death. It is called the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. From 2001 until 2011 the program has compensated about 2500 families a total of $2 billion. There has been close to $4 billion paid to date since inception.
Please continue to read my postings below.
10
This is important. Some people feel fear and find out information and then decide what to be most afraid of. Other people feel fear and *accidentally* use their information gathering to confirm their existing fear-based beliefs. Therefore to win the vaccination war, scare people about the consequences of not having their child vaccinated. Babies regularly die because of inadequate heard immunity. You are a newspaper. Go get ‘em!
1
Lemme see now. Two quick examples that “might” be worth reflecting on.
1. Before 1950 there were 15,000 cases a year of polio in the USA. By 1963, after the various types of polio vaccine came into regular use, the number of cases of polio was down to less than 100.
2. Before 1963, virtually everyone got measles by the age of 15. That’s 3-4 million cases a year resulting in 400-500 deaths a year. By the year 2000, after various protocols for measles vaccinations were developed, measles was virtually eliminated.
Then the anti vaccine people started to grow and measles once again is flourishing in the UNVACCINATED!!!
You don’t have to have a medical degree to see the very best hard evidence that vaccines work, and work well!
Yeah..sometimes there are side effects ( usually few, not serious and temporary) with vaccines. But if you really want to gamble with the health and perhaps life of your child, then ignore this hard irrefutable evidence and don’t vaccinate him/her!
I’ll retire to Bedlam...this is so obvious!
16
This behavior is yet another example of the anti-intellectualism embedded in American life: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-intellectualism_in_American_Life . These behaviors have been around a very long time, but are brought to the fore with varied sorts of intellectual advances--just as we see here.
10
Make Philip Roth’s “Nemesis” required reading.
2
A great pity I am unable to push a magic button and take the anti-vaxers to a mission hospital in rural Kwa Zulu Natal. Here is the reality. An isolation ward filled with children dying from Measles. Our government vaccination programme is vastly improved but many still die from this horrible disease. Scientific research beats your neighbours gossip stories every time. Funny how a heart bypass operation for the parent, with attendant dangers, is acceptable but not a simple vaccination!
19
The propaganda spewing and absolute drivel coming from those who pretend to know what they're talking about is just astounding.
Many, if not most, parents who do not vaccinate DID vaccinate and their children were severely injured or killed. What good parent would allow that to happen to their any of their children again?
Read some vaccine package inserts to find out the ingredients and known adverse events that can and do occur.
Learn the number of vaccines and doses given these days (hint: it's not five any more).
Check out VAERS to see the reactions that have occurred over the years.
Around 4 billion dollars have been paid out for vaccine injuries/deaths--paid out of taxes on vaccines given as vaccine manufacturers are protected by our government from being sued. They have no incentive to provide a safe product. Yet, these products are not only allowed on the market but mandated? It's nuts.
Do your research. Death rates from diseases went down BEFORE vaccines were introduced on a mass scale due to better sanitation and hygiene.
As someone who has researched this issue for 25 years, it's so disheartening to see this blind devotion to vaccines. Clearly, advertising is still a strong and effective tool to control minds, instill fear and create a herd mentality.
Wake up, people. You're being lied to.
13
I lost most of my hearing from measles and would not wish this on any child.
1
How about the entertainment and documentary artists get on promoting vaccines? A Hallmark movie and a Ken Burns film or American Experience special on PBS? Segments on all the news shows and commentaries, not just 60 min. I can remember having measles and spending what seemed like weeks in a darkened room while my mother feared my going blind. The County Health Department nailed a "Quaratined" sign on our front door. Not taped, nailed, with a warning that anyone removing the sign without authorization could be jailed. Both of my daughters got chicken pox, but they were very healthy and one only missed a couple days of school, the other stayed in bed one day while we were vacationing. I had shingles in my mid60's, with lingering neurological effects. The daughter who had to stay in bed one day on vacation came down with shingles when she was barely 40. Get your kids vaccinated, folks.
8
"Know the audience" is especially important. When I questioned vaccines for my children, a lot of people scoffed at me about the autism thing, but I didn't believe in a connection between vaccines and autism. If the goal is to increase vax rates, sneering at people and assuming they are stupid or rabid conspiracy theorists is a terrible way to proceed.
122
Well said. The sneering really is not workimg.
10
@Megan
The burden is on you to get properly informed, by educated and reliable sources such as your pediatrician, or the CDC website.
54
@Megan I don't think most doctors sneer. They educate. They acknowledge concerns and suggest alternatives, or example spreading the vaccines out over a longer period of time.
47
What’s intriguing to me is that this is an issue that doesn’t seem to be connected with any political party or religion or industry, unlike, for example, gun control, global warming, abortion.
Also, it’s pretty coincidental that in today’s paper, there is this article: “Why do people fall for fake news?”
It would be interesting if the psychologists involved in the fake news topic could offer their analysis of the anti-vaccination believers.
2
So much misinformation in this opinion based editorial. With no intention to be insulting, this writer presents an ignorant opinion that they attempt to persuade or coerce other uniformed parents with. Parents need to start researching the dangers of vaccines to their children's health. Look up the dangers of injecting aluminum, mercury, and formaldehyde into the bloodstream as just three toxins placed in different vaccines. The significant increase of cognitive disorders in children since the 1970/80s to present, who get adult sized doses of vaccines. According to the CDC, Autism was 1 in over 2,000 about 40 years ago, but now is 1 in 42 for boys and 1 in 189 for girls following the proliferation of vaccines. Doctors and nurses push the flu vaccine for pregnant mothers, but if you "read" the vaccine package insert, there have been no studies conducted to verify its safety. Most parents who I encounter that are pro-vaxxers have done zero to very little research outside of reading a couple of pro-vaxxer articles about the safety of vaccines or understand why behind the disease and how to treat or protect against it naturally. The medical community does not inform parents with facts or statistics when they come in for a childbirth appointment, just unprofessional scare tactics against parents. There are many medical doctors that are against vaccines, but many feel unable to voice their opinions for fear of being ostracized from the medical community or being able to work.
6
As a family doctor who has had 75,000 plus visits with patients, will personally testify in court that any physician who doesn’t vaccinate against major diseases like polio mumps Diphtheria is committing malpractice!
22
@W. Stefan Since you site CDC statistics you know that the CDC recommends vaccination: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/vaxwithme.html. The rest of your opinion is anecdotal.
1
@Lee
So, you recommend following the CDC's recommendation to take vaccines, but neglect the statistics that show a very significant increase in childhood cognitive disorders following vaccine proliferation in the U.S. Ignorance is bliss for pro-vaxxers.
Russia is anti-vaccine, their propaganda is horrible. Russians aren't vaccinated, hence diseases spread freely.
Finland has always vaccinated Finns ever since a Finn is born.
When my son started Steiner-school, the shock was massive since nearly all parents were anti-vaccine and didn't vaccinate their children. I tried to explain to them, that their children are healty due to the huge 'umbrella' consisting of vaccinated Finns, but they didn't believe me.
Then one family went on a trip to Russia with their 8-year old son, who caught diphteria and was hospitalized for a long time.
I urged her to vaccinate her son in the future or never leave Finland. Russia doesn't have that 'umbrella' of vaccinated Russians, so if you aren't vaccinated you are in danger of getting deadly diseases.
Everyone who vaccinates their children provides safety for non-vaccinated children. Let that sink in, all you parents who refuse to vaccinate your children.
15
@Nicole
What makes you think that Russia is anti-vaccine? My wife, who is Russian had all of her vaccines, as did her daughter. Its standard procedure for kids to get vaccinated there, and when she heard about the anti-vaxination talk in the US she couldn't believe it.
actually, unwittingly, the editorial board demonstrated in their recommendation a big part of the problem in persuading people who have doubts about vaccines. Unfortunately, otherwise known as elitist arrogance.
So let us be clear. The categorical statement that "vaccines do not cause autism, full stop" is not scientifically provable. Epidemiological studies have detectability thresholds and can thus only prove that any link is too rare to present a public health problem that would have to be addressed by government regulation. If we impose an obligation to vaccinate, we impose it because risks are small while social benefits outweigh them. In other words, we impose an obligation to vaccinate as a price of being part of a society. This is an honest way of presenting this issue, which does not treat parents like uneducated imbeciles. So, do not just be savvy, but first and foremost, be respectful and treat people like your equals, rather than your inferiors.
11
It would be nice if one day we can have an honest debate about the risks and benefits of vaccination. Right now, it does not appear we are ready for that. What I read is a lot of howling at people who are deemed as stupid and ignorant of the truth, and a lack of provision of any scientific evidence. I'd like to see people lay down their weapons, remove all the vitriol, and open-mindedly discuss the scientific data. There is in fact an abundance of research data on vaccination. While this data lives in obscurity, people continue to assert that the science around vaccination is settled, without feeling the need to cite this evidence. Instead, they rely on the worst form of argument: anecdotes. "I got vaccinated and got sick, or didn't. Therefore....
Why are we giving credence to this when there is an abundance of research. Are we afraid to look at the science? The debate has degenerated into angry mudslinging rather than having any reference to fact. Instead, people decide they "know" what the facts are and feel it's unnecessary to support them with credible evidence. This kind of sloppy thinking would be ripped apart in any academic publication, and is detrimental, when offered up in a public forum, to our democracy. Let's get real people. Cite your evidence, and it should be evidence drawn from science, not just your own personal experience. In the nineteenth century many people ingested calomel and didn't die. That doesn't make it safe.
6
After I strongly advocated flu vaccination on Facebook, an outrageous [edited] video of me was aggressively circulated with the express intention of causing my death, either by sending me to jail where I wouldn't do well, or by prompting vigilante action.
3
Willful failure to vaccinate a healthy kid is child abuse. Full stop. It's a crime. Treat it as such. There's no reason to continually dance around what this really is in an effort not to offend anti-vaxxers.
Carve out an exception for children who have a legitimate medical reason to remain un-vaccinated. Kids like that will benefit from the herd immunity provided by a vaccinated population.
Parents intent on gambling with their kids' lives because they want to feel the ego boost of "knowing" better than science and being "smarter" than doctors can freely ponder their worldview from the comfort of a jail cell.
12
@Bill
I vaccinated my healthy child. He became seriously ill--for years.
Willfully vaccinating a child--knowing the harm it can and does cause--is child abuse. Full stop. It's a crime. Treat it as such.
@Winnie
Which vaccine did your doctor specifically diagnose as the cause of the illness?
Anti-vaxxers confuse correlation and causation. “My child got sick, but also got a vaccine, therefore the vaccine caused the illness.” Which is akin to me blaming a case of the flu on the ibuprofen I took last Tuesday.
Humans like to find patterns, especially when it comes to horrible things in life. It makes us feel more in control to say “THIS was caused by THAT,” rather than accept that bad things sometimes just happen - even to good people who do all the right things.
It’s the foundation of every conspiracy theory and unfortunately, it can have devastating effects on people who don’t have a say in what kind of care they receive - or don’t receive.
2
so no mention of the four billion awarded to the families of the vaccine injured? No mention that manufacturers are exempt from lawsuits? No mention of the hundreds of pediatricians and veterinarians that are trying to space vaccines safely and eliminate those that are unnecessary. No mention of the rationale for giving a day old baby a Hep B vaccine for a disease he couldn't get unless he got it sexually or from using IV drugs? No mention of the hundreds of studies that show the dangers of injected aluminum? There are many doctors and scientists that deserve better treatment from the Times editorial board.
8
The anti vaxxers are truly evil. as much as are those who deny science in such areas as climate change. They are in effect the willing killers of their own children. They should be isolated from the general population and kept in permanent quarantine as threats to public health in the same way we once treated lepers until medical science made a cure available.
They don't get exposed to the periodic plagues of polio that killed and crippled so many over the years. They enjoy the fact that small pox, a killer of millions no longer exists after a world wide program to immunize humanity succeeded in eliminating it. Vaxxers are threats to all of us in how they use lies and propaganda to convince others to follow their cultist behavior. They should pay the price of their deliberate ignorance. Freedom to do evil is always a problem but lives are at stake and we do put those who threaten us with death in isolation.
6
If people had been allowed to opt out of the smallpox vaccine during the eradication campaign then we would probably still be dealing with smallpox. Many vaccinations should be mandatory, end of discussion. Your rights stop when they threaten my welfare.
11
Question for the group. I was born in 1980 and rec’d 6 vaccinations per my pediatric “blue book”. Today there are 60 - six zero - vaccinations recommended. Plus many vaccinations cram multiple scourges into one administration, which seems to me as rather taxing to a young immune system.
Are there really find 54 new terrible things discovered in the last 40 years of which we need to save our children? This is a legitimate question - I am not trying to post an argument in favor of anti-vax. Just curious where the line is bt actually preventing horrible diseases and just paying drug companies more dough. Is there a list of necessary vax?
5
I am also in your demographic and have no idea which 60 vaccinations you are talking about. Unless you are talking about yearly flu vaccines which you are free to take or not. The only new one I am aware of is the new, highly effective shingles vaccine which I am waiting to get ( there are nationwide shortages due to high demand). Having seen a friend suffer with shingles, if I can avoid that, I will.
5
Just a mom view...
Yes, the list has changed significantly in the last 35 years. My son, 1st of 3 children, was born in ‘83. Many of the current vaccinations, even the chicken pox vaccine, were not on the list at that time. And the recommendations continue to evolve. When the HPV vaccine came out, it was only recommended for girls. Now it’s recommended for both girls and boys. Timing really matters. My younger daughter was covered by insurance for the HPV shot, the other wasn’t based on their ages. It’s the older daughter who is now scheduled for additional testing due to concerning Pap test results.
“60 vaccinations” probably uses (a) many vaccines are given over time via additional shots and/or (b) some vaccines address multiple diseases. DTaP is a good example. It is give as multiple doses - a shot at 2 months, 4 months, 6 months, 15 months, etc. DTaP include vaccines for Diphtheria, Tetanus, and acellular Pertussis (whooping cough).
Current CDC childhood immunization schedule and other good vaccination information is at
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/hcp/child-adolescent.html.
Their recommended schedule is endorsed by
American Academy of Pediatrics
American Academy of Family Physicians
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
5
@MD Monroe
This is the problem with giving opinions after having done zero research--lack of awareness of what is being pumped into children these days:
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/downloads/child/0-18yrs-child-combined-schedule.pdf
It used to be that a patient had to be seriously concerned with iatrogenic illness, i.e. disease caused by a doctor or medicine.
Today we have patientgenic disease or in the better explanation of Prof. Larson:
'The next major disease outbreak “will not be due to a lack of preventive technologies,” Heidi Larson, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, writes in the journal Nature, but to an “emotional contagion, digitally enabled".'
It is a shame to defeat a disease and then cause its reappearance through laziness and especially stupidity.
8
Anti-vaxxers remind me of young people who are ignorant about life before Roe v Wade, when women suffered and died from illegal abortions. They don't know these stories and don't recognize the continuous onslaught against comprehensive reproductive healthcare for the threat that it is.
16
AMM is right!
No vaccination - no school.
13
Let the unvaccinated go to a separate school. That way they can’t rely on the rest of us to protect them.
6
While vaccines certainly benefit the public health, there exists a very small percentage of people that have been injured by vaccines. How do I know this? From the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program administered by the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) in the United States. HRSA puts out an annual report here:
https://www.hrsa.gov/sites/default/files/hrsa/vaccine-compensation/data/monthly-stats-january-2019.pdf
From this report I learn that in the USA there have been 3,454,269,356 vaccinations of covered vaccines from 2006 to 2107. There have been 20,215 claims for injury or death and 6,355 awards thus far (many others dismissed, others still in process with awards exceeding 3.75 billion dollars!
So for every million vaccines there are 5.8 claims of injury, with roughly a third of the claims being accepted (or 1.9 per million).
There is a very small risk of vaccine injury that is outweighed by the public health. Can that be acknowledged and communicated without stoking public fears? I am not sure, but I value the complete picture.
5
The New Dark Ages.
The people who think that vaccine is causing things like autism are guilty of New Dark Age thinking. They do not believe in the Scientific Method all the while they pick and choose what science they believe in.
They drive cars, they fly in airplanes, and they use computers. All pinnacles of the Scientific Method. Hypocrites all.
