Is the truth about vaccines what you believe?
In our increasingly polarized world today that seems to be what passes for discourse.
As the name of the page, Opinion, states, this is just your opinion.
To tell us that your opinion is Truth, is not going to make me even want to listen to you anymore than I would listen to a
Bible thumper scream that his Truth is that I will burn in hell if I don't agree.
When I was very young I was vaccinated and ended up in the hospital. My father, many years later, told me," They didn't think that you would make it."
But I did.
I am now a physician and have been in practice for over 25 years.
I have lived with the lifelong side effects of the vaccines that injured me when I was young. That can never be changed.
And I also have seen hundreds of kids, whose illnesses began shortly after vaccination. " He was never again well since he got vaccinated," says the mom. I hear this a lot.
But people like me are called names, criminals and worse. We are threatened and told to just shut up and get with the program.
As long as we can defend our kids, patients and inform the public of our experiences and the reality of how certain vaccinations ( not all) can induce life threatening and long term effects, we will.
The tide is turning. More and more people, thanks to the net and social media, are thinking for themselves.
Frankly, you can rail against those who think differently all you want. You will only polarize us even more.
13
It's hard to trust Drug companies & providers who put their profits ahead of the public good. This fear of vaccines is just a symptom of a larger problem of failure of our system to win the confidence of patients. The revelation a few years ago that a formaldehyde based preservative was used in flu vaccine is still resonating with many. Vaccines are good & necessary, but I need a health care provider that I can trust. Do I need to move to Sweden?
20
@Doug R
There’s more formaldehyde in pears than vaccines. If you don’t trust medical professionals yourself, at least do thorough research for yourself.
22
@Doug R
There’s more formaldehyde in pears than vaccines. If you don’t trust medical professionals, at least do thorough research yourself.
6
While I'm by no means an anti-vaxxer, the whole conversation is pretty interesting. While the article clearly states that "Vaccines do not cause autism and they do not contain toxic chemicals" a quick google search will show that some vaccines still do contain Thimerosal and that the MSDS from Elly Lily clearly states that Thimerosal is toxic...so is the article truthful? I don't think so. I agree that, for the most part, vaccines are basically a gift to the human race. However, I can completely understand why people would be skeptical of any nexus between big-pharma and government (I also remember when tons of people came down with GBS in 1976 after the swine flu vaccine fiasco so maybe still paranoid). Also, according to the CDC like 1 person died of measles (out of 100 total cases) in 2016. Is this really a national emergency??? There have been 7 deaths by gun violence in the past 72 hours...anyway never been one to blindly follow anyone or anything.
32
@Jonathan Vaccinating does NOT mean blindly following anyone or anything, as you stated, it means following scientific evidence proven by a ton of studies on thousands of people, i.e., that the minute risk of vaccines vastly outweighs the huge benefits of vaccines. But of course understanding this requires a basic understanding of how risk assessment (i.e, probability) works. By the way, Big Pharma makes much more money by selling the drugs used to treat people with measles and a whole host of other vaccine-preventable diseases than by selling vaccines, which actually prevent people from getting sick and spending a ton of money on other medicines. So, if I were the owner of Big Pharma, I would support campaigns against vaccines, and invest in all the plethora of drugs used to treat such diseases, including fever reducers, anti-viral drugs, pain killers, etc....
36
@Jonathan
No clue if you're really an anti-vaxxer and just saying you're not, but MSDSs are not relevant in this discussion. They are more for handling substances that are substantially pure, but toxicity is a function of concentration. Lots of substances are safe when used at the appropriate concentration. Conversely, lots of things are dangerous when too concentrated.
Consider acetic acid aka vinegar. It's corrosive and toxic if you're exposed to it at high concentration, but people still put it in their salad dressing. Go ahead and Google search for the MSDS for it. Will you consider the next NYT article that teaches you how to make pickles untruthful about being safe to eat?
43
Why isn't this on the front page? This news is much more valuable to all of us than any political piece.
8
Some things are worth dying for... Ignorance is not one of them.
5
Social media spreads antivax misinformation, then creates the navel gazing echo chambers that amplify misinformation.
Perhaps the Kardashians should help the CDC’s cause by posting their kid’s Vaccine charts to InstaTwitterBook?
2
This editorial doesn't provide links to its claims or tell the full story. May I suggest more places to get a complete picture? TheViennaReport.US/medical professionals speak out/
NVIC dot org; DrMercola dot com; Dr. Suzanne Humphries history of vaccination (Amazon); pediatrician Dr. Paul Thomas' guidelines for safe vaccinations book (Amazon).
We all deserve the right to know the complete facts so we can make medical choices which work for our health and safety.
5
There seems to be no end to the measles hysteria. Every day another article, like clockwork. There has been exactly one death from measles in the U.S. in the past five years (There is a greater chance of being killed by a falling air-conditioner than there is of being killed by measles). And yet there is this amazing promotional push to turn measles into a KILLER, and anyone who opposes official doctrine on mandatory governmnet vaccination into a dangerous nutjob. Never mind the 100,000 reports to VAERS about adverse vaccine reactions, the $4 billion in damages paid out in vaccine court. Or the thousands upon thousands of vaccine injury testimonials avaiable online.
I am and will remain staunchly pro choice with respect to my own healthcare decisions. If the state has more power over your body than you do, than you do not have freedom. Period. How weak, fearful, dependent and easily manipulated have we become that we are so willing to sacrifice the most precious thing we have? The pro-vaccine lobby has done a phenomenal job of inciting fear among the American public in a way that happens to serve its interests, but they’ve left out one of the most frightening specter of all, one that has a truly horrifying historical record of death and destruction: an all-powerful state that can literally do whatever it wishes to those living under it.
25
I live in California, and the lesson we’ve learned here is that the only way to stop anti-vaxxers from threatening the public health is to give them, by law, a choice: you can either vaccinate your children, or you can homeschool them (barring a valid medical exemption). The law has been a resounding success.
We need to stop giving credit to opinions based on fear over facts. The vaccine-autism story was debunked long ago, and the “vaccines have toxins in them” line was always ridiculous on its face. The fearful fools among us will never listen to reason, so, as noted, we have to give them a choice.....
68
My older sister had mumps encephalitis not long before a vaccine became available. My parents discovered this horrible fact when they tried to wake her up one morning and couldn’t. Try to imagine how they felt on that terrible, terrible day.
She was in a coma for days, and no one knew if she’d live or die or be okay until she woke up (she did, and was okay. Thousands weren’t.).
I heard this story all the time growing up, especially around vaccine time. Looking back, no one in my class ever really complained about getting shots. I wonder if they all heard similar stories from their parents, extended family, and older sibs.
But tell this story and mention the millions like it, and an anti-vaxxer will simply shout, “Autism!” while inserting fingers into ears. So the answer is laws barring anything but a medical exemption.
49
Somehow I doubt the antivax community will read this. Or, if they do, then they will find some pseudoscience to back their spurious claims.
Eighteen consecutive studies and the opinions of essentially 100% of the scientific community are enough. Vaccines save lives. They don’t cause autism. End of story. Full stop.
The antivax community needs to be shunned once and for all, and if necessary stronger legislation is needed to protect us and our most precious resource: our children.
40
as they say in the acting dodge: what's my motivation? what now, in the 21st century, has caused people to start fearing vaccinations and believing false prophets shouting about their dangers? who stands to benefit by reducing Americans' herd immunity? what is behind this craziness?
17
It's taken far too long for the reality of measles outbreaks and the like to start shifting public opinion. At least I hope public opinion is shifting. Sadly the vast majority of the US population is scientifically uninformed and too many are not interested in educating themselves. Look at the popularity of pseudoscientific "treatments" like homeopathy, "alkaline water", "detox" regimes, naturopathic "doctors", etc. The anti-vaxxers are only a part of this morass of ignorance.
19
I am a "Polio Pioneer." Thousands of school children were given the Salk vaccine or a placebo and then monitored. I was about 7 years old and I still remember getting the shot in the gym. I was one of the lucky ones, got the real thing.
Not long ago, local (Austin, TX) NPR did a news item on the anti-vaxers and the serious uptick in once thought extinct disease's return. The mentioned the school with the highest rate of holdouts...........it is Zilker Elementary where my three grandchildren go! It draws on a very well educated, professional, high income demographic.
I'm surprised that the story didn't mention that fact about the anti-vaxers. Not avoided due to ignorance, but conscious decision making. Talk about zombie myths, that my child will get autism.
Make "having your shots" a law in order to return to the USA after a visit elsewhere. Even if ICE has to wield the needles.
I have had three Mexican friends with various stages of disability due to polio. In all cases, parental superstition had them avoid the shots.
Guess what? Wrapping your daughter's legs in a marijuana poultice (Rosie) won't return her mobility.
Ignorance. Whether by the unschooled or the overschooled. Same end result.
23
The more I'm told vaccines are safe and effective, and that diseases are all the fault of anti-vaxxers, the less I believe it. I'm not a child who believes what I'm told. I want to hear the other side of the debate but there's a NEWS BLACKOUT. Complete censorship. I smell a coinspiracy (=coin + conspiracy) for advertisers.
2
This a fine article. However, I suspect that the anti-vaxxers don't read the NYT. These gentlemen, shall we say, are preaching to the choir.
1
California Senate Bill 277 (2015) removed personal belief exemptions to vaccination requirements for entry to private or public elementary or secondary schools in California, as well as day care centers. It was signed into law by Governor Brown on June 30, 2015.
The bill, supported by the California Medical Association, was prompted by the 2014 Disneyland measles outbreak and low levels of vaccination in pockets of California. Opponents started a petition to have the State Senator who co-authored the bill, Richard Pan, removed by recall election. On social media Pan was compared to a nazi and death threats were reported against him and the bill’s other co-author, Ben Allen. Anti-vaxxers are unreasonable zealots who cling to their beliefs in spite of the overwhelming evidence of the benefits of vaccination cited in the article. Their selfishness puts the population at large at risk.
5
Make no assumptions about the unassailability of our Democracy. Democracies are falling like cut weeds around the World. Turkey, Philippines’, Hungary, Poland, Venezuela to name a few. We must make no assumptions accordingly. Getting rid of Trump is job #1 currently. Impeachment or the ballot box will work.
For some unknown reason, reading this column brings to my mind the scene in "My Fair Lady' where Higgins offers a chocolate to Eliza Doolittle, whose response is, " 'Ow do I know wot's in them things? I've 'eard o' gels being drugged by the likes o' you." So Higgins whips out his penknife and cuts a chocolate in half. He eats half and pops the other half in Eliza's mouth when she opens it to argue further.
What do we need to persuade the reluctant?
Unfortunately, a well reasoned article like this or all the science in the world won’t help. A counter conspiracy theory, like not getting vaccines is a plot by the Illuminati to wipe out certain groups would probably be more effective.
2
Selfish anti-vaxxers, scared by right-wing media lies, are now endangering our health and our children with their GOP-sanctioned anti-science stance and mistrust of "intelectuals". Left unchecked, conservatives will ultimately kill us all.
2
My mom and uncle lost their hearing to measles as children
6
Well said. As one who recalls the iron lung and people crippled with polio, I find it outrageous that people due stupid things based upon their religion or beliefs. But the anti-vax people practice their fad-like behavior as an anti-government manifesto. In extreme cases some even withhold medical care altogether thinking Jesus or some other imagined savior will save them or their young children.
3
But what would Glyneth Paltrow say or think?
1
Thanks for your collective support for vaccines. Withholding vaccines from children for non-medical reasons is tantamount to child abuse. Unfortunately it is only proven when an innocent child dies.
1
Racism is making a comeback, Nazism is making a comeback, preventable diseases are making a comeback. Do we really need to relearn all the lessons of history every 70 years or so because people forget?
2
There will always be outbreaks. True story.
"Beware of the half truth. You may have gotten hold of the wrong half." Just what I would have expected from the CDC. I would encourage everyone to become truly informed. That will take the time and effort to do so. I have spent more than 20 years immersed in the subject. It was not a club I wanted to join. The political effort to deliver the "greater good" ( vaccines are "safe" for some, not all) ruined the lives of our family. If you want to really do your homework, let this be a jumping off point: https://childrenshealthdefense.org/wp-content/uploads/FINAL-CHD-Letter-to-Amazon.pdf
Take it from there. Since I started with a quip, I will end with one.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”- Upton Sinclair
3
Only when the children of the anti-vaxxer crowd contract polio or are left with vision and hearing problems, handicapped or dead from their foolish parents' protest movement, then and only then will those parents understand what their foolishness wrought.
2
The really sad and bewildering aspect of the anti-vaccination movement is that it is not being led by what one would think are the usual suspects--the uneducated, fundamentally religious, tinfoil hat contingent.
It's instead being led by the privileged and bourgeois, people with professional positions and college degrees--people you think would have respect for scientific logic and would know better.
I don't know how these people could believe in the science behind their cell phones, their hybrid vehicles, even behind climate change--and reject it in this realm. Sumptin' mighty strange is happening in the craniums of this crowd, and I just wish we could isolate it so we could develop a vaccine against it.