I for one have had enough. We should mandate a database of all families that will not get their children vaccinated. Then these people should be barred for life from receiving any government taxpayer financed health care of any kind. Let them back up their half baked science with their own cash.
If they are on a health plan, they should have to pay a special premium for the down stream costs that they will in fact impose on other plan members for their decision.
If they show up with a kid, let them bleed on the side walk of the temple of the Scientific Method the Emergency Room Door.
4
Jd. all for it as long as we include smokers people who are overweight and those that drink alcohol. Are you in?
No vaccine, no public school.
13
@Bob
Agreed, and anti-vaxxers should not have to pay property taxes to fund public schools if they are unable to utilize the public school system. Let pro-vaxxers pay the increase in the cost of education and let anti-vaxxers put their tax dollars toward a private education.
Stefan, taxes are not a user fee, they pay for the public good. Universal education is in the public interest. It creates informed and useful citizens. Private schools that teach the evils of science and Jesus riding dinosaurs do not contribute to the public good. Vaccines keep everyone healthy and contribute to the public good. Outbreaks of vaccine preventable illness kill and maim productive citizens and do not contribute to the public good.
I am mystified as to why you believe that you should be subsidized for raising ignorant, useless children and for spreading disease, while real schools and real medicine should be deprived of funding. Do you somehow misunderstand and think of yourself as a contributor and not a freeloader in a modern society?
3
The irony of the anti vaccine people is some happen to be well educated as well. So much for critical thinking.
4
I believe that it will take more epidemics, with deaths or brain damage, to convince the anti-vaccers.
3
The controversy boils down to this:
1. the vaccine prevents the deaths and injury of millions of people, mostly children.
2. A very, very small number of people who are vaccinated do have a reaction to the vaccine.
So the choice is do you want to prevent the real possibility of getting one of the many "childhood diseases" such as polio, mumps, chicken pox, measles or do you want to risk the one in a million chance that some unknown factor might cause a problem?
The chance of injury and harm is much greater if you do not get the vaccine.
Yes, in the US there is a claims system for the very few who are injured. It's called the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. Look it up on line.
Also, if you want a concise exploration of the vax/don't vax issue, there was a good article in Time Magazine:
http://time.com/3995062/vaccine-injury-court-truth/
5
In 1910 Dr. William Osler, a founder of Johns Hopkins Medical School, published the following:
I would like to issue a Mount-Carmel-like challenge to any ten unvaccinated priests of Baal. I will go into the next severe epidemic with ten selected, vaccinated persons and ten selected unvaccinated persons – I should prefer to choose the latter – three members of Parliament, three anti-vaccination doctors (if they can be found), and four anti-vaccination propagandists.
And I will make this promise – neither to jeer nor jibe when they catch the disease, but to look after them as brothers, and for the four or five who are certain to die, I will try to arrange the funerals with all the pomp and ceremony of an anti-vaccination demonstration.
Nothing really changed during following over 100 years.
7
Vaccines work. Climate change is real.
Dinosaurs and cavemen did not co-exist and the Earth is just a few billion years more than 10,000 years old.
All of these are facts but America has gone wilfully stupid.
Part of it is laziness. Part of it is political agenda. But most of it is complacency resulting from the elimination of many of the existential threats humans once faced.
And what was it that eliminated many of these threats? A belief in facts and the rigors of the scientific process.
I always wondered how civilization went from the wonders of Rome and Athens to the Middle Ages but I don't wonder anymore.
16
Get celebrities to live-stream their infants’ vaccinations.
Why?
Are there 20 to 30 countries healthier than we are?
Does Cuba have half the infant mortality rate we do?
Do we give twice the vaccines to children that all other countries do?
Did we loose more people to Opioids than we lost in WW2?
Is Obesity not an epidemic?
Is Lyme disease not an epidemic?
The real answer to your question is that we are a very sick nation and people are suffering. Thus they strike back as best they can.
2
@Allan: Trumism is a globally mortal psychoptholgy.
2
I get flu shots and vaccines and get my son all the recommended ones too. Missing from this discussion is what the medical profession has done to lose the trust of so many people. Eminence trumps evidence in medical science and the results of that cannot possibly be overstated. Anti-vaxxers are, in large part, a response to the medical quackery that has been the norm for so long.
5
@Daniel Hoffman: I am amazed by the cumulative effects of vaccination. It strengthens the immune system to resist infections and complications of all kinds.
2
One of the best ways to quell the anti-vaxx movement is through effective local public health initiatives. Before the onslaught of "government is the problem", vaccines were available through numerous free public health clinics staffed by experienced MD's and Public Health Nurses (PHN's). Most middle class parents now must go the their Pediatrician and depend on health insurance, too. Remove this obstacle, provide free clinics like those new "doc in the box" clinics we now have in many pharmacies. Pediatricians don't always have appointments available when parents are available and visits are not free. That is an obstacle. Make shots 100% free all the time. Provide "walk in" services at school registration. Have a post administration tracking system and make responses mandatory to monitor for any possible side effect. Then recognize the fears of anti-vaxxers. Children may receive multiple shots per visit which is painful for any child and stressful for parents. An experienced PHN can help by making home visits and providing counseling. We know from third world countries that this works and it is inexpensive to boot. Consider limitations on media misinformation (lies). No parent should have their child exposed to measles as the result of a lie. The last is to continue with transparent, government supported initiatives to develop the safest and most effective vaccines possible.
9
Vaccine should be required by law. It's for the public good. For children not getting vaccinated it opens the door for an epidemic that could hurt the country.
8
The real problem here is that the medical establishment in the United States is a for-profit industry. As medicine has become more and more commercialized over time (think about how many drug ads are now on TV) consumers have naturally developed the same skepticism they have for all advertising. Nobody trusts a salesperson telling you to buy something to be looking out for your best interest.
If there were a way to remove some of the financial conflicts of interest at play here, I think a far greater number of people would listen to sound scientific advice.
7
As a family physician ( with no financial conflict of interest) I agree with your point. It’s interesting: the evidence is clear that Vaccines benefits outweigh any risk. However due to several factors including the one you cited , we are in this dangerous space .
Mark my words however!!!!!
Parents: please vaccinate or I Promise you kids will start dying in very significant numbers!!!!!!!
If this starts to happen the government will declare a crisis and parents will go to jail for child neglect if they don’t vaccinate.
I have a son whose life the anti-vaxxers endanger. Because of his neurological condition he relies on the "herd immunity" of everyone else being immunized to protect him. The far right is often condemned because of their anti-science attitudes regarding such things as climate change and birth control. But many anti-vaxxers are liberals or progressives who are just as anti-science. They are endangering their children and everyone else's with their irrational crusades.
419
@Michael Not to be a contrarian or mean, but would you sacrifice the life of your own child if it meant 1000 other children would live?
These parents are making a very moral decision for themselves and their families and truthfully, our government and the NYT is not adding to the discussion.
Context is king...so rather than just shouting down those who are opposed to the current vaccine program...how about engaging in some dialogue to see if there are other schedules and other adjuvants other than aluminum?
You likely have vaccines with mercury as the adjuvant. Do you remember dozens of people in each grade school class having autism? No.
So now they move to aluminum, which sticks around for a very long time inside the brain..and we have a much higher incidence of autism.
I'm not saying this is a cause or not. I'm simply saying that if I were a parent I would want vaccines input into my kids body with the same product and same adjuvants as I had when I was getting my vaccines.
And that, my dear friend, is how you convince anti-vaxxers to get their kids vaccinated.
Nothing good comes from shaming them. Shame the doctors. Shame the government. Shame the pharmas and shame the lawyers who somehow thought it was smart to sue because mercury does bad things.
If you're older than 50, you remember playing with liquid mercury in middle school science class with your bare hands and yet...there is no lasting impact from that other than the pharma industry changing adjuvants.
8
@Erica Smythe science and medicine move on and so did vaccines. The vaccines of today are much safer and reliable than the ones you got as a child. You would not want your child to get the vaccines that were used in the past, the ones today are much better. It is always upsetting to think that people who got their information off the internet know more than scientists who spend their lives dedicated to their research.
While there is no evidence that the mercury used in vaccines was harmful, it was removed to try and calm fears about its safely.
Thimerosal, the mercury continuing agents in vaccines, was a used a preservative that inhibited bacterial growth in multiuse vials. When it was removed most vaccines were repacked in single doses so the preservative was not needed.
Aluminum in vaccines is a adjuvant that induces a strainer immune response. Its use allows a vaccine to have a smaller amount of antigen and increase the effectiveness of each dose.
It is important to remember that scientists know causation is not causality, and that the increase in autism is not the result of any component in vaccines or of vaccination itself.
71
@Lucy H So why is the NIH afraid to study this?
Seriously,, we spend 100x more money in lawsuits through the vaccine court than we do studying these "new and improved" elements in vaccines. What are we afraid of?
At least you're being intellectually honest by admitting you don't have a clue what causes autism. I'm betting that if your child had autism, you might a more open mind to the cause/causes.
9
I'll pity the children of anti-vaxxers' who contract measles, mumps, flu, chicken pox, whooping cough, diptheria, polio ... but not their parents.
8
Shame on the NYT for not publishing the entirety of the science surrounding the safety and efficacy of vaccines. I can only hope that the readers, at the very least, due their own due diligence and not cede their rights and responsibilities to Big Pharma, as to the well-being of themselves and their loved ones. You will not be "saved." You may be sacrificed.
It the height of irresponsibility that the NYT provides a mere fraction of the data and information on the subject.
I fear that the NYT has been lulled into the notion that the pursuit of some grandiose notion of the "greater good" relieves us of the duty to "first do no harm."
Long ago it was the NYT itself which presented science based information alerting the public to the real dangers:
https://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/10/magazine/the-not-so-crackpot-autism-theory.html
Did Big Pharma get to the Editorial Board? Why do the TV networks refuse to allow RFK, Jr. to appear? To present real science and facts of vaccine injury and the etiologies that require the education for the public?
Treating the population as lemmings is hardly a noble goal.
If only the NYT would allow me the forum to publish hard data and deliver testimony from the many studies already published, I think that the readers would be genuinely cynical about the vaccines "debate." It is not a debate as much as it should be a search for safe products, without regard for profits.
14
I so agree. This is a big topic and it is presented here as black and white, the “good” people who vaccinate vs. the “bad” people who do not. This whole topic needs to be presented in shades of gray. How many vaccines are optimum? Which ones have risks that outweigh their advantages? How do we determine if a baby’s immune system is compromised and a delayed and simplified schedule is necessary in order to do no harm? Are there ways to preserve the vaccines that are less toxic? What is behind the very high incidence of immune related disease that plagues our children and our adults? I have been wondering, too, why this issue is presented in this one sided way by The New York Times. Where is the nuanced reporting?
3
Statistically speaking, not getting vaccines is like driving without a seat belt because it might trap you in your car if you drive off a bridge.
Morally speaking, it's like driving with bad brakes.
Not being vaccinated without medical contraindication is stupid and selfish.
27
You put so clearly into words my feelings about this subject. Thank you.
1
Every parent should be forced to watch the PBS production "The Vaccine Wars". An objective look at the issue that really puts the anti-vaxxers in their place. Quite frankly, these people and their political supporters are a collective of village idiots. They're more afraid of gluten then they are of smallpox.
33
"... Shingles Vaccines Manufacturers Not Protected Against Lawsuits - Importantly, the shingles vaccine “is one of the few vaccines not covered by the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, which means individual may sue the vaccine manufacturer directly for vaccine injuries associated with the vaccine. Currently Merck, the manufacturer for Zostavax, is defending itself against 60 lawsuits that allege the vaccine caused serious side effects, including death.”7 ..."
https://thevaccinereaction.org/2018/09/merck-sued-over-zostavax-related-injury/
@Good Morning it was not intended for children - you only get shingles if you have had chickenpox.
1
Another way to get tough is quarantine.
6
The recent measles outbreak here in NYC is centered on the insular Orthodox Jewish communities in Brooklyn. These people don't use the public schools. Perhaps requiring them to show proof of immunization to obtain other social services, such as SNAP would increase immunization rates. The community leaders seem to favor immunization.
6
@JohnM8451
In my state of Minnesota the most hard hit community is Somali Americans -who attend public school. That community has been manipulated by outsiders in the most pathetic way. Small pockets of alt hip parents too but it is this community of refugees who really suffers - a new outbreak of measles seems to Ben starting up again. And Ilhan Omar hasn’t exactly been out there’s encouraging her community to get vaccinated.
I am anti anti vaxxers. How foolish we are. People who are younger just don't remember the scourge's we all went through, so i guess they'll have to do it all again.....After a false report that already has been publicly refuted, all i can think is how susceptible all of us are to fake news. Have fun getting really really sick....maybe polio can make a comeback? Wouldn't that be great? Nothing, though will change these folk's mind, but you cannot endanger the rest of us, so set up your own charter school's.
4
Ironic that anti-vaxxers are likely adults benefiting fully of a healthy life vaccines provide they themselves received as kids, and are now trying to take away from their own and other's kids. Sad when stupid is as stupid does prevails at the expense of innocent kids and innocent voters - like those those in 2016.
We should treat the anti-vaxxers as unhygienic - like those who do not wash their hands after using the bathroom. Shake their hand? No way! Eew! Not vaccinated? Eew! They likely do not even use anti-virus on their PC's.
Other ways to innoculate against the anti-vaxxers:
Getting health insurance should require getting or being vaccinated. Like those who cruelly want to punish women for failed pregnancy outcomes, society should demand penalties against parents of un-vaccinated kids who then contract the disease.
Quarantine and isolate those who do not want or get the vaccinations that safe guard the rest of us.
Like sexual predator registry lists that protect neighborhoods, a registry list of anti-vaxxers.
Use anti-vaxxer celebrities as icons of idiocy in the media.
Tell parents their genes gave their kids autism, not the vaccine. That is likely the real reason stupidity carries more weight than evidence. Indeed, parents want to evade the possibility and responsibility for their bad genes being the cause of autism or whatever else and resort to blame others - like life saving vaccines.
8
@PAN
Most pro-vaxxers present no facts or statistics to back up their "opinions" and argue like little, entitled children that have no regard for the health and safety of others. Pro-vaxxers are the blind leading the blind off of a very steep cliff.
1
When we were kids in the 1950s and Polio was the scourge of the United States and elsewhere, the moment the vaccine became available it was distributed through the networks of public schools for children and other public and private institutions and organizations. It worked. When the oral Sabin vaccine was made available free to the public I remember the lines of people at the Scottish Rites Cathedral and other places. Everyone was very aware of the terrible consequences of not being vaccinated.
A great deal of the problem today is the self-induced and self-perpetuated ignorance of some extreme religious groups who on their own mis-guided beliefs refuse to accept and understand why they and their children must be vaccinated against contagious and preventable diseases.
The recent outbreak of measles among the some ultra-religious Jewish groups in Brooklyn is most dis-heartening and life threatening to children and adults.
Vaccination is about public safety not personal religious dogma. The anti-vaccination advocates are not only wrong but they threaten the safety of many others. They refuse to acknowledge the "herd" immunity statistics of science necessary to protect the greater majority and minority of those who truly can't be vaccinated.
We need enforceable laws and a campaign against ignorance. Emotional objection must be outlawed. Children, against their parent's object must be protected from willful ignorance. Tackle this head-on and do it now. Forcefully.
7
Anti-vaxxers are trying to protect their children from increased behavioral issues commonly diagnosed in children today (ADD, ADHD, autism to name a few). Their hearts are in the right place, but their energy and focus are not. The problem with our children today is not the vaccines. The problem is the quality of the food we eat, the amount of sugar we consume, and the chemicals (in the form of pesticides) along for the ride.
9
@L - Actually, they'd do much better to let their kids go play outdoors, without much adult supervision.
9
One of the advantages of being older is that we were largely educated in the school of life rather than the school of internet fantasy. Living in fear of contracting polio and ending up in an iron lung helped us view the Salk polio vaccine as a miracle. Our parents were old enough to have lived through epidemics and illnesses that are now easily prevented through vaccination programs. Most of us felt that we lived in a time of profound advances in medicine and our parents wouldn’t let us forget it. When we were in school, refusing to be vaccinated meant you couldn’t go to school. In fact, making sure your kids were vaccinated was considered good citizenship and not negotiable.
21
@Timothy
You seemed to have survived just fine without this ever-expanding list of required vaccines now given. How could that be if all if these vaccines are critical for survival? Answer: they're not.
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/downloads/child/0-18yrs-child-combined-schedule.pdf
I was a child before there was a vaccine for chicken pox or measles. I had them both. The measles were so bad that they were going to sent me to the hospital (the doctor came twice a day to my house instead) and I still am living with the effects of having chicken pox. A vaccine would have prevented all of that. To all of you fools who don't vaccinate your children: your children will suffer, they may die. Your children will put others at risk. They may die. You are fools.
28
I find it impossible to believe that the opinions - the submitted comments - of those who avoid vaccination have not been censored here. There is no discussion, just cherry picked pro Vax comments. We get it - your medical industry backers want you to blow your horn again.
3
@Marina
So in other words you find it hard to believe that there are more educated people commenting here than uneducated?
8
Aluminum is the basic ingredient/adjuvant in all vaccines.
Look it up and do your homework on aluminum before pushing our agendas on vaccines... Aluminum in vaccines are routinely given at doses far above what scientists around the world believe are safe levels. Oh, did I mention aluminum is a neurotoxin? Once you get buy the adjuvants, then we can start talking about vaccines other ingredients...here is NCIB opinion of aluminum. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21568886
The editorial board of the NYT needs to get educated.
8
@wedge1 - "Aluminum adjuvant containing vaccines have a demonstrated safety profile of over six decades of use and have only uncommonly been associated with severe local reactions. Of note, the most common source of exposure to aluminum is from eating food or drinking water. " https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/19/opinion/vaccines-public-health.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage#commentsContainer
14
@wedge1
How old are you? Have you been vaccinated in your life? Against what diseases? If the vaccines are so dangerous, how is it that you've survived long enough to write your comment?
4
@Michigander
Nano aluminum injected into the muscle cannot be easily excreted from the body as is typically done through the urine when exposed to aluminum in the environment in the normal course of things.
When this nano aluminum is injected into the muscle, it mostly stays within the body and eventually reaches the nervous system causing inflammation of the brain. This is the mechanism whereby children are setup for lifelong neurological difficulties.
1
The parents are uneducated but the kids are the losers. Don’t let your kids anywhere near unvaccinated children.
15
Hard to battle stupidity with intelligent dialogue. CDC would do better to find another porn Star like Jenny McCarthy to 'tweet' in monosyllabic language about how 'good them damn doctor shots are'. By advertising time on all the reality shows and have a Karadshian promote vaccines. Roseann Barr is looking for work! Steve King will be looking for a job soon. They could do one of their racist rants, then segue into how vaccines will help white babies live longer!
You have to talk to stupid people like stupid people talk!
4
How painful it must be as a major paper, to have to try and educate a society about how to, essentially, look after itself. I am pretty sure there are no Anti-Vaxxers in Russia, whose leader’s appreciate the millions of useful idiots in America, who have destabilized the already poor US (once the healthiest country in the world) health system.
Statistically, the majority of American are fat, and under-educated. The Republican Party has the enforcer for unfettered capitalism needs their voters this way, and have spent a century making it so. Add a dose of Russian trolls over the last decade and the Republicans and the Russians have killed more Americans than the German army.
Be a patriot, get your shots, stop killing your neighbor.
6
My bout with measles started suddenly with me waking up in the middle of the night puking, then opening the dormer window at the head of my bed and laying my upper body, arms spread out, uncovered in the snow on the roof. I felt like I was on fire. It was snowing heavily and I recall rivulets of water running from my body through the snow and into the gutter. In the morning I had to be carried to the clinic as I was too weak to walk. I was nine years old and never had to be persuaded of the necessity of immunizations for other diseases after that.
I am old enough to remember people, including children, with leg braces and crutches and in wheelchairs because of polio. Our neighbor next door had half of her face paralyzed and her voice badly slurred from polio. All parents waited with dread for their kids to get measles, mumps, and chicken pox. And if their kids didn't get it they would be vulnerable as adults when the diseases were usually worse.
Within my lifetime smallpox has been completely eradicated from the face of the earth and polio very nearly so, because of vaccines. Vaccines are one of science's greatest triumphs. When I get a shot I am humbled and grateful and honestly stirred by what science and human ingenuity has achieved. We've screwed a lot of things up but immunization is one of the things we have gotten right, really right.
615
Kudos to the NYT’s Editorial Board for highlighting this issue, and even more importantly, for laying out a thoughtful and comprehensive strategy for tackling the anti vaxxers. I grew up in India, and I have family members who have been literally crippled by polio. This is personal.
Countering disinformation is very very difficult. Disparaging anti vaxxers isn’t the way to go. But it’s important to recruit thoughtful and articulate people to counter the disinformation. Perhaps one starting point would be to boycott prominent anti vaxxers like Dr. Oz.
14
The most dangerous of all pandemics is mass insanity, and all the signs are that we are due for a major outbreak. Hopefully anti-vaxxers will be contained before they do too much damage, but there is a growing tendency to looniness in the public at large. Nazism, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, medieval religious manias are past examples. One way or another we seem to be headed for another outbreak.
7
I am over 65.. So i have not been involved directly with this issue for a long time. However, something seems to be wrong here. 25 inoculations by the time a child is 3??
Maybe that is really the issue.. we have gone off the charts with the American way of fixing our ills. Take a pill, get a shot ..
This not to say vaccinations are wrong.. but really does anyone in the pro camp think something is out of balance.
6
@richard Are you counting the vaccines requiring multiple doses separately? Polio, pertussis, diphtheria, measles, mumps, rubella (German measles), varicella (chickenpox) all require multiple doses. These should be counted only once.
I am 65, and a former RN. My brother had polio as a child, I’ve seen children with pertussis (whooping cough). My brothers and I have scars of smallpox vaccinations, now considered an eradicated disease.
Vaccinations work.
8
Richard, it’s a logical thought. The truth is. People used to fall very ill die from these diseases in very significant numbers. If we stop vaccination more people will be harmed by far vs any potential harms in giving the shots. It’s a very black and white issue to physicians.
5
@Martha
Why should they be counted once? It is wrong to dismiss the risks that come with each and every vaccine--that means each and every dose.
One need only walk through the older sections of your local cemetery to see the staggering death toll from influenza and the scores of children who died from it. The level of arrogance is appalling. Back in the 70's a good friend of mine contracted TB which the doctors believe he was exposed to in the public school he attended. When you have interaction between foreign born students (who were not inoculated in their country of brith) with children of the anti vaccine crowd, the outcome will not be a good one.
4
As one of VERY few "pro-vax" parents these days, and a former journalist who "tells stories," I receive a LOT of pushback, yet these stories are powerful.
To wit:
Years ago, I was discussing Gardisil with a friend. She said she was not going to get her 12 year old daughter vaccinated. I was going to get my preteen (and all my daughters) vaccinated. She said, "it might encourage her to have sex"--obviously falling for right wing religious nonsense. A 12 year old wouldn't even know WHY she was having another childhood shot, much less that it was related to sex.
The following week, she came back.
"My sister has been diagnosed with Cervical cancer. Stage 3. From HPV. I took my daughter for her first Gardisil vaccination. You're right. I should protect her."
All of my own children have had the shots. They all have long forgotten them. My 24 year old had an HPV scare last year.
I said, "Unlikely."
"Why?"
"You were vaccinated."
"When?"
"When you were too young to remember."
She tested clean.
---
I am very active in a community of domestic violence survivors online. Because abusive men often cheat, these women can get STIs, especially HPV which is rampant. So a Pro-Vax voice in the community is critical, because the anti-vax voices are strident. They don't hesitate to promote their misinformation. A good story and solid information can influence a hundred women to get a life-saving vaccination.
26
As the species evolves, the Anti-Vaxxers may represent a tremendous dead weight we are relieved of.
4
@Ronald Frump
It won’t be them. It will be their children.
4
It is very hard for the media that runs the nonstop anti-pharma campaign for years (arguably with the goal of reducing drug costs - but if one goes through the readers' comments, the companies are definitely evil, and their products are at best useless) to change its tone and convincingly tell the same audience that some products of the industry are good and necessary for you, and the companies that make them are not quite evil... You can't claim that anti-vaxxers are freaks (they are) but endorse the anti-GMO crowd (whose arguments are mostly similar to anti-vaxxers when we are not talking about Roundup resistant crops, but say about Golden Rice or fast-growing salmon which are all the same "Frankenfoods" for the believers). People just can't sleep with the idea that the corporation could be making money while doing something good at the same time...
1
I am the mother of a 23-year-old man who has autism. When he was young, the famous study from Dr. Andrew Wakefield in England was published in the prestigious medical journal "Lancet". The study was very small and uncontrolled. Wakefield and his colleagues tested the effects of the MMR vaccine (measles-mumps-rubella) in children.
Wakefield created a huge sensation with his study, but it was later retracted because his results were found to be fraudulent (https://www.healio.com/pediatrics/vaccine-preventable-diseases/news/print/infectious-diseases-in-children/%7B24b5933b-b212-4b86-b170-d8097c205a64%7D/wakefield-study-linking-mmr-vaccine-autism-uncovered-as-complete-fraud.)
I was writing about public health when my son was young. The Wakefield study caused a huge uproar in the autism community. I chose to take a wait-and-see approach because the study didn't prove a direct correlation between autism and the MMR vaccine, and I felt more research was needed. Now there are thousands of studies published showing the safety and efficacy of vaccines.
I believe, as both a parent and a supporter of the scientific community, that withholding vaccination in children is risky. They can become seriously ill -- or die -- of they are exposed to an infected person. When they become ill, they can spread their disease to others, causing outbreaks. For the safety of our nation's health, we must realize the seriousness of vaccination.
11
Unfortunately, i dopn't think the antri-vax crowd weighs the risk reward to getting vaccinated. Is it worth risking NOT getting vaccinated and suffering the consequences for public as well as personal health vs the hysterical maybe of another unrelated disease?
3
@Our road to hatred - The problem we have is that the industry itself doesn't weigh up the risk Vs reward of vaccination, as they refuse to study it saying it would be unethical to do so.
Hence we are left having to rely on pure assumption and belief that vaccines are for the greater good, as the necessary science is not allowed.
2
Lucy, the risk vs reward is established. The medical establishment needs to continually work to improve vaccines and the way they are administered, which they do, as well as other studies investigating their safety and correlation with other conditions, which they also do. But there is no need for some risk vs reward study - we have centuries of devastation wrought by infectious diseases versus the increasingly controlled environment we live in now, in which smallpox, which ravaged populations all over the world for centuries, has actually been wiped out. I can't see how there's any debate about the primacy of reward over risk in this matter.
2
Anti Vaccination people are a threat to public safety and should be treated accordingly. They should be fined and jailed.
12
@DENOTE MORDANT
Recipients of live vaccines are known to shed the virus for approx 2 weeks post-vaccination. That makes them a threat to public safety, unless we quarantine them for a couple of weeks. It warns on the inserts of these vaccines to keep clear of the immunocompromised. Surely if there were fines and jail time, it would be for those who are shedding live viruses, not for the unvaccinated who most the time have no viruses.
1
In Australia, no vaccination = no family benefits from the government.
17
@Steve
Australia was setup as a Penal Colony, and now they have Murdoch running their media with all of his pharmaceutical conflicts of interest.
Better to live in a free country.
1
@Lucysilverstein So you would dismiss any research or medical methodology that was developed in Atlanta because Georgia was originally a penal colony?
2
Here's a simpler idea: Provide parents with a choice. Either
A: They can have their children vaccinated
B: Their children will be repeatedly exposed to live strains of these viruses until they contract the diseases in question.
2
@Richard E. Willey
I have heard that with chicken pox, parents used to do that deliberately.
For mumps and measles, for most everyone up to the years when vaccinations became available, we couldn't have avoided exposure.
Bravo Editorial Board! every public statement of the truth, how vaccines save millions of lives and do no harm beyond a needleprick's pain and maybe a fever, is so important.
Do you want to contribute? What if you report on one vaccine-preventable disease, and the path to the vaccine against it, every week?
3
As a child I had whooping cough, measles, mumps and chicken pox. This was before vaccines against them. Of the four whooping cough remains high on my childhoods nightmares. Any adult who does not vaccinate their children to this disease is potentially guilty of child abuse. It is simply awful and terriably frightening to anyone having it.
13
@Jim Foster
I had them all myself, they were no biggie for me fortunately.
I do know vaccine injured people who have had their lives destroyed by vaccines, I would certainly prefer to have short-term mild viruses such as measles, mumps, chicken pox etc than to have a vaccine-induced muscle wasting disease for the rest of my life.
1
You were fortunate that your bouts of these diseases were light. You haven’t met people the thousands who died of these diseases because THEY’RE DEAD.
3
You'd think we've returned to the Dark Ages. It truly is about time we stood up to these anti-science, pseudo-science pseudo-intellectuals. Whether they are Trumpists or just puddin' heads, as Mark Twain might say, we need better education to combat this wave of dangerous thinking.
5
There is an epidemic right now, Autism, about 1 in 60 kids. This started AFTER the vaccine industry got immunity from liability and the vaccine schedule tripled. So many cases of regression. Something going on or vaccine court would not have paid out $4 BILLION for vaccine injuries. Book: How to End Autism. Open your minds, learn something new.
4
If u look at the evidence between autism and MMR, any link between the vaccine and Autism was disproven. Actually the physician who published his landmark study in the Lancet, linking the shot to Autism was purposely making up data!!!!!
The journal retracted the paper!
Please, vaccinate or I Promise you kids will start dying in very significant numbers!!!!!!!
I
f that starts to happen the government will declare a crisis and parents will go to jail for child neglect.
11
And clearly the only variable that has changed in the past 200 years are vaccinations being introduced...
- broad use of chemical pesticides
- industrialization impacting our air and water supplies
- broad use of growth hormones, steroids and preservatives in our food chain
- daily exposure to hydrocarbons in everything from the air we breath, the clothes we wear and the containers we store our food in
- extensive use of fertility drugs and fertilization methodology out side of nature’s own process
- increased definition of and recognition of the broad autism spectrum
just to name a few high level changes in our world. Your “vaccines cause autism” stance is just a choice on your part, not a logical argument.
3
@Highland girl As autism diagnoses have increased, there's been a parallel decrease in mental retardation diagnoses. Further, adults--often older adults--have been receiving autism diagnoses, often in conjunction with their children's diagnoses. This has led most epidemiologists who've examined the matter to conclude that, if the actual incidence of autism is even increasing at all, it is doing so only slightly. Most of the increased diagnoses are the result of the substitution of autism diagnoses for other diagnoses and the increasing breadth of conditions that are recognized as part of the autism spectrum.
3
I am a family physician and I spend hours each week trying to convince reluctant patients to receive vaccines against influenza and pneumococcal pneumonia, both major killers of Americans. Many patients are reluctant, they have heard from friends that "the flu vaccine will give you the flu" or "you don't want to pump all those chemicals in your body". In spite of my stories of the suffering and the number of deaths caused by influenza (over 79,000 in 2018) or the dangers of pneumococcal sepsis, there remain a large number of patients who decline these vaccines. There is only one vaccine that everyone wants- the new Shingrix vaccine against Shingles. Why, because of the commercials starring football great Terry Bradshaw talking about how terrible and painful it was for a tough guy like him to endure an outbreak of shingles. After these ads aired the public rushed out for vaccinations, so many that the the supply of Shingrix has been completely exhausted and now there are long waiting lists for the vaccine! This ad campaign should be an example to the public health community of how we can promote life saving, suffering sparing vaccines in a country rife with misinformation about the most powerful, safe and ingenious intervention we have in our arsenal of medical interventions.
17
@MichaelDG
I never get the flu vaccine. Every ten years or so I get the flu and am sick for a week. No big deal. I'm not getting injected with chemicals I wouldn't eat.