4
There are several problems with this report which does not take into account the complexities of the vaccination issue. Here are a few:
(1) You can't compare Danish data with what happens in the USA. The USA overdoes its vaccination of children in comparison to other countries. Vaccinations have adjuvants like aluminum that cause immune reactions. Too many immune reactions in early life appear to be related to adverse outcomes for some children.
(2) Timing of vaccination matters. See recent paper: "Reanalysis of CDC Data on Autism Incidence and Time of First MMR Vaccination" as well as the earlier paper showing that Black boys are susceptible to autism if the MMR is given before age 3.
(3) Multiple vaccinations of various kinds has not been tested. So the multiple vaccinations US kids are supposed to be received should not be assumed to be safe unless the specific timings and combinations have been shown to be safe in reliable ways. The science has not been done. Number, type and timing of vaccinations of young children needs to be tested.
(4) Vaccination is fraught with corruption. The CDC and pediatricians make money off of vaccinations. The pharmaceuticals have had laws passed that bars lawsuits against them and have done a good job of making people think it is a black and white issue---pro or con vaccination. It is much more complicated than that.
Bottom line: The science has not been done to support the extensive vaccination of young children.
5
Vaccines do save lives and kids shouldn't be showing up in emergency rooms with deadly diseases that should only been seen in history books. Poverty is a bigger killer of children. Admiral Giror, Dr. Redfield and Vice Admiral Adams: Why aren't you acting to eradicate poverty? Why aren't you calling for a living wage? Universal health care? Subsidies to bring children out of poverty? Is it because nobody has figured out how to make a poverty-eradicating technology that can be patented so industries can profit from it?
2
This non scientific thinking is very concerning, and it is not limited to conspiracy fanatics, and the “anti-science” Trumpists. We live in a society that doesn’t have a historical memory, doesn’t value its elders, and now eschews science.
4
Members of the Trump administration are exhorting the public to heed scientific evidence? Thanks for the good laugh.
1
While all this is true, it will not reach the two groups that are mostly to blame for these new outbreaks due to their stance on non vaccinations:
a.) Religions groups for whom vaccinations are a no go because they somewhat interfere with their God's plan for life
b.) Those snowflake intellectuals that fear vaccinations because of some Internet rumours about an issue with some vaccinations or a fear of a government plot that is executed by vaccinations.
So no amount of education will help here but a legal requirement is the order of the day to maintain group immunization.
Sorry, but this one the few items where individuals can way too much harm to others by negligence to accept their individual decisions in a society.
People who don't vaccinate their children to spare them from autism or other fictitiously connected diseases are foolish to say the least. That the anti-vaccination movement has attached itself to fraudulent research which has been denounced and retracted by the publishing journal matters little to anti-vaxers and any science that supports the value of vaccination is also rejected. Science, when done correctly, is a logical approach to understand relationships. Anti-vaxers are not logical and you can't push logic through an emotional system. Our efforts to ensure universal vaccination is tied essentially to public school requirements. Those who reject vaccination can home school to avoid it. Perhaps we should consider levying penalties against parents should their child become sick because of this. They create a public health menace and increase our medical costs that can be avoided. I would suggest that they be at least prosecuted for child neglect.
2
Funny, adult anti-vaxxers believe they are acting responsibly when they put their minor children, themselves, and others at risk of contracting preventable diseases. Apparently, the anti-vaxxers “freedom” to choose, based on no credible scientific evidence, is more important than the health and lives of everyone else. This bizarro situation would be ridiculous were it not a public health crisis. Lawmakers who refuse to deal effectively with this crisis are shirking their responsibility.
1
Good article. Now I would like to see another article explaining in some depth why antivaxxers believe the way they do, and why they are so oblivious to history.
1
Here in Europe, it is very simple: every regular school will ask you to show that your child is fully vaccinated.
Every youth organisation (boy scouts, local football club…) will ask you to show that your child is fully vaccinated.
If your child is not vaccinated, he cannot attend any youth organisation event. It is very strict.
Vaccination is free.
Where are unvaccinated children found? Answer: in small religious communities that try to run their own schools. The exact kind of people who prefer to believe in some writtings made 1000 or 2000 years ago instead of scientifically established facts.
5
You can't pick and choose which scientific facts to believe in.
You can't choose which drugs are safe to take.
You can't choose which pilot is best to fly the airplane you are on,
You have to have faith in people who are professionals, who are scientists. Sure there are bad apples, but there are no worldwide conspiracies to perpetually deceive you by such people. Science is not defined by opinions, superstitions, politics, scriptures, nor social media.
2
Emotion trumps science, every time. Ignorance may be bliss, it's the misunderstanding that's literally killing too many of us.
It is just too easy to be hysterically misinformed and far too difficult to understand the technicalities of science and technology. Religious fervor isn't helping either.
1
It’s the Republican lie machine at work, latching onto the mysterious wonder of anti-viral vaccines, casting doubt on their legitimacy, to sow confusion and discord in order to make their own seem simple and revelatory.
1
Truth? 35% of American adults aren’t believers in data or truth.
3
Not that hard, most people take the path of least resistance. Require vaccines for children to attend school. Period, no exceptions, religious or otherwise.
The few nut jobs who are zealous enough not to send their kids to school over the issue will not be a large enough population to propagate many viruses.
4
If, through my actions, I cause harm to others, I can be held legally liable and sued. So, if I drive when I'm drunk, and injure another person, that person can sue me for damages. I cannot avoid the judgment by relying on junk science that claims that I'm not impaired when I'm drunk.
So, why we should we not be able to sue for damages parents who because they failed to vaccinate their children for measles and chicken pox etc, allow those diseases to spread and infect others. Who would deny a mother that right if her child were born brain- damaged because of a preventable infection? Who would question the right of a hospital to try to recover the enormous costs of dealing with a measles outbreak from those who caused the outbreak?
And what of the children who suffer because of the scientific illiteracy of their parents. For example, should we not charge the parents who allow their diabetic child to die because they refuse to administer insulin. Do their religious or their junk science beliefs really exonerate them?
This has gone on long enough. Start taking these people to court-- start holding them responsible for their actions . I guarantee you will see a swift change in their behavior.
4
I just met someone who told me he did not vaccinate his children for anything and that they now have natural immunities. He mentioned chicken pox. But supposedly after you have chicken pox you can get shingles. So what happened to natural immunity from chicken pox? There is a lot of publicity about getting vaccinated for shingles, maybe because it is a $185 shot that is not covered by Medicare, If people like him were convinced that getting chicken pox causes shingles, may be they would accept the idea that there is no benefit from getting childhood diseases.
1
98% of children born get vaccinated. 5% go on to get autism. Is that because 98% of children got vaccinated or because 5% of children get autism?
2
There seems to be no end to the measles hysteria. Every day another article, like clockwork. There has been exactly ONE death from measles in the U.S. in the past five years (There is a greater chance of being killed by lightning than there is of being killed by measles). And yet there is this amazing promotional push to turn measles into a KILLER, and anyone who opposes official doctrine on mandatory governmnet vaccination into a dangerous nutjob. Never mind the 90,000 reports to VAERS about adverse vaccine reactions, the nearly $4 billion in damages paid out in vaccine court. Or the thousands upon thousands of vaccine injury testimonials avaiable online.
I am and will remain staunchly pro choice with respect to my own healthcare decisions. If the state has more power over your body than you do, than you do not have freedom. Period. How weak, fearful, dependent and easily manipulated have we become that we are so willing to sacrifice the most precious thing we have? The pro-vaccine lobby has done a phenomenal job of inciting fear among the American public in a way that happens to serve its interests, but they’ve left out one of the most frightening specter of all, one that has a truly horrifying historical record of death and destruction: an all-powerful state that can literally do whatever it wishes to those living under it.
2
Does Bret Stephens still refuse to vaccinate his children? That comment in his hiring interview has made be skeptical of his opinions ever since.
1
My son is autistic. By the time he was diagnosed at age three he had received all the customary vaccinations from infancy. It never occurred to me to blame his autism on the vaccinations. Years later, when books came out claiming that vaccinations were toxic and caused autism, I read several of them and concluded they were nonsense based on junk science. I still want nothing more than to pinpoint the reason for my son's autism, as would any parent. But we must not allow our understandable desperation to know the truth cause us to manufacture a truth to suit our needs.
57
To parents of unvaccinated kids: Wonderful that you've made a choice on their behalf not to protect them, and not to protect someone else's kids either. For that I hope you don't watch them die. And if they do, well it was your choice. But you aren't allowed to let that happen to someone else's kid. That's not your choice. You don't have the freedom to kill someone's kid just because you might let your own die. Therefore, you don't deserve the freedom of movement amongst society- keep your kid away from any social gathering, school, playground, club, camp, etc. Sorry that's so harsh, but it was your choice. I won't argue medicine and science with you because you won't listen. So the law that protects us all (from gun violence, murder, death from preventable disease, etc.) must step in and hold you accountable. Go somewhere in peace and let us save the rest of the population.
3
There is a lot of propaganda in this piece, especially the scare tactics about rampant disease and safety of vaccines. I'm not against vaccines, just unsafe vaccines. Our current generation of kids is the unhealthiest. One in two have a chronic illness. Those with learning disabilities are soaring. Our healthy baby stats are horrific for a first world country. In contrast, Gen Xers, Baby Boomers and the Silent Generation haven't had vaccines in many decades, yet there are no rampant diseases. The nonsense about classic measles is appalling. It is a mild childhood illness which primes the immune system and studies show that those who had measles as healthy kids have much lower rates of cancer, heart disease and Parkinson's Disease later in life. I had them, was tested recently and told I am still immune-- lifetime immunity-- something a vaccine cannot come close to provide. After four years, the pertussis vaccine shows that only 9% are still immune! I also had pertussis and research found that immunity lasts for 30 years. The US Supreme Court found in 2011 that "...vaccines are unavoidably unsafe." Educate yourself, look at the vaccine inserts for side effects. Look at the ingredients: there are no safe minimums for mercury, aluminum, formaldehyde, all of which are used as adjuvants to provoke an immune reaction and are potent neurotoxins. NVIC.org; DrMercola.com; TheViennaReport.US/medical professionals speak out/
Do your homework and decide for yourself.
3
Those opposed to vaccinations hold views that are anti-scientific and inhuman.
Anti-scientific because not based on proper evidence and inhuman because of their cavalier attitude towards human life.
1
The good news today is that this vaccination article already has 137 comments whereas yesterday's was almost comment-free until a short time before comments were closed.
The bad news is that the comment columns at both articles have an ever troubling overdose of unsupported opinions opposing vaccination.
We need graphics with these articles. If you visit this site you will see graphs showing that each vaccination program in Sweden had the desired result, near elimination of illness and death from various diseases:
https://www.internetmedicin.se/page.aspx?id=2664
If you were to visit the very fine annual reports on vaccination in Sweden you would learn that the vaccination rate is among the world's highest, for 2 year olds 97% for the listed diseases.
What happens in Europe where people are not vaccinated? Here are European data for 2018 in a BMJ article by Jacqi Thornton February 7, 2019.
80,000 people in 47 of 53 countries contracted measles in 2018.
72 people died.
Based only on the abstract, the full article is not open to visitors.
Sweden reaches world-record high levels even though vaccination is not mandated by law. This is said to result because we have Universal Health Care, well explained programs for vaccination, and a high level of trust.
I add that I find it very easy to access medical reports in this country of 10 million but not so easy to access comparable reports in my own USA.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
4
The very first step : prohibiting any child without a valid Medical exemption from a licensed Physician, from attending any public school, nationwide. Funding local health Departments to offer free or reduced price vaccines to all who require them.
If you wish to live in the days before modern medicine and subject your child to the consequences, so be it. But we must NOT allow your irrational ignorance to literally kill others.
PERIOD.
1
"Natural immunizations" and other fallacies are popular. The economic incentive of naturopaths, essential oils merchants and others to promote these unproven modalities is strong and enhanced by conspiracy theories. Legislators must overcome a parents "choice" and mandate immunizations unless there are valid medical contra-indications.
I'm almost 65 and grew up in a rural area. I remember taking the smallpox vaccine and something pink on a sugar cube in a paper cup which I believe was for polio. We were marched from our elementary school to the health dept for these.
I never had any childhood diseases until first grade. I took measles twice, mumps and chickenpox and missed 30 days of school. I also brought them in to my baby brother and nearly killed him.
I've never had children so I'm not personally involved in the vaccination controversy, but I can tell you if they had been available when I was a child my mother would have been first in line with me on her lap.
3
How is it possible that the death of 922 children from measles in Madagascar since October 2018 has not changed the conversation? In the United States alone, nearly ten million doses of MMR vaccine are administered each year with only rare complications. On the other hand, the death of nearly 1000 mostly unvaccinated children in Madagascar is a horrible reality. Do we really want to allow this to happen in the United States? This is the direction that the anti-vaxxers wish to take us.
4
@Richard Bennek You are comparing apples and oranges and stoking fear. The best way to health is clean air, water, unadulterated food and uncrowded living conditions. Disease cycles end when people live in healthy conditions and keep anyone who gets sick in quarantine in order to contain the illness from spreading. This is the situation in the US, definitely not in poor Madagascar.