I do want to get Shingrix. I need it because of chicken pox vaccination. It used to be that old people would be exposed to young people with chicken pox and their immunity would be boosted. Now children are immunized so there's no immunity boost for elderly people and consequently there's an epidemic of shingles. The first vaccine didn't prevent many people I know from getting shingles. They got shingles despite being vaccinated, although perhaps with fewer symptoms and complications. The new vaccine, Shingrix, is way more effective, long lasting, and prevents shingles. That is why there is enormous demand for it. Not because of some TV commercial I and others haven't seen. For me, enduring exposure to chemicals is worth it for the two Shingrex doses.
1
Prevention is better than cure. Anti-Vaxxers are causing most likely self inflicted damage to themselves, their loved ones and those they share their space with like chain smokers, excessive drinkers and those addicted to drugs. Ignorance and paranoia drive anti-vaxxers and the only way to resolve that is through a mass education program on the benefits of vaccines and how vaccines prevent deadly diseases. In addition to no child being admitted to a school public or private, without immunization home schooled children should also be required to be vaccinated before they receive college admission.
Foreign aid to any country that refuses to ensure that all children in their country are immunized with all the appropriate vaccines should be withheld.
2
Basic science education is desperately needed here. And we have to stop pretending that falsities are facts, even when it’s socially uncomfortable. I can’t count how many functioning adults have told me the flu vaccine causes flu. I respond with “the flu vaccine might save your life or the life of someone you love. It causes antibodies that fight flu, not the flu itself.”
My kids had all the vaccines available on the standard schedule. My pediatrician posts pictures of her own kids getting their shots. She doesn’t hesitate to tell people that vaccines are safe and necessary for their child’s health. She says so kindly but firmly and is quick to provide data. Not every parent appreciates her directness but who cares? The kids in her practice are healthy and happy. No preventable diseases for us, thanks!
294
There are many nefarious aspects of this problem that make it hard to fight.
- It’s another conspiracy cult, like one of Alex Jones’. Hard for rationality to get a chance to get in.
- It is furthered by the declining notion of common good. People think it’s okay to argue that their kids don’t need to be vaccinated, since most other kids are. Their specialness makes them immune to responsibility.
- It’s part of the general anti-science, anti-expertise movement, which is a real threat to the future success of this country.
- Finally, as in other areas, the silence of the Trump regime amounts to implicit acceptance—making this horrible idea respectable.
It’s very important to fight this battle. And also important to recognize that it’s part of a bigger war.
5
As someone married to an anti-vaxxer, I understand the mentality quite well. It's all about chemicals. Think about how many toxic chemicals we have been exposed to in our lifetime that we were told were safe. Chemicals in our food. Chemicals in our furniture and bedding. Plastic leaching into the water bottles we drink from. The myriad chemicals in our tap water we are told is safe. The pesticides and herbicides on our foods.
For parents who grew up learning to eat organic, drink from glass or metal bottles, etc, it fits the narrative that chemicals in vaccines are harmful. It's not true. But for a non-scientist, how is one supposed to distinguish the one time out of a hundred that the government experts are correct regarding the safety of synthetic chemicals going into our bodies?
I don't know the answer myself. But I do know that poking fun at how stupid anti-vaxxers are is not the solutions. Especially when those same anti-vaxxers were right about 90% of time regarding other chemicals the public was told were safe.
223
If u look at the evidence between autism and MMR, any link between the vaccine and Autism was disproven. Actually the physician who published his landmark study in the Lancet, linking the shot to Autism was purposely making up data!!!!!
The journal retracted the paper!
Please, vaccinate or I Promise you kids will start dying in very significant numbers!!!!!!!
f that starts to happen the government will declare a crisis and parents will go to jail for child neglect.
41
Perhaps the best way to proceed is logically. One can easily run through a dozen very serious illnesses that have largely been eradicated in the developed world over the past fifty years. Showing people the difference between what used to happen when children became ill with vaccine preventable diseases and what happens now is a big part of that. Parents in the developed world have the unwavering expectation that their children will live and remain healthy throughout childhood rather than the constant fear that their children will die horribly from polio, measles, tetanus or diphtheria. Yes, there are harmful chemicals out there and we should all do our best to avoid prolonged exposure to them, but vaccine preventable diseases are known killers on a much shorter time line and are still very much out there. We live in world where someone can get exposed to a dangerous airborne disease half way around the world, get on a plane, fly here and start showing symptoms a day or two later after interacting with dozens or even hundreds of people. It sounds like science fiction but it has happened before and will happen again. Isn’t the most reasonable thing to protect yourself and your children with demonstrably safe, effective and readily available vaccines?
56
@Matthew O Your "spouse" (or should I say, you yourself) are wrong about the safety of chemicals and the rate at which conclusions about safety are overturned. The examples of chemicals called safe being found highly toxic, like DDT, are exceedingly rare. For example, BPA, the plastic used in many products 15 years ago, has not even been conclusively deemed detrimental. Manufacturers stopped using BPA out of extreme caution. The worst-case risk levels associated with BPA are miniscule-absolutely trivial- compared with a community foregoing vaccinations.
101
One of my brothers had polio. Another had mumps meningitis. I was in the first cohort to get the Sabin vaccine, even after I got the Salk vaccine, which was so effective the trial was stopped early. Rubella. Where you had to stay home from school but felt great. But you could infect pregnant women.A cousin of my wife had a child with congenital rubella, and she has spent her adult life caring for him. The sickest I've ever been was when I had measles. I've seen what tetanus can do to someone when I was a Navy doctor overseas. I saw H. flu meningitis as a medical student. It is now about 3% as common as it once was. When some of the unvaccinated people travel to third world countries where polio is endemic, they may well get it there. Most of all, I remember what "UCD" means: usual childhood diseases--you know, like measles, mumps, polio, H. flu, varicella, rubella,....
11
Interesting that the developed nation with the strongest religious tradition is also the nation with the largest anti-vaccine contingent.
Could Americans' urge to believe nonsense that cannot be verified by hard evidence contribute to epidemics that leave death and serious disability in their wake?
5
Terrific story. This should be shared by news agencies all over North America.
I am old enough to remember the devastating impacts of childhood diseases like measles, and polio. One of my friends’ brother had contracted polio and from about 16 years old was confined in an “iron lung” 24/7 that kept him breathing. Very sad.
Public health authorities should take control of this issue and stop it in its tracks before children, the unborn babies, and adults die or become handicapped. Don’t allow uninformed parents make serious mistakes with their children’s health.
13
For emotional appeal, seek out stories of people who have been impacted and publicize them. Show the impacts of these illnesses on people who weren’t vaccinated. As an adult, I contracted whooping cough. I’d been vaccinated, but apparently my vaccine was not effective— there was a period of time when I was young where the vaccination wasn’t effective or wore off.
I was living in NJ, and it took months to diagnose, as doctors didn’t suspect whooping cough in an adult. When I was nearly hospitalized, a doctor figured it out and even researched that I likely caught it in Washington state. I had visited there during a pertussis outbreak in a community that didn’t ‘believe’ in vaccinations, and somehow it got passed to me. I coughed violently for months, to the point of losing my breath and being unable to eat. My cough was so bad that in the most crowded area, such as an airport during a storm, no one would sit anywhere near me. It finally cleared up with strong medications, treating the complications, and a week of complete rest somewhere warm.
I was lucky, a smart doctor figured it out before permanent harm was done, but I’m still angry that other people’s ignorance made me so ill. I’m sure there are much more impactful stories, and these need to be told. Your right to not be vaccinated ends right at the point where it puts others at risk.
8
I could not agree more with the premise of this letter. Like the writer, I also got whooping cough - from my daughter who got it at camp from a youngster whose parents felt that vaccinations were wrong for their kids. Although my daughter had be vaccinated several years earlier, the efficacy had worn off. And my vaccination had long-since terminated in its effectiveness. The end result of all of this? My then infant daughter also came down with it and nearly died from coughing so hard. Had my wife not been able to interrupt the coughing with a swift, though mild, hit to the back, we could have lost her. And me? I coughed so hard that I got a hernia that required surgery to repair. But at least those parents who did not believe in vaccinations were able to sit back and feel smug that they knew what was best for their daughter and everyone she came into contact with. 25 years later it still makes me furious...
9
@MyjobisinIndianow So, you were vaccinated, but your health problems were due to "someone" who was not vaccinated. I see....
4
@MyjobisinIndianow
Got whooping cough about 18 years ago, in my 50's. I was baffled until I read about symptoms in adults and connected to a breakout of whooping cough which I had been exposed to over and over again at work ( young foster children coming into care unvaccinated). While I was immune to other childhood diseases because, usually, of having had them, this one knocked me for a loop.
1
Millions of doses of vaccines are administered each year and the vast majority of those administrations cause little to no side effects. Which means that when a bad reaction happens the problem is NOT with the vaccine, but rather with the genetic makeup of, and the physiological reaction of the person receiving the vaccine!
Now please, this in NO WAY is to be construed as character assassination but rather a genetic and physiological phenomenon that the individual has no control over and is therefore blameless! But the fact remains, the problem centers in the individual and not the vaccine.
I do not know if such a test exists yet but a Nobel Prize candidate would be a simple blood test that could determine AHEAD of time whether an individual is going to have “reactions” (mild, moderate or severe) to individual vaccines or vaccines in general. That would go a very long way in alleviating any misgivings about vaccinations!
3
@SAH If a person gets a vaccine, then 1 month later has symptoms of Diabetes Type 1, or Asthma, it is incredibly unlikely that anyone will report the possible adverse vaccine reaction.
4
@Lucy Silverstein
If course the question becomes whether that person would have exhibited symptoms of diabetes at that time even if not vaccinated
2
@SAH
The key would be to see which vaccine they received and if it was one linked to Diabetes Type 1, such as Hib
2
For anyone who's interested in learning more on what's really going behind all the mainstream propaganda, a good place to start would be with Professor of Global Health, University of Southern Denmark, Christine Stabell Benn.
After decades of research she has found that certain vaccines are reducing life expectancy, especially the non-live ones such as DTP. She is actually pro-vaccine, but she says that the current vaccine schedules are actually detrimental to health, the timing is wrong and the combinations wrong too. She advises that certain vaccines need to be removed altogether. She has shown all the evidence to WHO and GAVI, but she believes they don't want to admit they've been doing it wrong for so long, so they are continuing with their mistakes.
She has called for solid studies to be setup using different types of vaccine schedule, varying the combinations and timings, to optimize the schedule into one which actually brings a net benefit to health unlike the current schedules being used.
I might not be able to post links so I won't try, but you can look her up her recent article for The Independent which was also posted on TheConversation, she has also recently uploaded a TEDx talk where she explains the situation in detail. She warns that many experts are too scared to speak out on this issue.
13
@Lucy Silverstein In the spirit of the recommendations of the NYT’s editorial board, I will engage with this disinformation that you are posting. There have been literally hundreds of studies and meta studies showing that the current vaccine schedules work. The incidence of reactions to the current schedule is vanishingly low. Rather than look for the few, mainly badly conducted and non-peer verified studies that purport to show problems with vaccination, rely on the many many many more that show they work.
I grew up in India, and I have relatives who have been literally crippled by polio. Polio is making a comeback because vaccination levels are declining. It is critical to counter stories - and that’s what they are, stories, not facts or data - with real information. I’m pretty certain I can’t change your mind but I can do my bit to prevent you from spreading disinformation.
13
@Lucy Silverstein
Yes, yes of course. A giant conspiracy which includes just about everybody in medicine. But luckily it just so happens that you know the truth.
I'm really hoping that Oxford isn't Oxford, CT. Keep your infectious child far away from mine
8
@Shiv
This is not disinformation Shiv, I have provided a source if you're interested in learning more. i.e. "Professor of Global Health, University of Southern Denmark, Christine Stabell Benn"
I also happen to have been involved with this for around 15 years myself, so I am well aware the necessary studies to backup the current vaccine schedule do not exist, just as Professor Benn stated.
The difficulty which India has had with the Polio vaccine is that it's been causing a disease (Non-Polio Acute Flaccid Paralysis) with similar symptoms to Polio which is twice as deadly, there is not point in getting rid of Polio if the vaccine replaces it with something worse.
Polio is a disease of poor sanitation, so until there is a safe vaccine, it would be better to focus funding on improving sanitation.
3
It's a another sign that people don't trust anything the government says. The government says what corporations tell them to say. Corporations say whatever makes them the most money.
4
I do so wish the chicken pox vaccine had been available when I was young! A bout with shingles 10 years ago has left me pretty much blind in one eye. I still have to see an ophthalmologist every few weeks and continue on expensive medications. And to think that at one time, I thought of chicken pox as no big deal.
19
If vaccines truly cause the harm that anti-vaxxers believe they do, then there ought to be millions upon millions of victims -- people with autism, for example -- walking around in plain sight on the streets of our cities and towns. But they are not there, are they? Which would lead any rational person to conclude that vaccines do not, in fact, cause the damage ascribed to them -- unless you believe that, along with their shots, every vaccinated person was issued a cloak of invisibility.
And where is our government in all this, the very same one that denies the reality of human-caused climate change? Wrapped in its own cloak of motivated, anti-science ignorance. God help us all.
13
@Fred Suffet We do see a lot of asthma, eczema, and increasing numbers of epilepsy, diabtes type 1 and MS. Cancer rates are on the up too.
2
...all of which are more strongly related to a host of other factors. You’re barking up the wrong tree.
6
@Fred Suffet
They ARE there. Except, of course, the ones who died, are institutionalized or kept home by their frazzled parents.
I work with pharmaceutical companies and I know for a fact how corrupted the system is and how they are trying to get more drugs into the guidelines. Some of it is good, but not all and there is a lot of incentive to show positive studies but none to show studies which might raise questions. The science and safety, short term and long term is questionable, when you are messing around with 1) the immune system and 2) the brain of a child, both of which are still developing in the first 5 years of life.
The bottomline is this though: every parent should have absolute discretion about what gets injected into their kids. A kid is not ‘the property of the state’ and hence to mandate a vaccination schedule for public schools is in a way taking away those rights. In Europe you have those civil rights, here you don’t. Is that freedom? In the past our children built up natural immunity, should we really go into the future making ourselves reliant on 30 odd shots so we can live? Let’s look at unbiased safety records of these shots and ask ourselves whether each of these are absolutely necessary and if so what is the appropriate age at which they can be given?
11
@NH "In the past, our children built up natural immunity". In the past, children died, or went blind, due to measles and other "childhood" diseases. In 1958, before the measles vaccine was introduced, there were 558 children who died. In 2004, there were 40. Our 'natural immunity' is no protection against a virulent disease.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/209448
6
Your child, your call. But don’t put your willfully unvaccinated “carrier” child in public schools or other public places where they endanger other children and families. Measles, for example, is highly contagious, and vaccinated children can easily transport it home from school to infants too young for vaccinations. Your child could also expose children who can’t, for various reasons, take the vaccine.
If you’re going to choose not to vaccinate, you need to own the consequences and danger you force on other children.
9
@NH You may have the right to refuse to vaccinate your child against deadly diseases that wiped out entire families just three generations ago. But you do NOT have the right to expose my child to your flawed judgement.
Vaccinate your kids or keep them home! I will not allow your fantasies to put my child's life at risk.
9
Why is the Shingrax vaccine not readily available? Why don’t PCP carry vaccines? There are so many long waitlists and conflicting informative about who is eligible and cost vs what insurance will cover. I also wish the flu vaccines offered by local public health clinics were offered earlier in the fall. I worry about effects of anti-vaxxers. Sensible people seem to be in. Thanks for this article.
6
@NH: This is the rest of my reply. The parents who decline to vaccinate place not only their own children at risk, but the children of others, too. Not acceptable. In addition, in places where the vaccination rate is high enough to confer herd immunity, they are actually relying on those parents who responsibly vaccinate to protect their unvaccinated children. Reprehensible and not fair.
I am a primary care M.D., so I know what I am talking about.
4
Just as it is with the loss of the Greatest Generation and the history they take with them when they die, it becomes incumbent on the rest of the generations to keep that history alive. So it is with the early days of the scourge of polio, small pox, et.al. I was six years old when my mother took me for my first polio shot and I clearly remember standing in line outside of a school waiting my turn. I had a good friend who had polio and my husband recalls the terror his mother and that of his friends' mothers that during the summer months all the children had to come home from their play and rest for two hours in a darkened room lest they contract polio. My father, a physican, was terrified of polio and gave my brother and I annual polio vaccination injections. When the Sabin vaccination was developed, some controversy accompanied and, as I remember, was not fully distributed. My father was resolute that my brother and I receive it non the less. Now the baby boomers are plagued with the strong possibility of acquiring shingles because there was no chicken pox vaccine when we were children and most children had the illness. The baby boomer generation must keep this medical history alive. But we are starting to die as well; who will carry this history forward?
11
@Janet My great-grandmother's sister buried four of her children in one week when diphtheria ripped through their community back in the 1800s. She was never truly sane again, and when (at age five) I started to cry upon seeing that dreaded needle, Mom told me her story.
We are putting the lives of our children at terrible risk by allowing fantasies and make-believe conspiracies to override common sense. NOTHING is truly safe; all we can do is play the odds and hope for the best, something humans have succeeded at doing for millions of years.
Unvaccinated children stand a far greater risk of death and disability than a vaccinated child's risk of developing autism.
7
Anti-vaxxers! Yellow vests! MAGA hats!
The peasants sure are revolting. Maybe the ruling class should sit down and try to figure out why nobody likes them. Could it be that it is because they have all the money and power?
I don't remember any revolts like this in the 50s. Back then, doctors and drug companies were considered a nice bunch, out to benefit mankind. Now the general feeling is that they holding the public for ransom to make huge sums of money - if you don't pay us, we'll let you die!
This sort of unfortunate impression is bound to cause trouble.
4
I wonder what the Venn diagram looks like between anti-vaxxers and those who equate Roundup (glyphosate) with Agent Orange. I’m thinking there would be significant overlap.
6
@Holden Caulfield
Wait, Holden. Europe banned Roundup. They didn't ban vaccines.
4
True, but in most European countries vaccinations are not mandated (as in the US). Check out how that’s worked out for measles rates there.
Anti-vaxxer arguments reach receptive ears in the U.S. -- and pro-vaccination science is ignored -- in part because American doctors have pedaled patients all kinds of stuff that has proven to be patently wrong for us.
Opioids; expensive and invasive tests for prostate/colon cancer that produce no better results than simple sDNA tests; the dangerous fiction that 'a calorie is a calorie'; I could go on.
The villain in not American doctors, it's the U.S.' for-profit healthcare-insurance complex. Doctors are in thrall to big pharma; hospitals are in thrall to insurance providers who have no incentive rationalize procedures -- insurers make more, not less, when costs rise.
Anti-vaxxers look at the American way of healthcare, and see that we pay 10x more than most western countries, for results that put us somewhere below 40th in health outcomes. Why should they believe anything doctors tell them?
If you're frustrated by anti-vaxxers' immunity to medical science, blame the Sacklers.
14
As much as I want to blame the for profit medical industry, the same anti-vaxxer movement is happening in other countries like Germany. It’s really more a movement grown by modern social media, misinformation, and people having forgotten what these disease really can do
13
@Martin I see that too, but I think that it's a U.S. export. Especially in the age of the Internet, other countries have a larger subset of the population that's more influenced by U.S. media, especially social media.
Even if foreign anti-vaxx movements are home-grown, however, the U.S. anti-vaxxer movement is perversely amplified by for-profit forces. The law of unintended consequences it isn't though, at least not-exactly; the for-profit system here will actually benefit from a measles epidemic!
3
Time and time again the antivaxxers insist that vaccines cause autism although the only doctor who made this claim has long since been discredited. What’s ironic is that many antivaxxers are liberals who most certainly believe that global warming is a current existential threat. So in this case they believe science but with vaccines they totally refute it.
Besides the danger the lack of vaccines pose to their own children and to those children unable to get vaccinated, their clinging to this discredited theory of the autism link keeps people from finding what may be the true cause of autism and how it can be prevented. Already there is evidence that children of older father are slightly more at risk. What are other more widespread causes? Could it be more plastic in the environment or the use of antibiotics In livestock? How many scientists will want to study this if people won’t believe their results.
Also there is a vast increase in autism in recent decades because more children are diagnosed on the spectrum, with diseases like asperger syndrome, which wasn’t happening before. But none of these things matter to the antivaxxers. As Stephen Colbert said on his old Colbert Report, when describing his new word “truthiness” their gut tells them they’re right. They don’t need facts to contradict them.
16
Maybe the public would feel more trust in the assurances re. vaccine safety if such an aggressive vaccination schedule wasn't imposed and if it was permissible to question it. Perhaps then you wouldn't have parents going to the other extreme of refusing all vaccinations. Parents should be allowed to and indeed encouraged to make their own choices. Why should a newborn baby be inoculated against Hep B, a sexually-transmitted disease? The reasoning that it is at that age that we can "catch" him and thereby protect the herd tells parents that the well-being of their individual child is not the government's paramount interest... as indeed it is not.
14
@Roberta
I don't think they're inoculating newborns. Their immune system isn't strong enough. They would have the mother get the shots and pass the immunity along that way.
Yes, it's true, no one person is more important than another in the total picture. It is a collective effort and that's what makes it work. We can't go around asking every individual their opinion and offering options every time a new law is passed and this is the same thing. These diseases will become a non-issue when everyone is a non-carrier.
Just look at all the trouble just one single person caused when she was found to have ebola a few years ago. Something like a hundred people had to be contacted and evaluated for possible contamination and that was only over the course of a couple of days. It doesn't take many people at all to cause havoc in a city when we're talking about communicable diseases.
1
@Roberta It is permissible to question anything. That’s how science works. There have been hundreds of studies that show the current vaccination schedule is safe. That’s why it’s promoted. And having consistent schedules is beneficial for society. Monitoring is easier.
4
@Roberta:
"Approximately 1000 new cases of perinatal hepatitis B infection are identified annually in the United States.1,2 Chronic hepatitis B infection occurs in up to 90% of infants infected with hepatitis B at birth or in the first year of life. When untreated, approximately 25% ultimately will die of hepatocellular carcinoma or liver cirrhosis."
-- American Academy of Pediatrics
(http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/140/3/e20171870)
"In highly endemic areas, hepatitis B is most commonly spread from mother to child at birth (perinatal transmission), or through horizontal transmission (exposure to infected blood), especially from an infected child to an uninfected child during the first 5 years of life. The development of chronic infection is very common in infants infected from their mothers or before the age of 5 years"
-- World Health Organization
(https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/hepatitis-b)
8
In addition to restricting access to all shared public facilities: public and private schools, beaches, churches, athletic facilities, arenas, stadia, cinemas, dances, theaters, orchestral halls, buses, airplanes, trains, and subways, non-vaccinated children should not be permitted to travel abroad and return to the United States where they may carry contagious infectious viruses and expose others whose immune status has waned through age, disease and immunosuppression.
Home schooled children should not be exempt. They are at risk and are a risk to others.
Only children and adults with defects in immune response should be exempt.
22
@JMT: I agree with your premise - anti-vaxxers and their children are a danger to us all - but I doubt big government is the answer. I wish it were, but I don't think it is.
2
@JMT
Don't forget to restrict public access for those whose vaccines failed (but how to tell; ban everyone!) or who have been recently vaccinated with live virus vaccines which shed for weeks--that means Grandpa, too, with his shingles vaccine, Grandpa who never was given the ever-expanding number of current vaccines given to children--yet somehow survived.
1
we need regulations to exempt health insurance coverage for disease and side effects arising from non adherence to public health guidelines(in this case avoiding the recommended vaccinations).
people have the right to decide to avoid vaccination;the rest of us should not bear the cost by paying higher premiums ;like anything else one has to accept the consequences of his/her decision.
9
More information and pushback against faux science is good. But because people respond to emotions more than reason, something else is needed as well. An effective CDC policy would include a campaign that included testimonials of parents with babies and children who had had their children vaccinated, or even a video of 500 parents and and their babies and children with the parents holding up signs saying they had their children vaccinated.
To fight fear of vaccines requires an appeal to reason and emotions both.
9
It's time now for vaccines to be turned into a real science; the current bias, assumption and lack of independence leave them as simply a religious belief
The studies are not being designed to find harm; you won't find what you don't look for. All studies are not equal, mostly what we see with vaccines is researchers who've been paid by industry to play games with numbers and create a pseudo-scientific advert for a vaccine
The safety and efficacy of every vaccine needs to be studied, and we also need the same for the full vaccine schedule, as well as products like Ibuprofen and Tylenol being studied with vaccines as they are regularly recommended to be taken around the same time
The industry doesn't want to any of this, because they know they could well end up shooting themselves in the foot and having to pay out billions in compensation once the potential harm of their products is scientifically exposed
Instead, industry has chosen another option, the one of polarizing the debate to close down real discussion, attacking/smearing activists and whistleblowers, misrepresenting the actual debate, which in reality is that many decent and honest people within the scientific community are calling for vaccine science to be improved and for real regulation to be brought in to replace the current industry-captured regulators
Do not fall for the propaganda, the propagandists know that a little bit of knowledge is very dangerous, they know most people aren't interested in vaccines
18
@Lucy Silverstein. You call them activists and whistleblowers. To most of us who have studied science and even basic statistics - they are simply quacks. If that feels insulting, I make no apology. It is fine for people to admit they are hesitant because they do not understand, but that is not what we are talking about- we are faced with an ignorant but passionate and certain mob who contend that their ignorance is as as valid and respect worthy as settled epidemiological science. They are not.
5
@Miner with a Soul
I'm not hesitant and I do understand very well. There is nothing ignorant about seeing your previously healthy child become ill after being vaccinated. It's common sense to avoid repeating the damage.
2
Thanks for writing about such an important topic. I have published articles on the public health threat due to the loss of herd immunity from low vaccination rates. In fact, there are ways you can learn about community vaccination rates, through state public health sites and the CDC. The British man whose study showed a link to autism and vaccines was found to be untrue, on other words unreliable. A scientific review called meta analysis of 1.2 million children in other vaccination studies showed no link to autism from vaccines. Could we have a better flue vaccine, yes, but the government would have to agree to pay for this, as there isn't enough money in selling vaccines for the drug companies to do it. It is a wonderful idea to give public health the resources to get quality information into the hands of parents and patients, if only the federal government would budget some funding to make it happen.
11
I am puzzled by "ground zero" of the vaccination process. I would think that most of the anti-vaxxer parents still use the services of a pediatrician. Why would a pediatrician allow a parent to forego vaccinations for their child? If enough pediatricians mandated that the child receive vaccinations or the parent needs to find another pediatrician, this might have some positive affect on the problem.
16
If vaccines have been shown to save between two and three million lives each year and no scientific evidence has been shown that they cause any sort of permanent harm, why are not parents obligated to vaccinate their children?
Parents who choose not to vaccinate their children are not only compromising their health but also the health of strangers who cannot for one reason or another be vaccinated and must rely on heard immunization for their protection against disease.
If you cannot travel to certain countries without certain certificates of vaccination, is it unreasonable to require the same before we allow children to attend school here in every state of the union under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution?
26
@Ronald Aaronson
Vaccines have been shown to cause permanent harm. There is a vaccine injury court for these injuries and the CDC has a vaccine adverse event reporting system (VAERS) to identify vaccine issues/injuries. Often times, parents lose cases in court because the medical community has created the lie that if a child or adult had a genetic predisposition of susceptibility to a disease, then the vaccine only triggered that genetic predisposition to the disease that the person now afflicted with permanent damage or death would have likely encountered later in life anyway.
2
@Ronald Aaronson
It hasn't been shown that vaccines save between two and three million lives each year. That is called "marketing." Pure propaganda.
1
Two things help the anti vaxx crowd spread their false information. The scientific illiteracy of the public and second "hardly any practicing doctors, let alone new parents, remember how terrible those diseases once were. " Alas, I am old enough to remember kids with polio, iron lungs, the warnings for pregnant mothers about measles and birth defects at the clinics and I still tested positive for TB into my 50's even though I never had it or was a carrier. My question to the anti vaxxers is simple. If a virus arose that resulted in 100% sterility but there was a vaccine that was 100% effective, would you still not vaccinate your kids? In other words, you don't vaccinate your kids, that is the end of your family line.
23
Tom, exactly what I've been thinking. Those too young to remember the ravages of polio or even small pox simply ignore that which they don't "believe" in. This has also been called "first world problems".
2
Excellent piece. Let’s have more on the various Luddite, denialist, non-sensical movements; no climate change, pro flat-earth, and anti-GMO.
32
I'm 67. My generation received the smallpox vaccination, but we were born too early for the MMR vaccine; just about all of us suffered the consequences; and it wouldn't have occurred to us not to have our children vaccinated. Now some of our children who didn't suffer those diseases think they know better? Don't get me started.
74
There's a terrific and compelling lecture by Gareth Williams at Greshan College on the history of vaccination and the anti-vax movement which he traces back to 1800. You can find it on U-Tube. If you go to minute 36 you get into the most serious part on the anti-vax movement. But the whole lecture was VERY interesting to me starting with Jenner's first vaccination against smallpox with cowpox pustular fluid in the late 1700s.
8
Years ago, our doctor suggested I get involved with an autism support group. The support group was anything but helpful. Most of the parents involved were fixated on what caused autism not on how do we deal with help for those with autism. It is astonishing we don't even have a clear definition of what autism is; yet, we want to know how it is caused.
Went back to our Dr. and told him about the group, he was angry and told me we should create our own group, which he did. The group put on an autism conference and it was successful and continues to this day. Having the medical community involved with autism groups is what is needed. They keep the groups from going astray and provide real help and support for the individual and their families.
When a child loses all speech and withdraws socially, parents are in crisis mode.It is best for doctors to let parents know this is classic autism and help comes from speech & ABA therapy. Unfortunately, there are lots of charlatans, who take advantage of families and blame vaccines and offer all kinds of unproven cures.
Our son attends a center for those with intellectual disabilities. Their policy is if a staff member didn't get the flu vaccine, they must wear a mask. The public has a right to know and be protected from anti-vaxxers. We need to take strong and forceful action to stop this epidemic of ignorance. This is one step in the right direction.
51
I couldn't agree more with you. I started a similar group with some of my sons' therapists. While I get why spending time thinking about the 'why' is part of the natural process many parents go through when struggling with a diagnosis, it is not helpful for either the parent or child if the parent can't move on from 'why.' The balance we try to strike is supporting parents as they work through this while showing them it's still possible to have a happy family when a person in the family has autism.
I wish your group success!
19
@Sandy L, your comments are spot on. Well done for taking the initiative to set up the support group for families with autism.
19
When our now-adult daughter was hospitalized for one night as a toddler, the baby sharing her room was on week-7 of hospitalization for pertussis due to non-vaccination. Even after all those weeks of treatment, the baby was in distress and coughed all night. Our child and her twin were up to date on their vaccines, but still, I vowed to never miss a scheduled vaccine.
60
Younger babies can’t be vaccinated for pertussis, and it is a three-dose series. It is possible that the baby sharing your room was too young to be fully vaccinated. Whooping cough is ironically the most dangerous for the youngest babies - the ones who depend on herd immunity to stay safe.
One thing the decent majority can do to put our money where our mouths are is to get the tdap booster. Pertussis immunity can wane over time, and the disease is both highly contagious and very dangerous to the youngest and oldest. Ask your doctor or pharmacist when you get your flu shot, and they can tell you if you need one.
5
Having attended the funeral recently of my daughter’s friend who died from meningitis on her 17th birthday, I strongly recommend that children are vaccinated.
56
Too bad we cannot identify those who are not vaccinated in any clear way when we meet. I wouldn’t let them in a classroom, or restaurant, or house of worship or sporting/theatre event.
This is the only moral place where a discrimination suit would hold (except for the most fragile among us)
24
Thank you for this piece, I am sharing on FB and Twitter.
5
Let’s remember opioids were prescribed like candy. How is that working out? If you want to shove vaccinations down everyone’s throat let’s make drug makers and govt agencies subject to punitive damages when things go wrong. Fair trade off.
17
What "if"? Vaccines aren't new, and drug makers are already liable.
As a matter of fact, vaccines aren't very profitable because they're given just once. The government has from time to time had to step in just to encourage vaccine manufacture.