2
Wonder what the antivaxxer position is on the rabies vaccine ... If their kids get bitten by a mammal of unknown rabies status do they just figure it will toughen the kids up to let the immune system kick in? So tired of these people endangering their kids' health and that of the general public ...
2
I am all for preaching to the choir, because it's important to solidify your base, but this work shouldn't appear in the Times; it should appear in every newspaper and magazine in America.
6
Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell was afflicted with polio when he was young, before the advent of the polio vaccines. His leg was paralyzed, requiring extensive rehabilitation. If he chose, he could use his prominent position and his life experience to strongly and publicly advocate for vaccination.
5
Public service commercials on TV and advertisements online need to be increased. They should include endorsements from a variety of sources including religious and conservative icons. They should include one example of a measles death. If I had my way they would include a scathing condemnation of Andrew Wakefield and his tribe. But that would probably have the effect popularizing his name ("Any publicity is good publicity."). Also, the concept of herd immunity needs to be taught in public school biology classes.
1
@Howard Winet
That's fine, if they also fairly share the stories of those who have died and been injured by vaccines.
2
Parents who do not vaccinate their healthy children are endangering children who cannot be vaccinated because of chronic illness or autoimmune disease. I believe this is immoral behavior, all because of ignorant conspiracy theories or self-important celebrities. If you were the parents of a child who could not be vaccinated for legitimate health reason, how would you feel about a measles outbreak in your community, merely caused by ignorance and arrogance?
2
The flu shot is NOT a vaccine! It does NOT give lifelong immunity. The results are spotty and research into what “flu” you might be tracking is a guess.
2
@Linda Solecki
The flu shot is most definitely a vaccine. The current formulation is not perfect. The antibodies produced wane after a while, and can only protect against specific strains of the influenza virus, but they are not harmful in any way, and offer real protection against infection. Scientists are working hard to understand these limitations, and develop a more long-lasting vaccine against all strains of influenza A (and B). In the meantime, do yourself a favor and get vaccinated every year.
2
@Linda Solecki Yes, NONE of the vaccines give lifelong immunity. In fact, after only 4 years, just 9% were still immune to pertussis. Artificial vaccinated immunity is spotty and should not be compared to natural immunity: lifelong for wild measles, 30 years for pertussis.
2
The first child I ever knew who died was my childhood friend who died of the flu.
This is a sound and sane argument but unfortunately it won't change the minds of many anti-vaxers. They have a conspiracy theory mindset that is very hard to break through.
My niece is one of them. Won't vaccinate her kids. I grew up overseas and saw firsthand some of the diseases that vaccines could have prevented. I wouldn't wish them on anyone. I told her this, and that vaccines were safe based on well-established and corroborated research. Her response was, "That is what they want you to think."
The only way to get many of these people to do the right thing for their kids is probably to mandate it.
7
I remember when my oldest son was a baby and a meningitis outbreak occurred where we lived. A swimmer on the team I coached nearly died and an infant did die. I went as quickly as I could to the clinic to get my son vaccinated with the then new vaccine. I didn't want to risk him suffering from the disease, or worse, dying from it. I recall all the moms feeling the same way. Nothing like a death and near death in one's immediate community to convince parents to get their kids vaccinated. Too bad science can't be believed instead.
6
As this too good to be true editorial describes, the benefits of vaccines have been demonstrated time and time again. The anti-vaccine propagandists use the infrequent adverse events of vaccines and the incidence of vaccine unrelated childhood health issues to make the case against vaccination using celebrities and social media. The picture of one suffering child can override the tables and graphs of the finest scientific studies. Our health care leadership needs to highlight individual cases of autism and other childhood illnesses from unvaccinated patients along with the studies showing vaccines do not increase the incidence in easily understandable format. The side effects of vaccination must also be clearly described as well as how they can be recognized and mitigated. Social media campaigns must be organized. Expert editorials are mistrusted by much of the public. Enlisting celebrity spokespersons across the religious, political and social spectrum would go farther.
2
@Daniel Salazar There is nothing infrequent about the 90,000 cases reported to the VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Effects Reporting System). Go and check out the thousands of vaccine injury testimonials online and talk to me about infrequency. And please, propaganda? Vaccine pro-choicers like me are a tiny embattled minority. The vaccine industry is a $25 billion/yr enterprise. Only one of those sides is able to engage in a propaganda campaign.
4
@Alex I just found a term for this argument: the fallacy of invincible ignorance. No matter how much scientific proof one provides, you choose to discount or ignore it. Alex, I'm old enough to remember classmates in braces, classmates dying of polio. My first husband spent months in an iron lung. It's true that some people have averse effects from vaccines, but the effects seldom go beyond fever and aches. They do not die, or spend the rest of their lives crippled.
4
@Alex you might not have financial motives personally but the natural health industry, which tends to promote anti-vaccination, is a large industry.
3
I grew up in the era of avoiding the beach in summer for fear of polio (which my brother had). Another brother had mumps meningitis. A cousin of my wife had a baby with congential rubella, and she has had to care for him well into adulthood. Measles was the sickest I ever have been in my life. Comments like "individual rights" fail to address the rights of those who are immunosuppressed and really can't have vaccines or the rights of all children not to have H. flu meningitis, hepatitis, varicella, MMR, and what we doctors used to call UCD (usual childhood diseases.) Individual rights are great when there are few others to affect and afflict with your choices; when there are a third of a billion in this country, we need to have regulations for the common good. Stated another way, I don't want through my taxes to pay for your child's encephalitis, paralysis, mental retardation, deafness, hydrocephalus, when it could have been avoided.
20
@Mike S. There is a common misunderstanding that measles death were raging in this country before the advent of the vaccine. In the two decades prior to the introduction of the vaccine (1963) the measles death rate was approximately 1 in 100,000 cases. Extremely small.
And frankly I don't want my taxes to pay for the 90,000 vaccine injury claims or the $4 billion administered to vaccine injured families through the National Vaccine court.
And remember, the instance of autism, spectrum disorders, auto-immune disorders, severe allergic reactions, learning disabilities, physical disabilities, etc. is skyrocketing in this country. I wonder what could be causing it?
4
@Alex death rates declined with improved health care. This doesn't account for incidents which dropped rapidly after the vaccine was introduced.
2
I lost most of my hearing from measles. I’m not the only one. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.
1
Let us not forget that in the U.S. there has been exactly one death from measles in the past 5 years, 11 in the past 20 years (per CDC). If you figure 5% of the population is unvaccinated, that’s 15 million people over the course of 20 years, or approximately 300 million opportunities for unvaccinated people to effect the NEXT GREAT PLAGUE. And yet it hasn’t happened. But it sure doesn’t stop the medical establishment from whipping everyone into a hysterical frenzy. One death in the past five years and we’re not only ready but willing to surrender our basic constitutional rights? What is going on here?
6
Your constitutional right to what? To be a disease vector?
The state has an interest in public health and education. Just as every child must attend school (or equivalent) so too must every child be vaccinated.
The medical community doesn’t show up at your front door in jackboots with guns to march your kid off to be vaccinated. They come to hearings armed with data showing lives saved and money spared not treating preventable disease. Laws are passed democratically, compelling certain actions for everyone’s benefit. No rights are abrogated.
If you don’t like it, make your case. That’s also part of the democratic process.
Meanwhile though, while whining about imaginary harm, are you prepared to shoulder the cost of actual harm? Fair would be if every parent refusing vaccinations paid directly into a fund for the cost of treatment and caring for those who suffer from not being vaccinated, including those who suffer gravely because they can’t sustain vaccination. Perhaps those who are indifferent to others’ suffering will pay closer attention to their own pocketbooks.
24
@James K. Lowden $4billion in compensation from deaths and injuries from vaccines isn't imaginary harm. Considering that there are vaccines that shed and spread the diseases to others (like MMR, chicken pox, the nasal flu, and the Rotavirus vaccine), when are those recently vaccinated people going to be quarantined to prevent them from spreading their disease to others? Or is just easier to place the people that aren't vaccinated on the list instead because the CDC will lose money when people find out that the CDC lied and has been lying?
3
@James K. Lowden
In addition, parents of unvaccinated children note that their children are typically healthier than the vaccinated ones. There's no way to scientifically prove this because scientists refuse to compare unvaccinated to vaccinated children, citing it as "unethical." However, if you ever care to look into these parenting circles (rather than making assumptions about them), is is quite typical that the unvaccinated children are much stronger physically and rarely fall ill. So - less weight on the healthcare system.
2
As far as I am aware none of the recent opinion pieces in the NYT on vaccines and vaccination have addressed education. It’s true we need sophisticated, social media savvy, public health interventions to counter the nonsense anti-vaxxers spew on line and via traditional media. But we also need really good science, health, and social studies education from elementary school up. Every functional high school student in the United States should understand and be able to explain how vaccines work from biological, chemical, and public health perspectives. They should also be able to accurately discus what the world was like before vaccines were ubiquitous. Lastly they should have a solid understanding of rhetoric and the way current media forms are used to exploit psycho/cultural anxieties (ie a solid basic media studies education). If we were properly educating our kids we would not be in such jeopardy viz something (that should be) as basic as vaccination.
24
@Sarabinh Levy-Brightman Very good points. It is clear that the anti-vaxxers have NO idea what life was like before the existence of vaccines.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/209448
If you don't read the whole article, this is what to take away: "A greater than 92% decline in cases and a 99% or greater decline in deaths due to diseases prevented by vaccines recommended before 1980 were shown for diphtheria, mumps, pertussis, and tetanus. Endemic transmission of poliovirus and measles and rubella viruses has been eliminated in the United States; smallpox has been eradicated worldwide. Declines were 80% or greater for cases and deaths of most vaccine-preventable diseases targeted since 1980 including hepatitis A, acute hepatitis B, Hib, and varicella. Declines in cases and deaths of invasive S pneumoniae were 34% and 25%, respectively."
14
@Sarabinh Levy-Brightman There is a common misunderstanding that measles death were raging in this country before the advent of the vaccine. In the two decades prior to the introduction of the vaccine (1963) the measles death rate was approximately 1 in 100,000 cases. Extremely small. Life before vaccines was a life where rates of autism, spectrum disorders, auto-immune disorders, severe allergic reactions, learning disabilities, physical disabilities, etc. were a fraction of what they are today. I wonder what could be causing all these problems?
3
Have you considered the fact that the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat have been contaminated-and with the gutting of EPA regulations it’s only going to get worse.
1
Thanks to these HHS leaders in the Trump administration for speaking the truth about the safety and efficacy of vaccines, as well as the dangers of the anti-vaccine movement. However, Drs. Giroir, Redfield, and Adams would do well to focus their education on their own Trump White House and the GOP - both fertile breeding grounds for for the anti-science movement in general, and anti-vaccine groups in particular.
19
I was given more vaccinations than average when I was a child. That was because, being a military family, we could go to places where diseases uncommon in the US were widespread. Vaccinations weren't fun (particularly in those days of reusable glass syringes and hand-sharpened injection needles), but they spared us from great misery.
As a person born in the late years of the post-WWII Baby-Boom, I grew up in that time where diseases such as measles and polio were becoming less common. Growing up overseas, however, I had school friends who had been the victims of what people feared the most in those days: Polio.
There were two boys in one of my classes (local equivalent of grammar school) who had had Polio. One had a brace on one leg. The other had a brace that went from his chest down to his feet. He had crutches, and could not move without them. I think of these two boys when I hear anti-vaccination rhetoric. I'm sure their parents wished the vaccination had been available for their sons.
I remember also the host country's push in the late 60's to eradicate tuberculosis. All the children in school got lined up and vaccinated against that disease, which was very common in the country where I grew up. No one died or got ill from the vaccine. No one got tuberculosis in that lot of students. As one commenter pointed out, it is difficult to get people excited about something that did not happen.
29
The anti-vax movement is an expression of people’s resentment at being gouged on health care and drug prices. It has nothing to do with science and medicine. No one who decides getting their kids vaccinated is doing so based on a careful assessment of the medical facts. Anti-vaxxers will deny this, because ignoring the facts is what they do, but it’s really about resentment of an industry that takes particular advantage of Americans. Explaining medical facts will have no effect on how people feel about sending their money to someone like Martin Shkreli.
8
@Peter
Add to that the addition of preservatives (Mercury) to vaccines to extend their shelf life, the questionable bundling of multiple vaccines into one injection, and the increasing number of vaccines necessary if you want to have your kids in public school (up next: HPV and flu...) and you have a good reason to be suspicious and resentful.
The medical justification for vaccines is eclipsed by the insanely profit driven system that administers them.
10
@Peter
As a child, I had measles, mumps, Rubella, and chicken pox. I remember measles and mumps the most clearly - it was awful. I got my kids vaccinated.
14
One need not defend any part of our healthcare so-called system to defend vaccination. Vaccines are in fact not very lucrative, enough so that the government underwrites their research and, in some cases, production.
The cruel reality is that lifetime treatment of chronic disease is much more profitable. $1 a day for 30 years is worth more than an armful of vaccines.
It’s worth remembering that whenever someone protests that pharmaceutical profits fund drug research. Yes, but which drugs?
10
I have worked in Children's Hospitals for several years. We see a lot of patients who have varying degrees of regression of 'normal' development. These unfortunate patients and their families almost uniformly tie the onset of problems with vaccines. In my experience, there is a universal belief that all of the problems experienced by these special children are caused by vaccines. People need someone or something to blame, and incorrect information feeds this problem. Bad things happen, and looking for a culprit is an automatic response.
30
You cannot stop people from expressing "vaccine hesitancy".
It should remain out in the open, where health professionals can clearly identify falsehoods.
The 1st Amendment provides protection from clear and present dangers. It could well be that an outbreak of disease will become the agent that cause that legal protection to be expanded to include what is now only a hypothetical.
In the meantime, freedom of speech should not shrink to accommodate public fear.
3
Which is why we are having this discussion. But freedom of speech should not be freedom from facts.
11
@Dsmith You again are mistaken. Many fact-filled and sourced comments here have been repressed.
2
My mother told me that when she was a child there would be polio outbreaks in her city and she and her sisters weren't allowed to go to the swimming pool or any other public venue where my grandparents feared they might be exposed. This is the world we will return to if too many people start forgoing vaccination. Anti-vaxxers are in fact terrorists, by definition, because they are spreading fear in their efforts to achieve a political objective. The irony is that while they spread fear of vaccines, they are also raising the specter of disease epidemics killing our children again. And that's the real climate of fear we don't want to see again.
21
My only child died from a vaccine preventable disease-meningitis.
He was only 16 yrs old, athletic, healthy. The love of my life.
In 2005, the meningitis vaccine was recommended to children prior to attending college.Now it is recommended starting at a younger age.
Bacterial meningitis, though rare, is swift and devastating.
My son died within 24 hours of symptoms.
I am a pharmacist who recommends an annual influenza vaccine, pneumonia vaccine to those > 65 yrs of age and the shingles vaccine. It's evidence based medicine.
41
I don't have much sympathy for the anti-vaccination folks. But what sympathy I do have comes from suspicion of big pharma. But more particularly, with the fact that the risks associated with vaccines tend not to be mentioned.
Stepping outside of the human vaccine realm, there is vaccine-induced feline sarcoma -- then renamed vaccine-associated. This is rare, but not insignificant -- "estimated an incidence of one in 1,000 to 0.63 in 10,000 cats vaccinated" (from Saba, cited below). I was surprised when my cat got this very fast-growing tumor at the vaccination site, and not surprised when I got a payout from Pfizer to not sue them. After that experience I did research, and it is, I believe, worth thinking about in itself. At any rate, things like this let me understand to some extent, though not agree with, the people who are suspicious of human vaccinations. I certainly would never vaccinate an indoor cat, at least, again.
I do not mean to say that those risks have anything to do with the risks of human vaccines. I simply mean that I was not told of any risks when I vaccinated my cat, and then she got vaccine-induced sarcoma, which afflicts between 1 and 1000 and 1 and 10,000 vaccinated cats. So that experience makes me sympathize with general wariness, suspicion, and yes, anger toward big pharma.
See just for example
Saba CF. Vaccine-associated feline sarcoma: current perspectives. Vet Med (Auckl). 2017;8:13-20. Published 2017 Jan 12. doi:10.2147/VMRR.S116556
5
@greenie Yes, I lost two small Yorkies to vaccine injury. It is important to look at what is happening with animals as well. Vets give the same dosage to a 4lb. Yorkie as well as a 90 lb. Akita. One Yorkie got an autoimmune disease called Pemphigus Vulgaris and only lived to age 6. The other, who was extremely healthy, received without my permission, a nasal Bordetella (pertussis) mist while we were on vacation and she stayed with our Vet. She got Stevens-Johnson Syndrome which killed her. My Vet stopped giving the nasal Bordetella permanently after this illness which lasted for months and was horrific before she succumbed. Another dog we rescued who weighed 10 lbs was so full of vaccines from the shelter became paralyzed for several days after we took her home but recovered.
4
@lechrist Sorry for your loss, but thank you for sharing your story. More people need to share their vaccine injury and death stories so that they don't feel like the only ones. There are thousands of vaccine injury testimonials online. Please contribute to one of the many forums. Thank you.
2
@greenie Fascinating. A payout from Pfizer? It's almost as if vaccines are not "100% safe and effective. Period." which is the party line these days. And by the way, just saying, but you should have more sympathy for vaccine pro-choicers, especially with a story like yours. Be brave!
1
Here's what I - a lay person - understand about vaccines:
1. Unless you get a single dose refrigerated vaccine, you're getting a vaccine that contains a preservative. That once was mercury, but may now be something else. Better pay extra for the single, refrigerated, dose.
2. Vaccines contain adjuvants - usually aluminum - to boost efficacy. Better to get a more expensive vaccine with a double dose of the virus, but no adjuvant.
3. The problem with the childhood vaccine MMR (mumps measles rubella) is that the 3 are combined in one big dose - too big for many young children. Better to space out the doses.
4. The flu vaccine is usually ineffective because makers have a difficult time predicting just what each year's flu will be.
Drug companies have proven themselves to be untrustworthy and greedy. How can anyone be blamed for not trusting them?
15
@Marilyn Hown have drug companies proven themselves to be untrustworthy? And in a what way?
And even if you're right, it doesn't mean people shouldn't be vaccinated against prevenable diseases .
10
"A lay person..."
Please stop there. There is no substantial data to support anything else you've asserted. And in many parts of the world, vaccines with preservatives are the only reliable option. Vaccines aren't espresso shots - I don't think you get to order a double because you have a few extra bucks.
Bottom line:
You don't get on a plane and tell the pilots how to fly.
You don't go to a construction site and tell the engineers how to design the building.
You don't show up at a raging fire and give advice to the fire department.
Why do people armed with nothing more than newspaper articles and blog posts think they know more than the CDC, FDA and decades of evidence-based vaccine research? EVEN MOST DOCTORS aren't qualified to say anything useful about vaccine schedules, composition and immunologic response.
44
@Sam If I'm being mandated to fly in a plane where the manufacturer is not liable if I'm killed or injured due to their negligence in testing their equipment and engines for safety, I sure will be checking the pilot's license, track-record, and any other information I can get about the manufacturer's records. If you're going to mandate that I have to have all these vaccines and the vaccine makers are not liable for any damages the vaccines cause to me, perhaps you haven't been informed about the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, VAERS, or read a vaccine insert in its entirety?
5
Anti-vaccination movements are without foundation and a threat to public health. There must be consequences for parents not vaccinating their children as required.
35
@DENOTE MORDANT Where there is a risk (and there are many), there must be a choice.
2
I wish this op-ed had included specifics to rebut more of the misinformation-- beyond what relates to claims about autism-- that travels the net about vaccines. For instance: that polio subsided naturally and that vaccination did not affect the trajectory of the disease.
12
@C. Reed Agreed. I don't think many people would accept the truth about disease cycles and the modern importance of cleanliness, clean air and water and in uncrowded housing which is the most important framework of health, along with chemical-free food. A healthy immune system is paramount to fighting disease, not shots.
7
@lechrist The vaccination does not just protect people with a healthy immune system. Every vaccinated person is no longer a potential carrier of the disease and thus lowers the probability of infection for those with a weak immune system and those that cannot be vaccinated for whatever reason. This is a social issue, not (just) an individual one.
18
@Philipp Except that there are several diseases that are spread from vaccines: Measles.
Mumps.
Rubella.
Chicken pox.
Rotavirus.
Nasal flu vaccine
These vaccines shed, meaning they can and have spread from recently vaccinated people. Your claim that people must vaccinate in order to protect those that can't receive them is unfounded and inappropriate.
7
I am happy to see the highest health officials in the nation discussing the issue and providing the evidence. In a time of ignorance of parts of the population, such leadership is called for.
20
For the anti-vaxxers here, the autism epidemic we are experiencing is caused by older parenting. People in their 40s are having children far more frequently than in years past. There's a price for that.
6
@Anne
Autism epidemic? I think that has more to do with the definition of autism than with actual occurances. People who are now diagnosed with autism, would never have had that diagnose in the 90's.
20
@Anne Where did you get that dribble about people in their 40's having children causing this autism explosion? I'd like to see that data. @DBruinsma The explosion of more vaccines in the mid to late 90's and the NVCIA- making vaccine manufacturers liability-free from injury or deaths from their products- in 1986 is what has caused this autism and other neurological problems epidemic.
1
I am 72 years old and grew up in Europe. There were no vaccines and I had it all. Measles, Mumps, Whooping Cough, Chicken Pox. I almost died from untreated strep at age 6 because there were no antibiotics for that. I watched my mother's cousin spend her life in a wheelchair because of Polio. My kids got every vaccine that the pediatrician recommended. No regrets here.
52
@AMM
That’s interesting - I’m 64, grew up in Massachusetts and had the same diseases you had, plus German measles, then had a scary nine-month run in with untreatable infection as a teenager. My kids are vaccinated to the max, and perfectly healthy.
11
Not all vaccines are equal, The vaccine schedule continues to increase with some questionable vaccines being added. The load of vaccines isn't even mentioned in this article, and with the amount of vaccines being given now, compared to 20-30 years ago this needs to be addressed. How does this impact a baby's fragile immune system. Are all these vaccines necessary, some vaccines like the Hepatitis B vaccine given at birth are dubious since the incidence of hepatitis B is very low. The vaccine schedule needs to be adjusted would go along way in regaining trust in vaccines.
13
@Lawe The incidence of Hep B is very low exactly because persons are vaccinated very soon after birth. That's the problem with vaccines: they are so effective in almost eradicating diseases, that people become complacent, forgetting that even a little drop in vaccination rate has huge effects on herd immunity, opening up the opportunity for diseases that had almost disappeared to spread again. I vaccinated my children with all mandatory vaccines and also the simply recommended ones, like the flu vaccine. Now that we are older, we did the latest shingles vaccine and pneumonia vaccines.
27
@Lawe Pediatrician Dr. Paul Thomas deals with this very issue. He has found a way to keep his patients healthy by not following the heavy schedule (this was after autism started popping up in his practice with regularity by following the government's absurd schedule), yet still vaccinating and working with parents. His books are on Amazon and highly rated.
9
@Lawe
The concern regarding getting too many vaccines at a time is ridiculous and demonstrates ignorance. We have literally billions of immune responses daily, in our gut and on our skin. It doesn't overchallenge the system or cause any ill effect. We've evolved to respond to the challenge. These harebrained theories have no basis in science or logical thought.
2
Here is a simple but effective policy to deal with parents who prevent their children from being vaccinated. Any parents who prevent their child from being vaccinated — and that child dies from a disease preventable by a required vaccine — have committed first-degree murder and will be prosecuted.
14
@Irving Franklin
The death penalty has been proven to be no deterrent to violent crime and causes more problems than it solves. Too many people think too many problems can be addressed by a"simple but effective policy." "Policy" invariably means having the government pass a law. Better for the overwhelming majority of people who get their kids vaccinated to refuse to send their children to any school without a mandatory and verifiable vaccination policy.
4
@Irving Franklin Just a reminder, since the powers that be have whipped everyone into a frenzy (over, let's face it, measles. No one's talking much about mumps), that in the U.S. there has been exactly one death from measles in the past 5 years, 11 in the past 20 years (per CDC). That puts your chance of dying from measles at (approximately) 1 in a billion in any given year. And further, If you figure 5% of the population is unvaccinated, that’s 15 million people over the course of 20 years, or approximately 300 million oportunities for unvaccinated people to harm vaccinated people. And yet it hasn’t happened. But it sure doesn’t stop the medical establishment from whipping everyone into a hysterical frenzy.
1
I recently sat on a bench at the playground, watching my three-year-old play, when I overheard a conversation on the next bench over. It was about vaccines and I will only quote the sentence that was most shocking to me. A mother said: „yeah, I mean, vaccines CAN be useful, but you don’t need to blindly vaccinate against EVERYTHING. Like, what does a child need a tetanus vaccine for?!“ Said while her baby played in the sand (German playgrounds have sand and it is not cleaned or aerated to kill the tetanus virus that thrives in it).
Tetanus is not like measles. It doesn’t respond to treatment around 30% of the time. And it’s easy to catch if you dig in the dirt a lot.
43
Plus, when a child gets scratched or even bitten by another child, such vaccination is essential to minimize risk....
4
@Julia Tetanus can only survive in anaerobic conditions, not just playing in dirt. People believe that getting scratched by a cat or cut by a piece of glass can give you tetanus. That simply is not true. If you bleed after a cut, you're not going to get tetanus because there is oxygen in your blood- therefore the tetanus cannot survive and produce the toxin that causes you to become ill. If you're concerned about tetanus you can get a Tig (tetanus immunoglobulin) instead of the tetanus vaccine that includes pertussis and diptheria (dTap). The 'blindly vaccinating against everything' is referring to just that. Getting 3 vaccines to cover one disease is overkill and does not work after the fact- er's push these vaccines everytime someone gets an open injury and it's useless. It takes at least 2 weeks for the vaccine to work, if it works at all.