26
@James K. Lowden drug makers are not liable. There was a law passed in the 80’s giving them immunity from being sued, therefore they have no incentive to make safer vaccines. Someone with a vaccine injury has to go to a special vaccine court against the federal government itself, in order to get compensation.
5
I see incorrect. Vaccine makers are indemnified. They can never be sued. If a person suffers a severe debilitating reaction they attempt to seek compensation via the onerous and nearly impossible process that is vaccine court. No jury allowed. Vaccine company and govt not required to even follow basic rules of discovery. Oh it the process will take 10 years. Sounds fair, rignt
1
Truth-telling sometimes comes at a personal cost. It's great we have public health professionals with the courage to speak up against the myths anti-vaxxers use to rationalize their beliefs.
I wonder, though, whether the language of the truth needs revision. Example: "herd immunity". It is established fact that there's a tipping point somewhere around a tenth of the population. If more than that tenth of people aren't immune. the chance of an epidemic is much higher.
Maintaining herd immunity means this: getting vaccinated is an altruistic act. We do it not only for our own good, but for the herd's good.
But, maybe we should call it "community immunity". That bit of proposed jargon subtly, but still truthfully, inserts the altruism of vaccination into the language supporting it.
"Get your kids measles shots to keep them, you and your whole community healthy!"
41
@Oliver Jones The theory of herd immunity was never meant to be applied to a vaccinated population, but rather was co-opted later in the 20th century to help justify mass, mandatory vaccination campaigns to eliminate infectious diseases for the so-called “greater good.” Its validity was grounded on the underlying assumption that the herd was protected because a significant portion of that herd had become stronger as a result of the natural process of contracting and surviving an infection.
The more members of the herd (community), who were exposed to an infectious disease and developed natural immunity to it the less of a threat that disease posed to the entire herd (community).
This same concept does not work in a highly vaccinated population for one simple reason: Vaccination stimulates an artificial, temporary immunity that does not last as long as naturally acquired immunity. Sometimes vaccination does not prevent infection at all but allows infection with few or no symptoms in the vaccinated person, who is still able to transmit the infection to others, which is the case with B. pertussis (whooping cough).2 At best, it may stave off infections in some vaccinated people for a limited period of time.
Consequently, a vaccinated herd is never really protected. There is an illusion of protection in such a scenario because those who have been vaccinated remain vulnerable to infection and, thus, so does the herd—vaccinated and unvaccinated alike.
14
@Mark And yet herd immunity has worked. High vaccination rates had virtually eradicated measles from the U.S. until antivax fears lowered vaccine rates and allowed this virus to return and herd immunity eliminated small pox from the face of the planet.
The whole point of vaccination is to avoid the morbidity and mortality of the disease in the first place. It's crazy that we should have to point out the insanity of stating that people should get infected to prevent future infections. It's like suggesting we total our car to prevent future accidents with that car.
9
@Mark You are incorrect. Otherwise on outbreak of measles would infect both vaccinated and unvaccinated alike. Polio would spread and dypyheria would devastate a community.
4
"Get tough" should be the first approach. We should not allow the belief of idiots to endanger other people, or their children.
Mandate the vaccination of children according to CDC recommendations before school attendance is permitted. Cut off federal education funds to any state that fails to apply.
Then, run some ads that both inform and more importantly lampoon and humiliate the anti-vaccine websites and those who fall for them. This last is, for most people, probably more important than an intellectual argument.
I mean, come on, 90% of the population still thinks the universe was created by an invisible ape. Society regularly programs citizens with the most absurd of lies; there is no reason it can't use the same techniques to program them with truth.
24
Agree. If you choose to opt out of community disease prevention, the community must opt you out of public school. Every action has a reaction.
I work at a medical school and I’ve not encountered even one MD or PhD who abstains from vaccinating his/her children. They love their children.
Science is science.
17
Yes. Lost in the hand-wringing are the victims: the children. We require bicycle helmets, for Pete's sake, even though they've never been shown to be effective. Yet we allow parents to subject their children to the threat of deadly disease based on their "best judgement"!
16
If what you say is true, then those unknowns need to be addressed. But you know what IS known? Measles, smallpox, and other inoculable diseases are very dangerous. This kind of thinking is akin to not wearing any sunblock because it MIGHT contain carcinogens, when we know for sure that the sun does cause cancer. It makes no sense to expose ourselves to a known danger to protect against a hypothetical one.
5
Anti-vaxers have caused me much pain and self-blame with their insistence on the false claim that vaccines cause autism. I know vaccines did not cause my two sons to be autistic, but I always feel like I could be making a terrible mistake when I let their doctor give them shots. The power of the anti-vaxer movement is such that even an informed parent can feel doubt about vaccines.
I think focusing in on their ability to create the narrative that a 'good' parent stands up to scientists and doctors needs to be part of challenging their misinformation. They thrive as underdogs, and this needs to be addressed when pushing back. I completely agree that vaccine success stories should be part of the solution.
31
Many years ago when I was in nursing school, there were cases of Whooping cough on the children’s ward. We could hear the children gasping for breath and coughing on the floor above. Not all of them lived.
Pediatricians go through many years of study and practice, and use evidence based medicine. They are not “on the take” but genuinely are trying to take the best scientific information to help children attain healthy adulthood.
People who quote the very small percentage of children who have a problem fail to acknowledge the many thousands of children who died or had serious side effects each year. The CDC estimates saving over 700,000 children’s lives in the past 20 years, plus untold adverse reactions from the prevented cases of diseases.
Everything is not a conspiracy. Stop non medical exemptions for school admittance.
69
I used to teach at a nursing school and we discussed vaccination. In every class there was a student who insisted that they knew a child that became autistic after receiving shots. I tried to point to the reports of thousands of children that showed no correlation overall. I tried to explain that in a world where children get their shots around the same age that children start shieing signs of autism, that for some, it's going to seem that the shots cause this. People are much more attuned to learning from individual stories and not looking at things at the population level. Can we teach examining things on a population level? It would be helpful for so many things (ie. immigrant crime rates, effects of smoking, lotteries, rare diseases)
31
This is called the availability bias and it is a well-known psychological phenomenon. It's simply how our brains are wired. Even if you are aware of it, you can still be subconsciously influenced.
6
My children, now age 28 and 32, both received all of their vaccinations, including flu shots, when insurance didn't pay for flu shots for children. I don't believe that they ever got the flu.
However, they got chicken pox before the shot came out, the oldest first, a typical case, and the youngest at 8 months old, a very severe case. He was really ill and hospitalized.
The oldest had a reaction to MMR shot, high fever and malaise, and pain and bruising at the shot site. This caused great concern and a recheck with the doctor. But, the younger child got the MMR on schedule, thankfully uneventful.
In reality, antivaxxers are counting on the majority of parents to vaccinate their (I guess less special children) so theirs will be safe, and these parents choose to ignore that some children are too young or medically fragile to receive vaccines and are therefor put at risk by unvaccinated children.
30
Can we add to this list that ministers and rabbis should be asking their flocks to vaccinate. After all attendance bringing the unvaccinated into a crowd of worshipers or church schools also endangers. Actions NOT taken cause harm. Consider it a charitable action and a kindness to others to vaccinate.
41
@poslug
If vaccine science is certain of the ability of vaccines to protect the vaccinated, then why would the vaccinated worry about being in contact with the vaccinated? I have continued to ask this question for 20 years, with no answer.
8
@poslug
Yes very good idea. Sadly many congregations in our area are told by their pastor to avoid some vaccines, thus putting their smallest congregants and those who are immunocompromised, at risk.
7
Because not everyone is healthy enough to receive vaccines. While vaccines help healthy people stay healthy, people with medical conditions that hurt their immune systems can be harmed by them. Those people depend on healthy people getting vaccinated to keep those diseases out of society.
When my son had heart surgery, I saw some kids in this situation, and it was heartbreaking.
20
Children not vaccinated because of their anti-vax parents shouldn't be allowed in school or any public place, as they are threats to herd immunity. Violations should be treated as a criminal act by the parents, and prosecuted.
76
I found out one of my aunts was anti-vax and it hurt my soul. She told me I shouldn't give my son the flu shot, in a year with high rates of the flu in young kids! That is one of the very few times I've gotten into a Facebook battle. I cannot let putting children in danger stand.
19
All public schools should require students be properly vaccinated excusing only those with legitimate medical exceptions. Most parents think the "childhood" diseases are merely rites of passage without knowing either that those illnesses can and do kill and that the vaccines do not cause autism or other hardships.
Parents should feel safe when they sent their children to school that they are not being unnecessarily exposed to potentially fatal illnesses.
I grew up in the 1950s when kids got polio and those who did survive after months in sanatoriums returned home with limps, deformities and emotional scars. Others lost younger siblings to measles, chicken pox etc.
We are spoiled because vaccines have been so successful that parents today are unaware of these facts.
73
Since our freedoms do not let us ban anti-Vaxxers we need to highly persuasive in convincing the Anti-Vaxxers that vaccines contribute to better public health and lower cost of heath care.
3
@Girish Kotwal
I am not sure that contributing to public health would be a plus with many of these parents. They should already know this. Perhaps they should have to attend some re-education classes such as watching video of an infant with pertussis trying to breath, right before intubation and mechanical ventilation. Perhaps some video statements of parents who lost children who were not vaccinated either due to age, medical reason or parental choice. These people need to be convinced that THEIR child will benefit due to vaccination, as that seems to be their only concern.
21
Bust out the photos. I knew in college a woman who survived prenatal rubella, at the cost of her hearing, sight, and normal stature. Tell about the babies who die from pertussis. Talk to seniors who had chickenpox before there was a vaccine and who are now suffering from shingles. Talk to someone from an area with endemic polio, or a family who lost kids to measles or the flu.
All that death and suffering doesn't have to be.
83
@Griffin
I have a wife who developed polio from the polio vaccine, and was in a ward in the hospital with a number of other girls with the same. She required surgery to her spine, and now has a bar running 3/4 the length of her spine, which was required to prevent her from becoming a crippled hunchback. I could "break out the photos" for you.
Oh, I expect they've perhaps 'fixed' _that_ vaccine mistake, but what problems are those new vaccines inviting, vaccines using us as human guinea pigs for the pharmaceutical companies? Get the profit out of pharma, and maybe we could get a trustworthy industry.
And how many of these biased "news" stories, promoting vaccines, and dissing those who question, are simply PR campaigns by the industry? New York Times: Why do we see no investigative stories researching the _problems_ that the vaccines have caused?
4
@hcw 3 We did change the polio vaccine in response to cases like that of your wife. We don't use live attenuated virus vaccines in places with good plumbing and sanitation. The live attenuated virus is still used in places like rural Pakistan because 1) they don't have good sanitation and sewerage and 2) the weakened virus that is the vaccine spreads immunity to children that aren't yet vaccinate. Because that's how science works.
4
I can just out a photo of my child convulsing in a seizure post vaccination. Or I can just out a photo of his subsequent hospitalization.
2
I once administered vaccines. I had people refuse vaccines, especially the Measles, mumps and rubella.
I would relate my own personal stories. I have a profoundly hearing impaired son because I had rubella when I was pregnant with him.
I would relate my own experience with the hard measles which I had as a child.
I would relate friend who had polio and how I was not allowed to be in crowded situations in the summer months so I would be less likely to get polio.
It fell on deaf ears. Often I was abused for trying to educate these parents. Teenagers would want the HPV vaccine, but their parents would say no. Same thing with the Meningitis vaccines.
We would go to schools in the area when there was an outbreak of measles or mumps and immunize adults who had never had the vaccine.
We are in for some rough times.
54
In the summer after first grade (1959) I go chicken pox, followed by mumps, followed by measles. I can still remember the pediatrician telling my mother that at least if I survived the measles I would be done with everything once and for all. And that she should keep me away from my two year old brother (and he from me) Needless to say, when the polio vaccine was released we were first in line.
Send any anti-vaxxers to me, I'd be happy to tell them, and their kids, to come talk to me. I'll tell them how much "fun" it was. And show them the pictures.....
67
Vaccines are my favorite health treatment. A miracle of science. But effectiveness in protecting a society relies on herd immunity. If enough people are immunized, then the infectious organism cannot spread easily and cause epidemics. If science developed a vaccine for wrinkles, weight gain, baldness, or old age, then the line up would excell any new cell phone sale - ever.
33
Anti-Vax arguments, climate change denials, fear of GMOs, belief in; manufactured political 'crises', rationales for foreign wars, flawed news reporting, our gods desires, etc.
These are indications that our modern civilization suffers from an inability to discern the realities of life. Some answers can be found with genuine science, philosophy, history and prayer.
18
Responding to an article about the failure to use scientific evidence to make medical decisions, you bemoan the failure of human society to discern the realities of life, but then recommend prayer. I am gobsmacked.
1
@Norwester
I recognize that potential contradiction. Substitute the words quiet, reflection, meditation, or wonder if you like.
The anti-vaccine groups are self-righteous tanks who need to be reminded that diseases kill. I agree we have forgotten. Crank up the films and stories of all those who remember the epidemics of flu, smallpox, diphtheria and polio. My mother sure does. Her experiences made an indelible impression on my good fortune to have been born in an era that kept me from these awful and deadly diseases. Many of her childhood friends simply died, and adolescent friends contracted polio. This occurred in the mid-west, the south, the east, both cities large and small. Her father had itinerant work during the depression. Children were dying of raging mumps in one town she and her parents traveled through. The hotel would not book her family and sent them on their way, because she was a child and this small town wanted no part of anyone, from out of town, who might be contagious (1935). As a four year old, she remembers their burning stares vividly. Their fears were real. Boys and girls were being buried daily. Let's not be foolish. Vaccines save lives, period.
138
@purpledot
Medical professional here. Flu vaccines are questionable because the virus mutates rapidly. I've seen the CDC state their effectiveness some year is under 25%. The others are necessary however.
This sustained type of factual program would be equally effective responding to many issues to include substance abuse, holistic medicine, health and healthcare itself, diet fads....even climate change etc.
Do it!
16
As with most everything desirable, an education is required. I applaud the suggestions in this article for ways and places to make that education available to the non lunatic fringe, that is the parents who are confused about the claims of the lunatic fringe. It would be heartbreaking to see a large outbreak (or even a small one) of encephalitis and brain damage caused by one of these so called childhood diseases, or an outbreak of poliomyelitis (the scourge of my childhood) with subsequent paralysis of limbs or the breathing apparatus. If all else fails, mandatory vaccinations as a public health measure will have to be tried.
26
Do vaccines work? Look up polio and the iron lung. How was smallpox eradicated? What is smallpox? A naturally occurring viral infection with a high case fatality rate that was eliminated by widespread vaccination. Some laboratory stocks exist in the world and it is currently classified as a Category A Bio Terrorism agent along with other infectious organisms hat cause diseases such as the bubonic plague. As someone else stated anti-vaxxers would have us return to the Middle Ages.
77
I was secretly cheered when a well meaning but misguided friend, who believed that eating healthfully was sufficient and "what didn't kill you made you stronger," got a flu shot after recovering from a very serious bout with the flu and later strep throat. Apparently her respiratory system was in a weakened state. Her husband and daughter got the flu shot and their symptoms were light. Hopefully she will put more faith in our scientists than her anti vaxxer friends.
53
There is a simple and logical way to think about this:
If your child is healthy, you vaccinate them on an agreed upon schedule.
If your child is not healthy enough to be vaccinated, you have an obligation to keep them as healthy as possible, including keeping them away from sick individuals.
If you have a healthy child and you don't vaccinate them, you are acting unethically toward those that cannot be vaccinated.
63
The almost perfect example of Darwin, in action. Unfortunately, we all might suffer the consequences. First step : NO children without up to date, valid vaccinations allowed in any Public schools. NO exceptions, without verified, licensed Physician exception/ exemption for valid health reasons. Also, Licensed Physicians should refuse to treat unvaccinated Children, except in ERs, for emergency situations. Want to live in the Middle Ages ??? Fine. Suffer the consequences. ALONE.
162
Darwin in action? Are you seriously suggesting that anti-vax beliefs are a heritable trait that natural selection can weed out of the population? It doesn't work that way. The children of anti-vax parents often grow up to be pro-vax adults.
Anti-vax beliefs are a social problem, not not a genetic problem. They need to be addressed accordingly.