4
@Lynn Imunoglobulin is a short term fix, It has its own risks of an imune response and I can assure you that you would not want it if it could be avoided,it is extremely painful.
An open cut is unlikely to pick up tetanus but often in dirt and play grounds splinters are present and a deepish prick is all it needs.
I do wonder where you get you information from and why you trust it over studies done on 1/2 a million or mare populations. You quote many odd events which may seem to be connected to a vaccination without proof that the connection is real.
Remember that every person is an individual and a small proportion may have a gene which makes them susceptible to some component of that particular vaccine. There is no way we can ever be 100% certain that there will never be a reaction to any medical procedure.
Anti-vax people should understand that these diseases have a long history of causing death or disability, the advent of vaccination has almost wiped them out so most of us never see them and have no idea how devastating they can be. Whatever ones feelings about oneself/family having them we must bear in mind that we do have a responsibility to our neighbour and we should not put them at unnecessary risk.
2
I think there is a conceit among certain politically-minded people that failure to vaccinate is primarily a political problem, and that if only "those people" would "believe" science, then the problem would be solved.
I doubt that this is primarily a religious or political problem. There are many reasons why people do not vaccinate. To begin to solve the problem, more research needs to be done to discover the primary ones, and the ones that can be most easily remedied.
Name-calling, denigration, and finger-pointing are probably not going to be the best ways to solve the problem.
8
@Clickman For starter, vaccines should be free of charge. Secondly, public schools should not accept children or teachers who are not vaccinated. And private schools should inform parents if there are unvaccinated children among them, so parents would have the choice of leaving that particular school. The truth is that parents who do not vaccinate their children de facto rely on the coverage provided by all the other vaccinated children, so yes, there is a issue of selfishness there.
26
@lechrist
The vast majority of physicians are unvaccinated? That's simply not true. Any hospital I've ever worked in has required me to show that I've been vaccinated yearly for the flu as well as received my full course of Hep B vaccine. Not to mention the titers that were drawn when I got into medical school, residency and upon hiring to prove immunity to varicella, mumps, measles, and rubella...
43
@lechrist Every argument you make is refuted by the evidence.
Your assertion that those who have been vaccinated shouldn't worry about those who havent been vaccinated seem rather allous .
3
Three things.
1) after the countless dollars of research money have been spent, the one thing we can RULE OUT as a cause of autism is vaccinations.
2) anti vaccine beliefs have become religion to many. No amount of evidence will convince them otherwise and, in fact, will paradoxically entrench their beliefs ever deeper. Try telling a born-again evangelical holy roller that there is just no evidence for their God, and you’ll have the same result.
3) as the spouse of an autistic spectrum person and relative and friend to many others, how heinous are these anti vaccination parents who would rather have a dead child than an autistic one? My spouse is a somewhat eccentric gifted computer programmer, musical genius, and loving father. And our children get their shots ON TIME EVERY TIME.
58
@Chanda So which evidence do you have that vaccines cause autism, or any other disease, if that matters? I am very happy I vaccinated our children for all mandatory and recommended diseases, and we recently got our vaccinations against shingles and pneumonia. And we get the flu shot every single year. We are all healthy. Every single person I know has been vaccinated, they are all healthy, no autism.
1
Actually it's worse than described here.
With the relative ease of travel, non-vaccinated children can and do often fly all over the world becoming ill in one country and potentially infecting others in other countries. Sometimes, they arrive ill in a different country. The possibilities are endless as to the havoc they can wreak.
42
The ethics of vaccination are as follows. There are three groups.
First, there are parents who have their children vaccinated.
Second, there are parents whose children cannot be vaccinated per their physician's advice.
Third, there are parents whose children are healthy and who do NOT vaccinate them.
This third group is acting unethically toward the second. They put in jeopardy the health of others by their actions.
I don't believe there are any philosophical or religious exemptions possible to this logic. If you want your child to go to public or private schools and other activities with other children they need vaccinations. That should be the law.
96
@TNM If your child is vaccinated and safe from disease then it should not matter to you if others are not vaccinated because your child is not at risk. Your argument makes no sense.
3
Since vaccines are not fully effective in all who get them, the third group also endangers the first group and, let's not forget, they endanger their own children.
1
Once a parent I know who refused vaccines for her children, then took her daughter to a nail salon as a treat.
If I am going to risk exposing my children to "chemicals," I would rather it be the "chemicals" in vaccines in a doctor's office, with health benefits, rather than the chemicals in nail salons, with the only purpose being vanity.
My decision: vaccines, yes; manicures, no.
29
I am broadly in favor of essential vaccinations. However, I experienced measles, mumps and chicken pox as a child, and although these are not pleasant diseases, their consequences are far less severe than those of polio or tetanus.
At some point, the purpose of vaccination inevitably shifts from improving public health to enriching the vaccine makers. And, given that the vaccines are brought to us by the same people that brought us OxyContin, fen-phen, and those silicone breast implants that dissolve in a woman’s body, why would anyone put confidence in the “research” that they sponsor.
Rationally, it makes sense to get vaccinated against diseases that you are likely to encounter, and where the consequences might be life threatening. I recently got a set of DPT booster shots, but I don’t get vaccinated for malaria because I’m not at risk of catching it.
I would be highly suspicous if the government health authorities suddenly started claiming that everyone in Canada and the U.S. was legally obliged to take a malaria vaccination, or that the newly-discovered flugelhorn virus was responsible for male pattern baldness (and treatable for only $29.99 a month!).
The anti-vaxxers are a problem, but they are not the only charlatans in the room. If anything, they are a healthy response of the body politic to the pharmaceutical charlatans that preceded them.
9
@Andrew M.
What you are ignoring, or perhaps unaware of, is that for vaccinations to prevent epidemics, a certain proportion of the population must be vaccinated -- that's just a mathematical fact that emerges from models of disease transfer. Therefore, you might feel that it's rational to pick and choose which vaccines you want (as you wrote, "it makes sense to get vaccinated against diseases that you are likely to encounter") but you're endangering others by doing so. The anti-vaxxers are not a 'healthy response' to anything.
45
Data is not the plural of anecdote. Just because you had measles and mumps as a kid and we’re fine, doesn’t mean those diseases don’t kill or disable other people who contract them. It just means you were lucky.
Most people who get the flu have a terrible week or two and then move on with their lives. They would all say the flu is not as bad as polio. The 80,000 people who died might disagree.
55
@Andrew M. It is not true that the purpose of vaccinations is to enrich the vaccination makers.
26
Both sides have a point. Vaccines are a major success story and are overwhelmingly safe. Avoiding them puts a child, and the greater society at risk.
And big pharma chases profit over all else. A manageable number of deaths due to vaccine is perfectly acceptable to them.
5
@RCH Could you please provide links to peer-reviewed articles showing the "number of deaths due to vaccine"? Peer-reviewed articles only, please.
If you are a parent, grandparent or have a child you love in your life, ask that child's doctor about the practice's policy regarding unvaccinated kids. Families who refuse to vaccinate their children are the real risk to your child's health.
Vaccines DO NOT cause autism.
41
The measles vaccine was yet to come when I had the measles at about four or five years old. The room I lay abed in had to be kept dark and I burned with fever. My parents feared I would not live. All these many years later I still remember the fever-induced hallucinations. I cried because the Easter bunny wouldn't know I couldn't look for eggs outside, although my parents assured me he would. Easter morning found the decorated eggs hidden in my bedcovers and he had even left a 'measles' cake ~ white frosting with red spots.
During the polio epidemic my parents left me with my grandparents on their isolated farm in Virginia.
Vaccinations during my childhood would have been considered a miracle. When my own daughter was small I once stormed her doctor's office demanding a smallpox vaccination for her as they had apparently overlooked it. No, I was advised, smallpox had been eradicated. We don't want a return of diseases that can now be controlled.
55
@JessiePearl Gee, I have a lot different memory of the measles. Everyone got them when I was a kid, and no one had any lasting problems, I had a fever, not like you described and I itched but it was not scary and I got the mumps and chicken pox as well. And I never heard of any lasting problems about any child from them. I guess we were all lucky in my town. Unfortunately for what ever reason, some children do die or do develop autism from the vaccinations, There are too many cases of this to pretend it doesn't happen. Beware of Big Pharma, making money is their first priority, not health
2
To sum up the best suggestions I've seen so far:
- unvaccinated kids (except those excused for medical reasons) should not be allowed to come to school
- unvaccinated kids should not be eligible for standard health insurance policies, since they just drive up the cost for the rest of us. Special, high cost policies can be devised.
41
@Election Inspector
Actually, parents who do not vaccinate their children know that it is their children who go to the doctor a fraction of the amount that vaccinated kids do.
4
@Amy Where do you come up with this stuff? I was vaccinated as a child, I spent minimal time in a doctor's office and have had robust health for years. I was also raised with the understanding that I have an obligation to act ethically toward the other humans with whom I share the planet.
55
@Lillies I was given the polio vaccine contaminated with cancer causing monkey virus. I learned about it from Time Magazine quoting the CDC. And from pub med: "The presence of SV40 in monkey cell cultures used in the preparation of the polio vaccine from 1955 through 1961 is well documented. Investigations have consistently demonstrated the oncogenic behavior of SV40 in animal models. Early epidemiologic studies were inadequate in demonstrating an increase in cancer incidence associated with contaminated vaccine. Recently, investigators have provided persuasive evidence that SV40 is present in human ependymomas, choroid plexus tumors, bone tumors, and mesotheliomas," It was given to millions.
There are millions of people who have no idea they were being harmed. The ethical action to take is an open dialogue and not believe that all vaccines are always safe. The government (CDC) admits they knew about the contamination all the while telling people it was safe.
5
Many thanks to the three writers for this article. It can't be said often or loudly enough: vaccinations save lives, and a level of vaccination in a population is needed to protect those who can't be vaccinated for some medical reason. I'm thankful also that, in this administration, these three apparently have not been noticed, and so haven't been removed from office by Trump, for whom science and truth are intolerable.
37
Sadly, we've developed a pill-popping culture in the United States where we have been conditioned away from listening to our bodies and taking good care of ourselves as the best defenses to illness. Fortunately, however, we still have the power to make choices about what happens to our own bodies. Some people might decide that the risks associated with vaccines are outweighed by the potential benefits, but many people have decided that it does not make sense for them if they are in good health and there are less risky / more effective options available, e.g., elderberry for the flu. A truly truthful article would objectively present both sides of the debate and find a sensible middle where vaccines make sense in certain circumstances for some people but not for everyone all the time.
9
@MG
The people for whom vaccines don't make sense are the immuno-compromised.
The rest of the community can then keep infections at bay for themselves *and* those who cannot get vaccines, by building a herd immunity to communicable diseases.
Refusing vaccines is an act of selfishness, refusing to take on a minute individual risk to benefit the community.
71
Such a great deal of effort goes into specious arguments like this. Tell me, fellow Californian, what are these vaccine risks you refer to?
Our local Nextdoor community has one or two who constantly carry on about vaccine risks and choices, and healthy diets and they seem to be in a hard denial about reality, and just repeat the same unscientific talking points again and again (while they live a life of comfort create entirely by science)
It’s like trying to reason with a cult member.
66
I do wonder if you would feel this way if you had an immune compromised child in the middle of a measles epidemic.
I really appreciate this article and experts trying to educate people about the reality of vaccines. But tragically, it seems it is preaching to the choir. Those who believe vaccines are bad and dangerous continue to believe it and no facts, no data, no doctors, no scientists are ever going to convince them otherwise.
Unless we put strict vaccination laws in place we are going to have to suffer even worse outbreaks of preventable diseases before those who won’t vaccinate their children see reality for what it is. Only then will the anti-vaccine cult disintegrate into irrelevancy. But in the meantime it will kill people. Many who die will be small children.
The only thing that will change these parents’ minds will be when they become truly frightened of their children dying from these horrible but preventable diseases. It’s tragic. We’ve been here before. We know what life was like before vaccines. Why, why, why, do we need to repeat that? Why do these anti-vaccine parents have to have some awful experience like seeing a child close to them die from something preventable before they believe the facts? How many people have to die to convince them?
40
@SkL Taking away someone's ability to decide what happens to their body or their children and placing that power into the hands of the government runs completely contrary to the basic fundamental freedoms this country was built on. A law mandating vaccines would be readily be struck down as unconstitutional.
9
@MG: public health and preventing diseases constitute compelling government interests. A law requiring vaccination is, accordingly, absolutely constitutional even when applying strict scrutiny. There’s a long line of cases — including two in the Supreme Court — supporting compulsory vaccination.
38
@MG We regularly see persons prosecuted for the deaths of their children owing to rejection of modern medicine to cure acute conditions easily treated by modern medicine. It is my opinion that the deaths of children owing to the religious or other principles opposed to our best medical practices are equally subject to prosecution for neglect resulting in death.
24
After a while you give up. You realize that the approach some people have about something is not rational, and no amount of reasoning will change their view. Also, you realize that many people do not have the technical expertise and education to really have an informed, proper opinion. that sounds snobbish, but it is true.