3
I am not sure if parents are expected to pay for their child's vaccines, but perhaps there would be greater compliance if the states provided vaccines free of charge to all children.
4
@Liesel
Vaccines *are* free. Vaccines for Children program. It’s been around forever. Cost is not a cause of poor immunization rates.
36
@Liesel
Every state and town must offer vaccines, at no cost, to their residents. Flu shots are also conducted, for free. Check your local listings or call your Office of Public Health for times and locations. Hospitals and clinics offer free vaccine clinics that assist with inoculating as many of us as possible. This has been a national public health success story due to the efforts of countless medical personnel, and public health law.
15
What complicates this discussion is that real parents are experiencing unexplained illnesses that may or may not be associated with the many injections given. The fact there exists a federal program called "National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program" suggests that vaccines are NOT benign, despite the fact they may prove useful. There have been thousands of cases in which compensation has been made for injury and a report from this agency notes 1,290 people have died from being vaccinated. Tell parents whose children are to receive 25 shots in their first 15 months of life that they have nothing to worry about. This is what the CDC recommends and the shots don't stop there. Frankly, I believe vaccination has been oversold and under examined for efficacy. Yes, it is unfortunate that some opponents have become shrill and confrontational, but honestly, does anyone believe big pharma is to be trusted? We ended up in an opioid crisis precisely because big pharma led us there. We need less pointing fingers and more serious conversation about what needs to happen to protect our children, both from disease and from overzealous bureaucracies.
37
My children and grandchildren had the shots and no ill effects. The compensation program covers allergic reactions that are rare but severe. However the risks of not vaccinating for exceed the risks of doing it.
80
@Old Max I'm pleased for you that your children and grandchildren had no ill effects. But it seems this is more than simply allergic reactions given the fact the federal government has paid over four BILLION dollars to settle claims. Among the diseases attributed to one or another vaccine are Guillain-Barré Syndrome and encephalitis. And don't forget, 1,290 people died. This is serious business for all of us to consider. Scapegoating parents who are concerned their children might be harmed is definitely not sensible.
21
@CAG
What is your point? Every intervention has negative aspects. With vaccinations, the incidence is miniscule compared to the vast benefits.
87
I find it interesting that probably most of the antivaxxers have themselves been vaccinated against the usual diseases, given their likely ages as parents, and haven’t suffered any ill effects from said vaccinations. However, this doesn’t seem to enter into their thought processes. And, because they HAVE been vaccinated, they have never seen or personally experienced the diseases. As someone who has had just about all (not polio) the childhood diseases (a few of them as an adult), as the various vaccines came along my children were first on line for them.
I suggest that parents who refuse to vaccinate their children are practicing child abuse.
232
@Lee Hover, D. Med. Hum. If only the vaccine schedule was the same as it was prior to the industry being given impunity and the schedule of vaccines tripled, this entire issue would avoided.
21
@Lee Hover, D. Med. Hum.
This is typical self-righteous bombast. I am not an "anti-vaxxer" but I delayed my child's vaccines and had them administered separately. And the mid-60s I had all the childhood illnesses: measles, german measles, mumps, chicken pox, as did all my siblings and all the many many kids in the neighborhood and in school. I would have known about it if kids were dying or damaged. I have never had the flu shot but had the flu three times in my life: 1982, 1993, and 1994. And not since. Point being there is room for nuance here unless you want to soapbox about child abuse.
6
@Highland girl An I suppose you can back this up with scientific evidence?
13
This is easy to fix, you get inoculated or you don't get to go to school, no exceptions, religious or otherwise. When I was grade school, every student wold get their permission slips from their parents, we would all line up in the lunch room and over the wailing of the kids looking at 200 syringes filled and neatly lined up on the table.
Rubella, Whooping Cough, Small Pox (I still have the scar on my upper arm) as well as measles. It benefits society as a whole. And for those parents who opt out, they seem to forget that the measles can cause blindness in children, not to mention killing them. The pseudo science that these people follow like how vaccinations cause Autism or they have mercury in them is well, "fake".
at one time in this country we had eradicated many of the childhood diseases we are now seeing. The answer is, everyone regardless of religious beliefs, the needs of the many. outweigh the needs of the few.
103
@James
Small Pox was eradicated and the vaccine is no longer given (hasn’t been for many years).....
The problem is the numbers of vaccines that are given at once - if your child has a reaction you wouldn’t have any idea what it is to.
Pediatricians should be open to working with parents who are hesitant about vaccines to come up with a vaccine schedule that they are comfortable with, even if it means putting some vaccines off until later (hep B, varicella or others) depending on the child’s circumstances (if the child is in daycare they would need vaccines that a child who is home with parents might not need, for example). Being totally inflexible on either end does not help the situation.
This would make a much better relationship between doctor and family and would help empower the parents to feel they are acting in their children’s best interest without being bullied.
13
@Overseas American You seem to believe that there's a problem with giving multiple vaccines at once. Why? Do you have evidence, or is it just based on a hunch or "common sense"? What makes fewer vaccines better?
29
Add ‘no day care’.
4
The history of vaccines, beginning with Chinese and Turkish methods (not using vaccines) to create mild, usually survivable cases of smallpox, progressing to innoculation with cow pox and ultimately leading to the elimination of the small pox virus (except in lab freezers) is a fascinating story that should be taught in high school biology classes along with the almost complete conquest of polio with vaccines, along with the HPV cancer connection and the HPV vaccines. If people can appreciate how vaccines have increased average life spans and reduced certain kinds of cancer, especially cervical cancer, that may make them more receptive to vaccinating their children.
24
the problem here is that not all vaccines are created equal, and that the corporations that produce them can't be trusted.
much of this began with mercury, which has no business being injected into anyone under any circumstances.
there's no more critical "product" than what's being injected into our children. yet we cannot be expected to blindly put our faith in the profit-oriented corporations, Big Pharma and bought government to put the health of our families before what makes them rich.
Anti-Vaxxers must be credited at very least with making vaccines safer. when we have an industry and a government and a medical system that can be trusted to deliver a product based on human need rather than corporate greed then much of this controversy will go away...and we will all be the better for it.
27
@harvey wasserman How about sticking to science? The trace amounts of thiomersol (mercury) in vaccines have not been shown to cause any harm. The hysteria regarding the fear of thiomersol causing autism has been disproved as there was NO reduction of autism rates once thiomersol was removed from vaccines, just as scientists predicted.
346
Anti-vaxxers did NOT make vaccines safer; science did. Every state has a vaccine board and vaccine mfrs pay into a national injury compensation fund. They have a vested interest in keeping vaccines safe and their payments (and payouts) low. For what conceivable reason would any mfr think it is cost effective to make children ill? None.
All medicine is the result of increasing knowledge earned as the process moves forward. Anti-vaxxers do just the opposite.
153
@harvey wasserman
You have hit on a major source of antivaxxer mistrust- corporations.
The evidence however does not support any basis for this mistrust.
31
This could be easily fixed.
Make it a law that if an unvaccinated person gets a preventable disease, insurance won’t cover it and they are financially liable for anyone they come into contact with that develops the disease.
Let’s see how strong the ant-vaccers convictions are.
127
@Robert How about you just cure the child and just prosecute the parents for neglect or abuse.
Healthcare shouldn't cause bankruptcy, It let's you sleep better up here in Canada.
7
I wonder how many well-meaning parents who shun the idea of vaccines are perfectly content to allow their children to play amid pesticides and herbicides, and to eat fruit and vegetables liberally coated with them.
18
@Terry
Probably none
@Terry
zero, none, nada.
Bet their kids are lactose intolerant and are on "special" diets.
3
I was very anxious about vaccines. Big needles pumping powerful chemicals into my precious newborn was scary, and other mothers who seemed compassionate acknowledged my anxieties and shared things they had found about the dangers of vaccines. When I brought my concerns to our pediatrician, he didn’t acknowledge my anxiety and just railed against people like my compassionate mother friends who, he assumed, were anti-vaccers. I was an anxious new mother, and some compassion from our doctor and acknowledgement of my anxiety would have gone a long way. Instead, I ran out of his office and ended up delaying vaccinations. I was never against them, although according to many’s definitions, I was now an anti-vaccer myself. It took a calmer, more sensitive doctor to help me deal with my fears and vaccinate my children. All ended up fine except that one daughter caught the whooping cough before she had had her final (late) shot, and it was while her immunity was already compromised from a non-related illness, so it was scary. I think it’s really important for pediatricians to make an effort to understand the anxieties of new parents.
55
@Debbie
Yes, doctors should be more compassionate. But parents should be more thoughtful: how could millions of people undergo vaccination without serious detriment to their health? Why did vaccinations begin, what is the history?
49
It had honestly not occurred to me to resist vaccines until my baby was born. I had no clue I would have such a protective reaction. New parents are dealing with a lot of unexpected emotions and realities as well as healing from birth, lack of sleep, lack of time, etc. and they are vulnerable. My guess is that pediatricians who understand this and work to calm new parents’ fears about vaccinations will probably have a higher vaccination rate than those who just focus on how wrong anti-vaccers are.
22
@Debbie I also delayed vaccines for our child. I had pressure from family members who were concerned about side effects. Luckily my child’s doctor was patient but firm and helped me bring my spouse on board.
6
It's easy, pass the laws. No vaccination, no school. Public or private, doesn't matter. Keep them home and keep them away from others. I'm old enough to have grown up without vaccinations. I've seen polio up close in my extended family. As a 6 year old I almost died from strep throat because there were no antibiotics. Just keep those unvaccinated kids separate from the rest of us.
342
@AMM
I completely agree with you. I am also old enough to have grown up without vaccinations. I had all the childhood illnessess. And I remember each illness. They were that bad. Including whooping cough where I broke a rib because I coughed so hard. Fortunately I avoided polio, partly out of luck. But probably mostly because my mother worked with the local doctor to set up a polio vaccination event on our front lawn for several weekends just after the vaccine became available. We had long lines of parents and children who were eager to be protected from this awful disease.
And if you want to know about diseases and vaccines, the Center for Disease Control website has a wealth of information. There is no reason to be ignorant about vaccines - the real scientific information is available to you.
102
@MB They call whooping cough "The One Hundred Day Cough." I started coughing before school let out for summer and on into August. Dr Best said it was a mild case; I had been vaccinated. Indeed it is easy for me to understand your broken rib.
9
@AMM Unfortunately anti-vaxxing fits perfectly in home schooling. The threat of no school as you suggest just feeds home schooling.
7
I remember the measles, even though I was in second grade and now I collect Social Security. Missed three weeks of school and had to spend a lot of that time in a darkened room. I suppose that was supposed to reduce the probability of blindness. But most people today have no such memory, so I think we'll need to have these diseases come back to remind them what it's about.
People believe that there are rare serious side effect to vaccines, though the evidence for that is minimal and most likely there is no negative side effects whatsoever. Still you have to let people make their own decisions for their own families and let the chips fall where they may. I feel bad for people dependent on herd immunity, but this is a free country, not necessarily a safe country.
20
@roseberry Babies under 18 months old are too young to vaccinate. When herd immunity collapses because too many parents refuse to vaccinate their older children, these babies could get sick or even die from measles, whopping cough, polio, etc. just because some other child’s parent chose not to vaccinate. To me, that’s not acceptable, and I therefore have no qualms about California’s law requiring that children cannot be enrolled in public or private school unless their vaccinations are up to date or they have a medical exception.
Of course, now we have a problem with some physicians in our state who are signing medical exemption forms without justification. The medical licensing board is starting to go after them.
31
@roseberry. No, you don’t have to let people make their own decisions. We have laws to protect individuals and the community. In the case of vaccines, diseases could be entirely eliminated and everyone made safe if there were no legal exceptions to vaccine requirements. Make vaccines mandatory for attendance at all schools. The safety of all of us is at stake.
38
It's not legal to starve your children or let them ride in the front seat without a seat belt, and depriving a child of the basic vaccinations shouldn't be legal either. It's child abuse to deny children basic health care, plain and simple.
41
Yet again another piece which deliberately fails to explore the gray areas: "Vaccines are not toxic, and they do not cause autism. Full stop." This is simply not proven. Enough people, including educated people who respect science like me, know it is uncertain. The mercury/autism connection perhaps was taken too far, but we do not know why autism has become such an epidemic. We do not know what side-effects vaccines have on the body beyond the cases of epilepsy and other permanently disabling conditions which we sadly know about, i.e.,"traffic in". Until there is an honest conversation weighing out the risks and benefits, based on long-term scientific studies of vaccinated and unvaccinated populations, your suggested strategies to convince the public fall short. When you say "Yes, there are chemicals in vaccines, but they are not toxic", no, you don't really know that is true, you just hope so. We hope so too, but resist risking our children.
27
@Roy Lowenstein Most autism diagnoses occur around age 12-15 months; which is precisely the same time that cow's milk and orange juice are usually introduced into a child's diet. So why aren't we screaming at the top of our lungs about cow's milk and orange juice causing autism?
175
@Roy Lowenstein
You claim to "respect science," but you don't cite the science, nor quote any work that you've done that contradicts the hypothesis that vaccines cause autism. Research studies have been performed to answer this question. Prove that you "respect science" by citing these studies and the apparent errors in them.
48
@Roy Lowenstein - you resist risking your children? By not having them vaccinated you're exposing your children to increased risk of dangerous and deadly diseases whose effects are far from speculative.
17
Among the worst approaches will be to call Anti-Vaccination parents stupid or worse. Among the better would be to acknowledge some of issues that are at least perceived to be problematic by AVers. Starting with immunity from lawsuits as a result of vaccination. That is hardly an incentive for quality control. Another thing that might be addressed is the aggressive schedule of vaccination and neonatal development. The actual justification for that is the convenience and likelihood of vaccination because of new baby checkups that drop off as children get older. Not the optimal timing for the child.
To be clear my kids are all up to date on everything. We went slower than "recommended" and now increasingly, required, with the intent of full vaccination still fairly early on. I'm very much a science and pro vaccine guy. But I'm wary of lack of truly careful assessment and long term observations and research. Immediate successes do not mean as yet unforeseen long term consequences can't or won't happen. If they do, that puts 'science' in a very (inappropriately) bad light.
30
You are quite right that it is futile to dismiss or speak condescendingly to anti-vaccination believers. Frustrating as it is, for minds to change, there has to be room for dialogue. It's important to understand what motivates this suspicion of shots; most likely, parents think they are protecting their children, not putting them in danger, by forgoing inoculation. Talk to them with this in mind. We had a set of anti-vaccine parents in my own family, and what reached them was a calm explanation of how immunities work. Their own assumptions didn't hold up when they tried articulating them. No yelling, no eye-rolling, no interruptions. Even if one perspective doesn't merit respect, the person being addressed still does. Treating them that way is the only hope for bringing them around.
Thanks for what you wrote.
12
True, but it's hard to speak politely to someone who won't get a tetanus shot for a child who has stepped on a rusty nail. Do these people KNOW what these diseases are like? Do they know how dangerous and painful tetanus is, or how polio can destroy a person's life? I think a lot of these people think of diseases like measles as inconvenient but not dangerous.
21
My immediate family keeps up with annual vaccines. Yet I miscarried after contracting a very bad bout of the flu from my nephew in New York whose mother is an anti-vaxxer. We love our nephew and extended family dearly and we travel across the country to see them, but we have also repeatedly caught nasty bugs from our visits. I'd love to read or hear stories on how to address this issue effectively within families. On a more global level, I'm relieved for recent California legislation that makes it difficult for school children to avoid vaccination.
73
@Rachel
How do you know where you got the flu and the nasty bugs? Pretty hard to prove where you caught something especially if you flew in a plane.
1
@Rachel
Maybe you need to work on your own immune system. "Nasty bugs" like the flu aren't the same as measles, mumps and pertussis.
It is also helpful when pediatricians refuse to see child patients unless they have received their vaccinations. Doctors know how dangerous it can be to have unvaccinated children in their waiting rooms. Pediatricians should make this policy known loud and clear.
375
@Cunegonde Misthaven How should a child then receive their vaccinations, if they're barred from visiting their pediatrician?