Some things are unquestionably for the greater good of our society, all people, all the time. Vaccines are one of those situations. They should be compulsory. End of story.
51
@J According to ABC News, parents who choose not to vaccinate their children are generally better educated than those who choose to vaccinate. See https://abcnews.go.com/Health/parents-vaccinate-kids-tend-affluent-educated-experts/story?id=60674519
Logic and science will not convince anti-vaccers. The current epidemic is convincing some.
Don't admit their kids to any publicly funded school.
Have the families pay all the medically related expenses due to vaccine preventable diseases, except for those with medical contra-indications to vaccination. Put this stipulation in their insurance policies.
38
@turbot
And, clear the way for civil lawsuits for damages caused by their children infecting/damaging/harming and killing other people.
2
It's frustrating to keep reading the same weary argument against vaccines, and the hard-to-kill myth that the preservative thimerosal causes autism.
Fifteen years ago I worked at a small medical advertising agency on one of their largest accounts, Fluzone and other vaccines manufactured by Aventis (now Sanofi) Pasteur.
Part of our charge was to produce communication materials dispelling the thimerosal controversy based on an earlier Danish study, updated per this article.
It took more than facts in 2004 to disabuse folks of believing vaccines were dangerous--no wonder in our truth-free age, that paranoia is making a comeback.
To think that so many deadly diseases, virtually eradicated in the late 90s and early 2000s, are making a comeback is an indictment of science literacy in this country.
The medical community has to try harder, but in the end, there's only so much you can do if people refuse to trust scientists.
26
@ChristineMcM I spoke to a Canadian scientist who has been studying thimerosal who disagrees with you. There are no safe minimums of mercury, which is a potent neurotoxin. Did you know that IQs around the world are declining? This could be part of that puzzle. TheViennaReport.US/medical professionals speak out/
2
Anit-vaxxers depend on the rest of us to vaccinate our children so they can avoid rational thinking on this issue. At the same time, they consign the rest of us to the dangers of preventable diseases - most particularly the medically vulnerable among us who cannot be vaccinated - from exposure to their little bundles of contagion.
Vaccinations should be required in all states with no exemptions for "religious" or "philosophical" reasons. Those who press for non-medical exemptions should be required to carry liability insurance for the medical expenses of those they might infect, alert people with whom their children come in contact that they may be infectious, be barred from public and commercial venues and their insurance premiums should be increased to cover the potential costs of contracting these diseases, just as premiums are increased for smokers.
Ask these people if they would vaccinate their children before taking them somewhere that these diseases are endemic.
33
What is going on with all these articles about measles vaccines? From a purely public health standpoint, there were 372 deaths in a population of 325 million people in the U.S. last year from measles, and 120 the year before - not much more than the number of annual bee sting deaths. Measles vaccines are appropriate in poor countries with unhealthy populations - but why this over-the-top hysteria in the U.S? And speaking of risks, does anybody read the vaccine inserts? Read them - where's the data, the studies, the control groups to prove claims of permanent, harmless immunity? There's a lot missing that needs to be explained. Is it not possible that we are trading strong natural immunity to disease for a false sense of protection (pertussis, mumps) or even worse, spreading disease from a live virus vaccine (yep- it's one in the long list of risks.) Vaccines have a wonderful role in preventing serious, debilitating diseases such as polio, but stop acting as if they're a panacea. Meanwhile, the other still-overused disease eradicator and cure-all is wreaking havoc on people's immune systems across the world -antibiotics. Licensed physicians in this country and other advanced western countries continue to prescribe antibiotics unnecessarily to thousands of patients. it is one of the most serious public health issues facing the globe. But who is talking about that?
17
Nothing we put in our body is inert. The word "drug" comes from the Dutch language I believe, which meant any substance that alters blood chemistry. That includes, food, water, herbs, etc. Anything. And yes, antibiotics have been overused to the point where bacteria can evade that best of them. There's something you assume here: There are some of us who are capable of having intelligent, informed conversations with our doctors. And there are doctors who are making efforts to dial back antibiotic usage. Please don't paint every doctor or health care person with the same brush. It takes two to have helpful conversations. To hear you write it, we patients are mindless victims of an invasive medical system. I used to think the same. I have had experiences that have changed my point of view.
4
@Lily, the reason deaths from measles are low in the US is because we vaccinate!
If you think “natural immunity” will save your life, read up on medical history of the 17th or 18th or 19th century. Or, if you have a child, take a look at the death rates of children in those pre-vaccine eras.
Antibiotics are over-prescribed for sure. But antibiotics still cure—yes, cure—all kinds of bacterial diseases that, in earlier centuries, killed millions upon millions of people.
16
@ Lily. The misuse and overuse antibiotics is an area of great concern in health care. The same people who strongly advocate vaccination for deadly illness are also urging caution and prudence in the utilization of antibiotics.
12
This excellent article should clearly convince rational people on the overwhelming benefits of vaccination. Why doesn’t it? I believe it is because people do not evaluate risks and probabilities rationally. Vaccinations have a very tiny chance of causing serious side-effects, but many people feel that they somehow are favored targets of these side-effects. It is like the irrational fear of flying and the comfort in driving. Conversely, individuals often feel safe when they shouldn’t. I am acquainted with a British scientist who refused to allow his son to be vaccinated, because in viewing a crowd of 40,000 in Wembley Stadium one afternoon, he couldn’t imagine his son being that one person in such a large crowd who get whooping cough, a potentially lethal condition. Unfortunately, that is just what befell to his son, who thankfully survived. Add to this the all too common susceptibility of people to believe in conspiracy and crazy, pseudo-scientific theories and the sometimes likable charlatans who promote them, and it is no wonder that people are making bad choices.
23
Is the purpose of this article to convince those of us who are wary of vaccines, or is it to mobilize the majority into suppressing our minority?
Because the article does not address any of our deepest concerns, I fear it is the latter.
We won't vaccinate before the age of six because of the possible inflammation on their young, forming brains. Want to prove that this shouldn't be a concern? Link to the scientific evidence please.
13
Hopefully, you have done serious research before making your post. I don’t think so, because the vast, vast majority of published, peer reviewed scientific research supports the fact that immunization is far more likely to save lives than cause death or any serious complication. There is no serious research proving otherwise. I fear for any child whose parent believes the anti-vaccination opinions.
42
@Jim
Yes, I have read many studies. Like I said, if you can find ONE study that shows the current vaccine schedule does not cause inflammation to young brains point me to it. I am open minded. Just haven't been able to find any actual studies of that, which is a prime concern of mine.
6
While you are at it, I can't find a single study that doesn't prove, conclusively, that vaccines don't cause children to turn into werewolves later in life. What reasonable parent would take that chance?
3
Glad that I raised my child decades ago, things seemed a lot simpler then.
11
I saw tetanus during my work in Africa. Babies were dying of it and an older child I saw developed partial paralysis. Pertussis (whooping cough) was there, too.
Measles has been rare until recently in the US. Now there are outbreaks because more children are not immunized. Measles can cause encephalitis (brain inflammation) and death. It is not an "innocent childhood disease." We have become much too complacent and much too credulous of unscientific propaganda.
Sixteen children have died of influenza this year--so far. The flu vaccine is not perfect, but it could have prevented some of these deaths.
22
I did some work in Liberia in 2004, shortly after their civil conflict ended. Hundreds of thousands of people were internally displaced or refugees. The health care and public health systems were almost entirely supported by non-government organizations like Doctors Without Borders. UNICEF was launching an urgent national campaign to get measles vaccinations to kids in remote areas. I wish I could invite anti-vaxxers to that time and place to witness a world they can only dream of: a vaccine-free paradise. The luxury to reject vaccinations is a first-world privilege.
To those who would respond to this by saying “Well, of course vaccinations are needed in developing countries! They have a lot more cases of these diseases there!” I say this: *facepalm*
1
Vaccination and the chlorination of municipal drinking water systems are two (2) of the greatest triumphs for Public Health in the past century. This OP-ED is critically important in its reminder to the readers of The Times of the significance of vaccination.
45
Over 30,000 people die each year in car accidents, of which some 2,000 are children under the age of 16. Non-fatal injuries are much higher. So, how many parents who refuse to vaccinate their children don't give a second thought to driving them around?
18
@Mike
Seatbelts are a good analogy for vaccines. Seatbelts could harm a person in an accident--but it's far more likely that the seatbelt will save the wearer's life.
Not getting a child vaccinated is like not putting a seatbelt on a child, because in the unlikely case of a car accident, the seatbelt might hurt the child. Yes, it might: but it's far more likely to prevent a worse outcome.
And nobody talks about the "big seatbelt" conspiracy of the seatbelt manufacturers lobbying the car makers to put seatbelts in every car and pass legislation that requires children to wear seatbelts. Or the special interests of the pro-automobile lobbyists working in back rooms to get people to buy cars with (*gasp*) more safety features.
27
The authors say that vaccines don't contain toxic chemicals. Isn't aluminum a chemical and isn't it a neurotoxin? That's what is in several vaccines. Whether or not it is an"insignificant" amount, I'm confused why the author claims this.
7
@Corey
Aluminum is an element. What is found in vaccines is usually Aluminum Hydroxide which is a chemical. Any google search can tell you whcih vaccines it's in. It's in the vacicines to enhance the effectiveness of the vaccine and often to reduce the number of doeses required. Any decent google search will tell you this. Any decent google search will also break down the amounts a child would be exposed to by a typical course of a vaccine. Those amounts are significantly smaller than the aluminum (in elemental form or as various compounds) all of us are exposed to everyday we are alive here on planet earth via the food/beverages we consume or the air we breathe. Aluminum is the third (I think) most common element on earth after silicon and oxygen. No one will ever escape contact with it. And the belief that Aluminum causes Ahlzheimers has been strongly disputed with scientific evidence. Again, be your own best proponent and do a google search but make sure you read legitimate scientific sources from both sides of the argument. I think you'll find that the legitimate scientific sources that fan the flames of the anti-vaccine movement are neither scientific nor legitimate.
50
@Corey
Aluminum is not a toxic chemical. We wrap our food in it (aluminum foil) and it's a component of antacids we take for stomach upset. Maalox and Mylanta both contain aluminum hydroxide which we take orally.
1
The Danish measles study all over the news today raises some interesting questions. Why is the autism rate in their study (1 in a 100) 3 times lower than the rate in the U.S.? Why is it significantly lower than the official Danish rate (1 in 68). Why did it not include any information on the other 11 common mandatory vaccines? Why does the study set up a vaccinated/unvaccinated paradigm when the "unvaccinated" group received all 11 other vaccines? And finally, why no mention of it being funded by Danish biotech giant Novo Nordisk Foundation with research completed by Danish vaccine maker Statens Serum Institut? If the makers of the vaccines are tasked with testing them, it begins to look a little like tobacco science.
15
@Alex. I don't think "tobacco science" can claim to have saved 21 million lives over 19 years.
29
Interesting. I wish the study was done with truly unvaccinated children. That would shed more light on the debate and perhaps convince many people whether they are safe or not.
I remember when Camp McCoy in Wisconsin was converted to a polio hospital. That was 1952 and there were 23000 cases of paralytic polio reported in the US and hundreds of children died.The polio hospitals were closed in 1955 thanks to the Salk vaccine.
56
The days when small pox was a scourge, has been conveniently forgotten by all the non believers of vaccination. There is a risk in vaccinating ones child, but how much is it. There is more risk in driving a car, or crossing the street, or being struck by a lightning. Maybe we should stay indoors or better still, go back to living in caves or on trees.
33
Let's not forget about the threat that unvaccinated people pose to the rest of us, most importantly the most vulnerable people - young children and the elderly. These people are walking time bombs.
3
The government, the States and local governments should simply ban all unvaccinated from entering school unless they have a clear *medical* reason for not vaccinating their child and the doctor approves it in a written note published on the CDC website in a database with the child’s name blacked out to protect their identity. And the doctor should except NO religious or bogus claim for not vaccinating. The truth is autism is parents do not ant to accept autism is genetically caused and a complex disease. I feel their pain. But they are endangering their child and public health. And our society is built and on science. Let doctors proclaim they can push science aside for religious or social reasons for not vaccinating and publish their decision on the web. No vaccinating, no public school.
29
Many thanks to the authors for this excellent article. I do believe that it helps to keep combating ignorance with understandable facts and numbers. Maybe the current crop of anti-vaxxer parents are too far gone to reach, but at least we can hope that their kids will grow up to have more sense.
17
Insurance Companies can add provisions to their policies which refuse to pay medical expenses for children who require treatment for a disease that could have been prevented with a vaccine. This would put an end to most of this nonsensical behavior by parents who would now have to pay the bills.
45
Has anybody ever looked at the NON vaccinated population for evidence that the autism rates are lower than in the vaccinated population?
8
The most recent study, as I understand it, looked at both vaccinated & unvaccinated children & concluded that MMR vaccination carries no greater greater risk of autism. A statistician may correct me if I’m wrong, but I read that as also meaning that *not* vaccinating has no benefit in terms of preventing autism.
33
@NSF
You are absolutely correct.