I called pediatrician’s offices before my children were born. I only considered doctors who refused to see anti-vax families. I wanted my newborn safe from picking up whooping cough or measles in a waiting room. I believe every parent in America should put the same pressure on their doctors. It is a public good, and it could save your child’s life.
The very children who need to see the doctor the most often - newborns, babies, kids with chronic illness - are the ones most vulnerable to vaccine-preventable diseases. As far as I’m concerned, someone who refuses to let their children get vaccines, lets them get measles or pertussis, then changes their mind about modern medicine and brings them in to a pediatrician’s office with dozens of other kids - that person is guilty of attempted mass murder.
17
@David F There's a schedule for these things. I'm sure the doctor will see and vaccinate a small child who's not gotten the shot yet due to being too young.
11
I delayed vaccinating my two children, who are now partly vaccinated teenagers who will be fully vaccinated by the time they enter college.
I am far from anti-science, but I do question the need to vaccinate tiny humans only a few days old. The CDC recommends, for example, vaccinating newborns for Hepatitis B before they leave the hospital. Hepatitis B is a blood-carried disease mostly contracted through sharing needles for IV drugs and sex. I was quite confident that my newborns would not be engaging in those behaviors, so I decided to wait.
I can see that vaccinating every infant from birth for every disease may be the most effective strategy from a public health perspective, but it starts to look a bit hysterical from the perspective of an individual parent and child. So, yes, I took my time and established my own schedule. I also echo the concerns of the commenter who noted how doctors often recommend procedures more for their own profits than the patient's good, deceptive practices by the pharmaceutical companies and falsified research.
Most doctors were completely unhelpful, but it didn't really matter because the CDC recommendations are fully accessible online. I'm not sorry at all.
18
@KW
Your newborn may not be engaging in activity that puts them at risk for Hepatitis B (assuming you're negative as their mother) but your toddler will be picking up things on the street. My 16 month old brought a needle over to me when we were playing on a school playground. You can bet I was relieved I'd vaccinated him fully for Hep B when that happened.
61
@KW
I would suspect that the health officials are worried about the mother carrying HepB and not knowing it or not appreciating the problem. At any rate babies are a group that relies on herd immunity, and that's going down and will likely continue to go down so they'll be catching these diseases more than they have in the recent past. We had a baby die here a couple of years ago of Pertussis.
32
Many parents will never bring their children back to the doctor unless they are sick. Vaccinating for whatever one can in the hospital protects against many children not getting vaccinated at all. Universal health care would make this less necessary.
24
The best solution is to acknowledge that not all vaccinations are 100% effective (heck some aren't even 50/50) and that side effects can be life-long and debilitating (but that for the sake of herd immunity) that where vaccinations are given, so will support to families that suffer such rare side effects and that providers of vaccinations will only be provided immunity form legal action if they can show they are continually working on measures to improve vaccinations and prevent future side-effects.
11
@James Wallis Martin Seat belts kill thousands of people every year by trapping them into burning vehicles. Yet surely you continue to wear a seat belt in your car. You'd be foolish not to.
5
@James Wallis Martin none of what you just said is true.
5
I wonder how many Anti-Vaxxers are working mothers? If they are, then are they truly unaware of what would happen if most children still got these childhood diseases? I'm 75 and most children I knew (and I, too) had both kinds of measles (the mild and the one that could cause serious harm), mumps and chicken pox. A few had scarlet fever and whooping cough.
When I was a child, many families had 4 children. Each disease would go through a family. I had only two children and chicken pox (no vaccine for those born in 1970 and 1972), took about a month out of my life. They can't go to school, they can't go anywhere until all those "pox" dry up completely. How many working woman have that kind of sick/personal/family/vacation leave? Add in mumps and measles, and in many families, someone was nearly always sick for years. One mother I knew, finally put a bed in the kitchen so she could get her cooking done!
And polio? Who on earth would even consider risking such a deadly disease! I still remember the halls in the basement of our local hospital, filled, end-to-end with iron lungs, many filled with children.
These are not benign "rite of passage" diseases on the level with a minor respiratory virus. The child is very ill, even if he makes a full recovery. And some do not. And he's ill for a couple of weeks with each disease, missing enormous amounts of school time.
I have zero tolerance for such utter ignorance which causes a major problem for public health.
767
@IamCurious The DIAGNOSED rate was 1 in2500. Today's understanding of the autism spectrum is much more detailed.
97
@IamCurious There is absolutely zero evidence that autism is linked to vaccines. None.
And using the language "snatched" is also dubious. My newborn was immediately placed on me and stayed there for two hours. Then she was given her first shots. She was never snatched.
102
@IamCuriou. "...with all its toxic adjuvants". You're casually repeating baseless propaganda, inherently making a serious claim with not a hint of proof. This kind of behavior is why we have this problem in the first place.
86
When I was caught up in the fear of MMR causing autism, something that runs in my family, I was struck by the extent to which the "answers" to my concerns were about broad groups of children. Example: '99.9% of vaccinated children have zero side effects.' I was concerned about one child who might have had a genetic tendency putting him in the .1%. Thus, I found the reassurances of authorities less than assuring.
As a side point, I did, in the end, give my kid the MMR and he was fine. He may be a bit on the spectrum, but not in any way that will prevent him from having a hapoy and successful life.
12
@SAO
Thank you for this personal story.
My first thought to this article was that the anti-vaxxers were uniformly yet another instance of reflexive anti-science. But your response makes clear that at least some of you are genuinely hungry for quality information. I'm glad you found enough to make the best choice.
22
There is quality information. Coincidental timing can be used to explain anything. We do not have to convince people science is right if they don’t understand it. But we can mandate it. Just like we mandate not beating kids with baseball bats.
9
@Kenneth Brady
I knew more mothers who, like me, didn't know how to think about risk, than I did anti- science mothers. In my baby group there was a woman whose brother's child had had febrile convulsions after the pertussis vaccine, so she skipped that one, thinking there might be a genetic vulnerability in her son. Again, it was a case of doctors talking about the herd, not about her child and his possibly unique genetic vulnerability. (Her son got whooping cough and its horrors dwarfed a night of febrile convulsions, turning her into an advocate of vaccination).
I've since concluded that most of us are wrong about our kids' unique genetic vulnerability, but more time with a doctor willing to listen to individual concerns might help.
6
And now what’s been a health crisis in parts of Washington and Oregon because of a rapidly spreading measles outbreak. Time for action. End all nonmedical exemptions to attend public school. If you’re concerned about these senseless outbreaks, find out your state laws and lobby your lawmakers. That’s where real change will happen.
118
There's a major flaw in this argument.
Many of these prescriptions involve engaging an active federal government to step in and protect children.
But our current federal government stands against most if not all of these interventions, including protecting children. And that's not to mention our vaccinations-cause-autism president.
A parent's "beliefs" and rights end when they put the rest of us at risk. If parents want to risk the lives of their children, they should not be allowed to enroll them in public school, or participate in any public event. That would hopefully drive up vaccination rates.
218
@avrds
A lot of these people are home schoolers, a fact that the media sometimes dances around so as not to incur their wrath.
When a family of six kids had measles in the San Diego area a couple of years ago, the Union-Tribune said they were not enrolled in any public, private, or charter school. Well, what option does that leave?
In fact, they interviewed another non vaccinating family who came right out and said they didn’t need to do it because the kids were homeschooled and therefore couldn’t catch anything from other kids.
The combination of be-your-own-expert, anti-government, and parental rights absolutism that fuels homeschooling is the same mindset as anti vax.
(Of the formal schools the lowest vax rate was Waldorf which shares the contrarian mindset)
9
@Di it leaves quite a few options actually. There have been some doctors who have Been asked by patients to separate waiting rooms for kids whose parents refuse to get them vaccines because they don’t want their kids exposed any more than they have to be. There are dayschools, because not everyone homeschools right away, they may wait for more than one sibling, that will not accept nonvaxxers...they don’t have to, they are private. We are a camp run by the city, we have to make a decision every year about what we are going to do if we find an antivaxxer in our ranks. We work with disabled kids, they are particularly susceptible to illness, and if you can believe it, some of their parents are just as ridiculous about being anti vax as others. Fortunately there have not been any during the last couple of summers although we have had huge measles outbreaks in the state but all we need is one to run rampant and those poor challenged kids are gone.
5
@avrds Another zero sum argument.
You're either with us or against us!!
Not...what is it about vaccines that worry you?
How can we change the vaccination schedule or adjust the binders inside (aluminum vs. mercury) to give you peace of mind that the risk is much lower?
If your goal is to get kids vaccinated, bully for you.
If it's to shame parents who have legitimate concerns about their little ones getting autism, shame on you.
Reason and logic force us to confront an uncomfortable truth. We need kids vaccinated but 3 million new cases of autism a year in the US, means what?
If you're not curious...I understand. Many people who don't have young children nor see the impact of raising an autistic child want to confront this. Everyone is circling wagons and we all just want to protect our own. Totally understandable but totally unsympathetic towards these other parents.
If we can increase vaccinations by 50%+ with these anti-vaxxers by addressing their concerns, isn't that fair, just and equitable?
3
Interesting and frightening article. The anti-vaxxers and the variety of resources aligned with them, to include Political Action Committees, begs the question, what exactly do they have to gain from this crusade to convince people not to vaccinate their children. I'd be interested in a follow-up piece elaborating on that part of the story.
46
@Lighthouse keeper follow the money of supplements, essential oils, chiropracty, other alternative health practices, and ad revenue from websites. There’s major money being made by preying on the fears those who don’t understand science.
95
@Jean What is your evidence for this? I don't know of any of the entities you mentioned gaining in any way from anti-vaccination activism. that appears to be unwarranted tarring with an overly broad brush.
2
@Jean
As if the pharmaceutical companies don't enjoy profits from vaccines! The Supreme Court has granted them immunity from injury lawsuits.
Sonia Sotomayer and Ruth Bader Ginsberg dissented. Sotomayer wrote that the decision "leaves a regulatory vacuum in which no one - neither the FDA nor any other federal agency, nor state and federal juries - ensures that vaccine manufacturers adequately take account of scientific and technological advancements".
Critics of the supplements industry would do well to remember the loopholes enjoyed by the pharmaceutical companies.
17
There does need to be clever public information campaigns generated thru all sorts of media. Fear, humor, drama: Fear is used to scare people away from vaccine use; fear has a perfectly logical place in promoting this as well.
The UK Vaccine Safety Council seems to have a good approach in nipping new rumors in the bud.
Perhaps this is one area where the cooperation of Google might be sought: assuring that what pops up in the first swell of search results for vaccination inquiries always includes sites with rock solid information.
15
Many of the American ant-vaxxers astonish me-are they all orphans without parents, grandparents aunts and uncles to tell them about the "Good Old Days " before vaccines? I was not allowed to play with other children during the summers because of the change of a polio outbreak. I had a serious case of measles when I was three years old. my parents made me wear sunglasses after that to guard against possible vision problems. When the Salk vaccine was developed, every child in our town lined up to be innoculated. These infectious diseases are not rights of passages-in some cases they can cause hearing loss, blindness and mental deficits. Parents who do not vaccinate their children are guilty of child abuse-and they endanger other children in their communities.
383
I also recall lining up for the Salk Polio vaccine. Later in life I met people who did have polio as children, and they suffer(d) many effects later in life when it returned in different forms.
Doctors should refuse any child patients ( without immune issues) whose parents refuse to vaccinate their kids!
60
@beth reese
And Salk, gave away the vaccine he discovered, he didn't make one dime from it, in fact he believed that he was paid enough as a scientist. It was more important to him to cure a disease, then count the millions he would have made.
139
@beth reese Children do not belong to their parents. They are protected by the same laws as are every other person; therefore, parents who refuse to have their children vaccinated are guilty of endangering the welfare of a child and should prosecuted as such.
30
If we're going to win the battle against anti-vaxxers, we're going to have to clean up medical science and the industries around it. I cannot help but note that just this week I've read NYT articles about the deceptive practices of major pharmaceutical companies, falsified medical research, and physicians who prescribe drug therapies based not on the patient's needs, but their own greed--these revelations can shake one's confidence expert recommendations.
55
@H.L. Agree, but do you provide that same level of scrutiny to the food your child eats? There's ample evidence of "natural" food suppliers cheating on the labels, putting unknown ingredients into it etc, yet anti-vaxxers have no problem shoving that unknown food into their child's mouth. They apply a wholly different level of scrutiny to vaccines that they don't use anywhere else.
19
@H.L.
I hear you regarding cynicism around pharmaceuticals and the profit motive, but vaccines are not generally for-profit drugs. They are amazingly effective commodities. The "anti-vaxxers" need to learn enough critical thinking to discern that difference.
21
@H.L.
Why are you painting with such a broad brush? We're talking about vaccines here. Is there any evidence that vaccinations are part of a corrupt enterprise? You can always say: "I won't do X until Y is completely cleaned up." But as long as the enterprise is run by humans, the notion that Y is perfect is unatainable.
6
CDC data shows that the picture is more complex than could be solved by the strategy advocated by the NYT Editorial board.
Specifically, the road to higher vaccination rates depends on strategies that are vaccine specific. Laying it all at the feet of the vaccine objectors takes aim at tiny portion of the population according the CDC data., Attacking them will not solve larger scientific issues.
Measles: the % of infants vaccinated is very high by 24 months of age... and the vaccine is exceptionally effective with 1 does conferring lifetime immunity except for 5% of those vaccinated whose vaccine will be ineffective for reasons that are not well established. By kindergarten, almost all kids have had 1 dose, many 2 doses.
HPV: CDC data shows that acceptance of this vaccine depends on providers ability to positively influence parents decision to vaccinate... by developing rapport with parents by spending time, answering questions for example. It is that personal relationship that counts.. not a vaccine campaign.
Pertussis: The bottom line is that we need a better vaccine. Is the CDC Vaccines for Children program that purchases > 50% of all vaccine doses made by US vaccine manufacture every year a disincentive for their developing a better vaccine?
Season flu: Genetic drift and other factors make this a hard disease to address. CDC transparency about the validity of its scientific methods would offer opportunities for advance in knowledge.
9
@Daryls
There is extensive publicity every flu season about the need to get the current vaccine because last year's is not effective against the currently active strains. I doubt that CDC is not transparent; "the validity of its scientific methods" is not something that can be explained quickly; I expect you will find it in the medical literature.
18
Those of us who are old enough to remember suffering measles, mumps, chicken pox and rubella would never inflict those diseases on our children if we knew it could be prevented. I missed months of school recuperating from these diseases and some complications. I wish the parents who are withholding the vaccines from their children could see how their children could suffer, and worse how their irresponsiblity could cause the death of kids who are too fragile to be vaccinated.
238
The anti-Vaxxers should all be required to visit cemeteries established before about 1930 or so. Their attention should be directed to the number of graves of children who died before the age of 10, mostly from what are now preventable diseases including measles. It’s fairly easy to do this as many cemeteries have special areas for the graves of young children. Maybe then they might begin to appreciate the benefits of vaccination. Or maybe not as they seem unwilling to process and understand facts.
438
@Thomas Smith. Most diseases were in steep decline way before vaccines, DUE TO INCREASED HYGENE, TOILETS, HANDWASHING, SLEEPING IN YOUR OWN BED AND NOT WITH YOUR 4 siblings, etc. Vaccines cannot be credited with most declines in diseases.
14
@Highland girl
Where is your data? No one could hold a candle to my mother in the cleanliness department and we all had our own beds. Yet all three of us got measles (both kinds), mumps, and chicken pox, and I also got whooping cough. Fortunately polio vaccine appeared while I was still a child, so we avoided that, but other children in our circle didn't.
159
@Highland girl That's not true. After the polio vaccine was introduced in 1955, cases of polio declined 92% between 1955 and 1960. Sanitation did not change between 1955 and 1960.
198
Recent Times editorials have described how new laws are restricting women's rights to protect fetuses (potential lives). In this case we have real children's lives being impacted by parents who don't get their kids vaccinated.
Instead of worrying about future children, legislators could pass criminal statutes to punish parents who refuse to vaccinate their children, particularly if not doing so leads to an outbreak.
165
@John
I get your concern, but there is far too much criminalization already. Trust people to listen and think; most will.
14
Germany now fines the parents of unvaccinated children.
12