@Jean claude the damned
Yes of course they have, many times. That is why scientists know that the autism rate does not go up with a vaccination. Indeed, that is the only way one could come up with such conclusive evidence.
1
Sadly it seems that individuals are increasingly more focused on their own unique interests than in our greater society. Perhaps this has to do with the length of time we are from WWII and the associated clarity that fines with seeing what happens when societies don’t stand for what it right as a group.
In this case it is public health. One need not look at more than the front page on a daily basis to see the same as it relates to racism, anti-semitism, etc.
16
This is a great article, well said from three medical authorities on the topic of vaccinations. The authors ought to take their message a step further and appear on talk shows to continue spreading this important message. There are too many distractors with misinformation about vaccines. The public needs accurate, medical advice from authorities they can trust. As high as the vaccination rates are in this country, I wonder what we as a nation can do to increase the vaccination rate even more through legislation and good public policy.
Irwin Goldzweig, Retired Assistant Professor
Department of Family & Community Medicine
Meharry Medical College
Nashville, TN
32
Whenever I hear about Big Pharma’s supposed “conspiracy” to pay off researchers who say that vaccines are safe, the CDC, and various public health agencies around the world, I start asking myself just how much it would cost to achieve this evil goal. They’d have to pay off thousands or tens of thousands of people and dozens of agencies. And then they’d have to keep paying to keep us all to keep quiet. Seriously: it would cost billions in research grants and follow-on hush money: pay for my kid’s education or the jig is up, buddy! They’d have to spend more on bribes than they make on vaccines.
And where are they running this giant operation? In the basement of a DC pizza parlor? And let’s face it: wouldn’t a few people go public with documents showing bank transfers?
How can anyone believe this stuff?
137
I have a coworker who believes the moon landing was faked! And he was in the Air Force.
How could anyone think that thousands of NASA people are successfully keeping such a secret?!
I think the anti-vaxxers have a similar world view - flat.
1
@Valerie
Parents of middle schoolers across the country would appreciate some pointers from Big Pharma on how to get so many people to fall in line with all their directives without any backtalk.
5
I might tell people that I enjoy serving the public by preventing disease, but I’m really only in it for the big fat kickback checks from Big Pharma. Unfortunately, I haven’t received mine yet. If you find out anything, can you let me know? Maybe I’m not doing this conspiracy thing right.
4
Sadly, a big part of the problem is that parents today are too young to have memories of these illnesses.
To risk your child dying of something absolutely preventable....is like never using car seats or seat belts. Or eyeglasses, dental braces, all of the things we are lucky to have for our children.
Both of my children had every vaccine available. I am proud of that. I took CARE of my kids. I didn’t just throw the dice on their health.
105
We are living in an era where anti-science has a strong following. Some of this is fueled by suspicion of for profit healthcare. Some is promoted for ideological reasons. Some is in support of corporate offenders.
I don’t think article will change many minds. These are beliefs for which most will not have to answer because vaccines are generally well-adopted and holding down disease.
The article might have given some statistics on the number of serious, but rare, vaccine reactions so the comparison can be more easily made with the consequences of the diseases they prevent. General statements sound too much like advertising.
18
I entered this world Sept 17, 1952. My life began with a mild case of paralysis on my entire left side from the polio virus that was rampant that year. 60,000 children contracted the disease that year. I was fortunate not to suffer any life long effects. Unfortunately, I did not get to know my 9 year old brother or 10 year old sister, both of which died from the polio virus several months after my birth. 3000 other children succumbed that year. My parents were the typical stoic farm couple from the Midwest. It hurt too much talk about my deceased brother and sister. The polio vaccine was developed 3 years later. Too late for my brother and sister, but without a doubt a saving grace to thousands more in the years that followed. Come on parents, do the right thing. Have your children vaccinated.
285
@Rick Boyd Rick, such a moving story, and the best advice anyone can offer. Thank you.
18
@Rick Boyd
Thank you for sharing this heartbreak. I was born in 1947, and I was old enough to feel a vast sense of relief and security after getting my polio vaccination. I well remember those epidemics and my parents' fear.
A few years ago a friend of mine experienced post-polio syndrome. He had been in a wheelchair most of his life, earned a masters degree and married, but when he was hit with the second wave of that wretched disease, he drank himself to death.
People don't realize that viruses can "keep on giving" --- a friend of mine is afflicted with shingles that might cost her an eye. People who won't vaccinate their children against chicken pox are putting them at risk of that outcome as well. Who would do that to a beloved child?
16
@Rick Boyd I was born in 1955, as was a cousin of mine. My parents made sure I had the polio vaccine; my cousin's parents did not. He was luckier than your siblings - he "only" had to wear a leg brace his whole life. I remember my mother making many cutting remarks about his parents and their decision not to vaccinate.
5
Vaccines are sold, successfully, as a way of making people who have been vaccinated safer from disease. But in fact, the real reason why vaccine people should get vaccinated, even if there is a minuscule risk to themselves, is to make _all_ people safer from disease.
33
The anti-vaccine folks are depending on herd immunity to protect their own children from illness. But if there isn't a sufficient herd, their immunity is seriously at risk. I fear for the health of those vulnerable individuals who cannot, for medical reasons, receive vaccines. Such a young woman, were she to become pregnant, is then at risk for contracting rubella and having a child who is deaf, blind, or more.
I agree that it is likely most of these folks have never experienced what those of us who are older have. The panic about polio in our communities, schools for the deaf filled with kids whose mothers had rubella while pregnant, serious illness and death... all before amazing life-saving vaccines came to our communities. My parents were so happy to embrace the polio vaccine and the smallpox vaccination for us when were in elementary school. We had already all been sick with measles, mumps, rubella and chicken pox.
49
One doesn't have to be a conspiracy theorist to be opposed to vaccinating their child. The doctors' arguments about the need to vaccinate to protect the collective good are no doubt correct. But they don't mention that the MMR risk disclosure form states that there is a 1 in 1 million chance the vaccine will cause permanent neurological damage or impairment of consciousness (buzzwords for autism?) For many parents, the potential for losing that lottery, and their precious normally developing children forever to autism, is too great a risk to take for the collective good.
We should not overlook the individual risk and potential sacrifice we are asking each parent to undertake, or shame them for hesitating. Yes, the risk of death from measles is 1 in 1000, but many of us survived measles and are willing to take the odds that our kids won't contract the disease or also will be strong enough to beat it if they do. Forcing parents to consent to an MMR at 18 months compels them to enter an agonizing lottery that may permanently disable their child overnight. The dread those parents experience should not be dismissively delegitimized. Parents should have the freedom to make the decision for themselves.
They at least should be given the option of waiting a few years until their child is bigger and stronger, or be persuaded with kindness rather than with anger and belittlement. And met with understanding if they elect not to roll the dice with their own babies.
18
@AHS
So a 1 in a million risk from the vaccine is worse than a 1 in 1000 risk of death? Yes, many of us survived measles and that may feel reassuring. But many more of us survived the vaccines. Why is this not reassuring?
170
@AHS - My son is head of an autism program at a major university hospital. Researchers have studied the supposed vaccine/autism link for a decade or more now, and they have proved conclusively that the vaccine does NOT cause autism. Meanwhile, do you even understand what a one in one million chance represents?
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@AHS the chances of dying in a car accident is 200 times higher than dying from a vaccine. Are the same parents refusing to roll the dice by putting their kids in a car? 100 times more likely to die falling down the stairs. fear of vaccinations is unfounded.
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Back in the 50's when I was 4 I had the measles. I have a vivid recollection of hallucinating, although at the time I did not know that was what it was. I had a high fever and everything I saw had polka dots on it. My mother was the only one in her family that needed to wear glasses. Why? Measles got onto her retina. The young parents today never had these diseases and don't understand why vaccines are needed. Unfortunately it is their children who will suffer.
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@CRE Same here. I was about 4 years old in the late 40's. Hallucinations, extremely high fever, ministers called in to pray. No polka dots, though. They were sure I was going to die. My mother was terrified. I somehow made it through.
Please, please vaccinate your children! You don't want you or your child to go through what my mother and I did.
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I'm afraid this article will cause those who agree w/ it to nod in agreement and shake their heads at the anti-vaxxers; and not convince a single anti-vaxxer that they are wrong. The anti-vaxx movement is really more about belief and world view than science or fact. Thus, articles like this, as well intentioned as they are, likely are read by anti-vaxxers as a confirmation of their beliefs: people in government are conspiring to cover-up the truth. It's really only a few steps removed from trying to convince someone who believes that the Earth was created 6000 years ago that, in fact, it is far older than that, and there's ample evidence to prove this, or that climate change is real.
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@Andrew N, I entirely agree—anti-vaxxers are not swayed by science. The anti-science, anti-logic trend they represent is truly frightening—and does not bode well for this nation’s future.
8
It seems to me the vaccine debate is cast in black-and-white. Vaccines are 100% safe vs. vaccines are horrible. The result of that is that general practitioners/pediatricians are quick to overlook situations where they should advise the parents AGAINST vaccinating their child. Case in point, my son has genetic predisposition to certain autoimmune conditions; many people in the family, both on my side and his father's side live with autoimmune diseases. There are many children who will be better off not being vaccinated against certain diseases and being protected by herd immunity/vaccination of their peers. It seems to me the current debate is very skin-deep - as most of the discussion is do vaccines cause autism. They don't. But there is more to discuss and address. If we want the public to trust the medical establishment, the medical establishment should not paint a black-and-white picture that is not truthful.
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@anna
I think your analysis is off. In terms of epidemics, there is little questions that modern vaccines are safe. Like every medicine on the market--medicines that do far less to protect the public--vaccines do have occasional side-effects and we should monitor those. But on the whole, absent demonstrable allergies, they should be mandated. This should not be left for each state to fight out in their legislatures.
We can discuss this until we drop, and no solution will be perfect, but it is wrong to leave so many children (and some adults) at risk. This so-called discussion should not be decided by individual testimonials.
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Sadly, this is an example of the kind of specious science that leads some parents to find any excuse possible not to vaccinate their children. Outside of an out right allergy to a vaccination, I have never seen anything in the literature about auto immune diseases posing a risk to getting vaccinated. Where do parents come up with these stories?
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@anna "There are many children who will be better off not being vaccinated against certain diseases and being protected by her immunity/vaccination of their peers". What do you think happens to herd immunity if "many" children don't get the vaccines?
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This is an important, accurate and well-written piece by people working in our federal government. It is reassuring to see our government can still work.
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I do not think that data and education will work, though I am very willing to be proven wrong. However, good evidence has been abundantly available for years. People who wish to believe in conspiracy theories and gossip will not be swayed by facts. Therefore, a harder line needs to be taken in a practical way to protect the general population.
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The insurance companies could help. They could add a profound surcharge to the annual premiums for anyone who has not vaccinated themselves or their children, and not cover hospitalization or other treatments that result from illness that might have been prevented by commonly available vaccines.
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Policies that prohibit children from attending public school (including university) if they have not been vaccinated should be made universal. Laws need to be made to protect doctors' offices and hospitals who refuse to endanger their other patients and so refuse to care for the unvaccinated.
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Let's make the antivaxxers feel the effects in direct practical and monetary ways, and see if their belief system holds up when their money is on the line. This is fair - they can ignore medical progress, evidence and data to believe what they want as long as no one else is harmed either financially or medically.
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@KG You are suggesting laws that are unconstitutional and against the foundations and freedoms our country is founded upon. Everyone deserves the right to be in charge of their own body, as well as their kids. Please inform yourself of the facts. The Supreme Court in 2011 found that "...vaccines are unavoidably unsafe." Also know that those who are vaccinated, like any virus, go through a shedding period of 14-21 days where they are contagious. In 40% of recent measles cases, it was found that the cause was the vaccine measles virus, not the wild measles. This is how I caught pertussis (I have autoimmune issues)--from a coworker's freshly-vaccinated kids. NVIC.org; DrMercola.com; TheViennaReport.US/medical professional speak out/
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@KG good ideas all. The anti-vaxxers will come around after watching a few kids in their circle or even their own die of one of these preventable diseases. That's the only "hope".
1
I really appreciated this article very much. this is a huge issue today In America and it can be easily avoided if people just took vaccines to prevent these once fatal sickness. not enough people have seen this article and people read this article it can go a long way
12
It's important to remember the wretched root cause of the vaccine disinformation campaign: a 1998 research paper published in the Lancet by Andrew Wakefield highlighting his bogus study positing a link between the MMR vaccine and autism.
The Lancet retracted the paper in 2010, but only after significant disinformation damage had occurred.
A British medical panel concluded that Dr. Wakefield had been dishonest, violated basic research ethics rules and showed a “callous disregard” for the suffering of children involved in his research, said Dr. Richard Horton, editor in chief of The Lancet.
An investigation by a British journalist found financial and scientific conflicts that Dr. Wakefield did not reveal in his paper.
Part of the costs of Dr. Wakefield’s research were paid by lawyers for parents seeking to sue vaccine makers for damages.
Dr. Wakefield was also found to have patented in 1997 a measles vaccine that would succeed if the combined MMR vaccine were withdrawn or discredited.
After years of investigation, the British General Medical Council concluded that Dr. Wakefield had subjected 11 children to invasive tests like lumbar punctures and colonoscopies that they didn't need and for which he didn't receive ethical approval.
After Wakefield’s study, British vaccination rates plunged and measles cases soared.
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/health/research/03lancet.html
Zero ethics and greed: the breakfast of destructive propagandists and frauds worldwide.
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@Socrates
Kudos Socrates...Much of my daily activity involves interacting with the collateral damage caused by this mass superstition.
dp
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@lechrist
The CDC has never supported the fraudulent Dr Wakefield's bogus scientific conclusions.
https://respectfulinsolence.com/2018/12/12/brian-hookers-antivaccine-pseudoscience-has-risen-from-the-dead-to-threaten-children-again/
https://www.immunizeusa.org/blog/2015/may/07/mmr,-the-cdc-and-brian-hooker-a-guide-for-parents-and-the-media/
4
It's worthwhile to consider how the perception of science has been eroded especially regarding medical issues when the for-profit health industry and big pharma does so many things that hurt people for profit. In the minds of some, it seems that vaccinations are just another case of falsified studies to make more money, like Oxycontin.
19
The selfishness of anti-vaxxers is disturbing. To be part of a society, we must look out for one another, must agree to a set of rules that allows for the thriving of everyone. To say no to one of these social requests is an act of incredible selfishness. The very minimal risk of an adverse reaction is more real to them than the good of everyone. It’s as if they want to drive a tank to keep themselves safe from some imagined threat, even though it puts others in ordinary cars at risk.
Maybe big pharma *is* behind some huge conspiracy to make money of vaccines. But the medical practice I go to has good doctors—and a bloated, chaotic administration that is not capable of returning a phone call; I don’t think they are organized enough to carry out their part of a huge multinational conspiracy.
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@Human
Big pharma are pirates, but not on account of vaccines. Vaccines are often money losers and are usually at best break-evens
In our modern world anti-intellectualism has been romanticized by parties that benefit from the loud voices of the ignorant. We need to address this trend has it's created this issue out of thin air and led to the election of a provably dishonest president that still manages to retain a solid 37% of the country. The austerity cuts to education and continued public funding of religious institutions (via tax exemption) is breaking this country at a time when we need to be united against the thread of climate change.
Given all the other wool-headed folks out there I have no pity left for anti-vaxxers and I reject the notion that we need to approach this as a rational debate. Enough sealioning, tax them to non-existence and be done with it.
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« Our role is to advance the health of the American people ». How about universal health care? My question is: why do so many people distrust the medical world and Big Pharma? Vaccines keep us from dangerous illnesses on one side, and the opioid crisis kills on the other. We have highly skilled medical professionals who save people everyday, and we’ve seen an abuse of antibiotics with unforeseen consequences. The list could go on.
6
The truth about vaccines is set out in the warning labels on the packaging. Maybe this article should have started with those warnings - and their truth. Simple.
If the vaccines are so safe, why have warnings at all?
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@Maurice Gatien Oh c'mon. Vitamins have warning labels. So do aspirin. So do homeopathic remedies that don't contain anything but water (and irrational hopes). Do you think that the people who put those labels on the vaccine packaging were a secret cadre of extra-clever scientists who know better than everyone else? Or is it more likely the product of a legal department? Honestly.
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@Maurice Gatien . there isn't a single drug available that does not have a very long list of possible side effects. there isn't a single act a human can take on this planet that doesn't come with risks, they just don't come with written warnings. the fact are the risks of non vaccination are far higher than vaccination. that is life.
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We live at a time when we have warnings that hot coffee is hot and that one should not shake closed containers of soda.
I have practiced Ob-Gyn as a physician assistant for 27 years and I am astounded that some people listen to the rants of celebrities rather than listen to those of us with licenses to practice medicine.
Finally, I was semi-comatose for two weeks and nearly died from mumps encephalitis when I was 6; it was shortly before there was a vaccine for mumps. I am very grateful one exists today.
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This message is so important, but I fear it’s not enough to combat the hype of those pushing anti-vaxers. I think the most effective ways to combat this ignorance is to educate everyone, including grandparents and teenagers, and to turn the tables by speaking to parents of infants and of children who for legitimate medical reasons cannot be vaccinated about the dangers to them. Speaking in urgent terms to new parents about protecting their babies from unvaccinated people could really make a difference in social networks at the local level. The anti-vaxers become the ones to be feared.
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That’s an interesting idea. In the interest of protecting children who cannot (for verifiable medical reasons) be vaccinated, should schools be required to, perhaps, list the number of children in a school/class who are not vaccinated? Not list them by name, since the unvaccinated children are innocent victims here. But publicize the number in school communications, with accompanying information about how it affects the X number of children who cannot be vaccinated. It may help people to consider the larger implications of their decisions.
I will also say that the medical community itself needs to accept some responsibility for the anti vaxxers. Medical professionals would do better to recognize the number of times when medicine and “studies” have led us all astray (thalidomide, fat vs. carbs, routine knee arthroscopy, etc.). These types of reversals and mistakes, large and small, contribute to the fears of those who refuse to vaccinate. Shouting at on social media and demeaning them does nothing to reduce their fears.
6
Sewage disposal and vaccines have made the greatest difference in quality of life and increased life span than any other medical development.
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@Andrea J and antibiotics.
1
The logic of this article is inescapable, but if one person writes that their child was fine until they were vaccinated and then they became autistic, that anecdotal story will carry the day. The reason is that the medical profession will not tell people that having children when the parents are well into their thirties is almost a guarantee of a greater percentage of physiological and biological abnormalities then childbirth during the parents 20's when their bodies are younger and often healthier.
There are of course other reasons for what appear to be idiopathic diseases, but as a society we just haven't spent enough money or devoted enough time to determine the causality.
Meanwhile we are now facing a crisis medically from diseases that were extinguished decades ago. Perhaps we should forget about parental control over the medical care that children receive and consider the effects upon society as a whole. Doing that would put an end to religious or intellectual objections to vaccinations and consider all our children and not just the parents of a small number of children in America.
Our other options involve shunning children who aren't vaccinated; and that includes requiring them to be sequestered in their homes until they are vaccinated. We might also prosecute the parents of a child who spreads an epidemic. That might convince some people to stop causing the spread of ancient diseases. Just saying, but then I'm not a libertarian.
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@Joel Friedlander Watch testimonials on youtube. Watch several hundred of them and then call them liars. I found the most compelling testimonies given by NICU nurses and doctors. Until you do this then don't ever leave any pro-vax comment anywhere ever again.
2
It's pretty clear how to deal with this. If your child isn't vaccinated, they don't get to go to a public school or participate in after-school activities.
When I showed horses, we had to provide a Coggins report that showed our animals were clear. I see no reason not to treat kids the same way. It's all about parents' rights until your child gets exposed to a dangerous disease because of these medieval thinkers. Then you'll think differently about what they're entitled to.
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@Amanda
That's a start but it isn't enough. More federal services should be tied to vaccination status as the anti-vaxxers put us all at risk even if they don't go to school.
I am pretty happy to live and let live with many things but vaccinations cannot continue to be voluntary for people who lack allergic indicators that disqualify them.
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@Amanda Wrong. Vaccination does not equal immunity, further it shifts the risk to the young and old. Check out Andrew Wakefield's recent "vaccine risks" series on youtube.
@Amanda
Same with dogs. Every time I take my dog to a groomer or a doggie day care they always ask if she has been vaccinated before they will allow here in their business.
Certain people thrive on using rumor and innuendo as scare tactics aimed at the clearly-identified ignorant, in order to gain and keep control over them. So what else is new? But such is the prevailing power of science that it shows clear *results*, even in tragic outcomes where it is denied and refused though inevitably not for long. "The irresistible force meets the immovable object." Here is seen the rise of the fanaticism among the anecdotal-based, as the supreme threat of an entity like evidence-based science, with its obviously beneficial results (and unlike the godless communism), will never go away.
6
Thank you for this much-needed article.
A friend of mine (well, sort of a friend) is part of the "THINKING MOMS' REVOLUTION). What does this mean? That the rest of the mothers on the planet don't think?
They are CONVINCED that "Big Pharma" is out solely to make money on vaccines, even though the truth is they don't make much at all on them. What can one say to people who are so entrenched in their falsehoods and convinced about these conspiracy theories that they endanger the lives of others?
As Barney Frank once said, "Arguing with you is like arguing with a kitchen table."
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@Von Jones
Can't you just tell them that Big Pharma is too caught up in jacking up insulin prices to worry about vaccines? I mean really, one or two doses of a vaccine versus insulin all day every day for 60 years? They know exactly what their cash cow is and it ain't vaccines.
2
As a grammar school student in the '50's, I remember well the polio scare. I also remember my mother's relief when she sent my brother and me to the local high school for our vaccine shot against this paralyzing, painful, and, too many times, fatal affliction.
Fast forward to my daughters' days in the grammar school where I was the school RN. In the 80's, California had a strict policy that all new students, including those who transferred in, could not go to class until all the vaccines were up to date. And, by darn, we stuck by it unless there was a physician's note stating certain chronic diseases which required exemptions. To my disbelief, several decades later, and in one of the Bay Area's most affluent and educated counties, Marin County, there was an outbreak of measles. Why? The answer was to be found in mothers who "knew best for their children" and insisted on defying medical science. More articles like this one today must be regularly published, and I thank the authors. When we are responsible for the most important people in our lives, complacency has no place in our actions or vocabulary.
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@Kathy Lollock I too remember the real effects of polio and our parents great fear of it. Born in 1945 I was in 4th or 5th grade when our school in Wheaton, IL took part in testing of the new polio vaccine. We were of the lucky age to see this developed and save the lives of us and our friends.
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@deBlacksmith - I think I was in 4th grade when all the 3rd graders in our school got the new polio vaccine. I had a playmate who'd had polio and wore a clumsy, awkward leg brace, and would forever. Our parents were terrified that one of us would get polio. The polio vaccine was a world-changer for children and parents in the '50s.
11
@Kathy Lollock
I think the Marin County disdain for vaccines is that vaccines are for those "dirty low class people" on the other side of the bridges. If you feed your kids organic feed and they wear natural fibers and you drive an electric car, does that not make you healthier than everyone else?
It's ridiculous.
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Vaccines, as a preventive measure, have the misfortune of having their success defined by a negative: nothing bad happens. And when nothing bad happens, people can be lulled into thinking the preventive measure isn't needed at all. Who needs vaccines when we haven't seen polio or measles in ages? The challenge is making clear to people the connection between the preventive measure and the prevented misery. Clearly it's an educational effort that must be maintained, generation after generation.
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@Jason
That is so true for preventive measures, including clean air laws. And people forget that these preventive measures are there to remedy problems that happened when these measures were not in place.
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@Friendly - That's exactly what I was going to say. Some people don't think we need clean air and water laws, either, because clearly our air and water seems pretty clean. So I guess we'll do away with those laws until Los Angeles's skies are choked with yellow smog again, and the Cuyahoga River again catches fire. And we'll allow enough people to avoid vaccination that we begin having epidemics of childhood diseases we thought were eradicated.
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@Jason I never considered that aspect of this problem. It is a great point. In general, mass amnesia is probably one reason why history repeats itself.
7
Thank you for writing this! Unfortunately, my fear is that the people who need to read it most probably don't subscribe to the NYT, and wouldn't believe any reputable news source anyway.
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Perhaps the authors should consider posting this article around Whole Foods, upscale hair salons, and Pilates studios. It seems that parents who consider themselves educated and “evolved” enough NOT to vaccinate their kids are under the impression that organic food / hair products and exercise will ward off these diseases. Of course, they are wrong - and most parents of young kids cannot imagine the horrors that these (preventable) diseases would ravage on their children.
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@Dr Karen, I am hoping their children do read the NYT and the reports from the CDC as the young man who testified before Congress this week. He was vaccinated despite his mom’s anti-vax beliefs that were fueled by Fake Facebook posts. He informed himself by researching reputable sources.
1
The sad truth is that continued evidence and articles like this won't matter.
Conspiracy theorists want to believe that people are lying to them and they are smarter than most. More data doesn't change that.
You could take a flat-earther to the moon, and they still won't change their views.
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@The Libertine You are mistaken. Articles like this are invaluable, influencing those they read, and providing them with data for affecting others. Claiming otherwise is so much posturing, designed to put into evidence one's superiority.
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I don’t want any unvaccinated kids in my kids daycare or classroom. Nor t
Do I want them in my pediatric waiting room, with vulnerable babies and immunocompromised patients. As a pediatric nurse Practitioner, I cannot aid and abet bad health care and will not accept these children to my practice.
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@Betsy Groth APRN As you well know, there is virus shedding, both during illness and after vaccination for 14-21 days. 40% of current measles cases have been traced to the measles vaccine virus, not the wild measles. And this has also been how pertussis was spread. As you also well know, babies and immuno-compromised persons should not be around anyone recently vaccinated. That's how I got pertussis...from a co-worker's freshly vaccinated kids.
1