Unfortunately, the average person is not familiar with the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program which has paid over $4 billion towards vaccine injuries and deaths, which HHS claims represents 1% of vaccine injuries and deaths. For a liability free product pushed on society at every point in time. The US has the highest vaccination rate of most industrialized countries worldwide, also highest infant mortality rate, childhood cancer rate, chronic health issues and neurological disorders. Fear mongering Pharma sponsored advertisements are the new norm. Little does it acknowledge that the majority of outbreaks are taking place among vaccinated recipients, who are recipients of live viruses, neurotoxins, carcinogens, animal and aborted fetal DNA, not tested using true inert saline placebos. It’s a disgrace. Most adults are no where near vaccinated with the 70 doses required for children, yet hypocritically point fingers. Health can be acquired naturally with proper nutrition and lifestyle, not with toxic concoctions. When did fear take precedence over critical thinking? We no longer live in a time where we need to fear mild childhood illnesses. We do, however, need to be concerned about tyrannical government mandates over our bodies while enforcing medicine. This is the United States, not China, not Nazi Germany.
All the information provided above is verifiable and true. Important to question commentators with financial conflicts of interest. I am not one of them.
56
Being over 70 I've had the experience of children I grew up with not surviving the diseases that we now have vaccinations available to prevent getting the disease.
It seems like we have too many people who have the worldview of: "If I haven't seen it, then it doesn't exist." Yes it does and there is a way to avoid the consequences.
Avoid the vaccinations and be prepared for huge medical bills and planning a funeral.
188
We are talking about smart, educated, thoughtful, individuals who have trust issues.
Like, "I don't trust the people in charge." "I think that scientists experiment on people" "I think that people thought love canal was safe" "that flint water supply was ok" "That the shuttle could take off in freezing temperatures" "That ice wouldn't fall off the oxygen tank and punch a hole in the wing." "That the software wouldn't force the jetliner 2 of them into a dive into the ground." "That e-cigarettes were safe" "That three mile island is safe" "that Chernobyl could cold start." "That the titanic couldn't sink" "That fukishima is contained, it isn't" "That sonar testing doesn't destroy whales and dolphins" "That syphilis wasn't tested on unsuspecting men in the United states." What is a theme here. We are talking for the most part the smartest people supposedly who are supposed to protect the public/people. We as a public TRUSTed the people who build, invent, implement these products, systems, processes to have the people who are affected by them foremost in the thoughts. But we all know that isn't the case. All of this information comes together in this toxic stew in a persons mind. 30,000 a year die of infections they CATCH at a hospital. CATCH there. And your telling me that I shouldn't be skeptical of the medical profession? Have you been to your doctor lately?
37
Another example of the triumph of ignorance and of the fallacies of the internet.
Anyone who has a real, medical reason not to be vaccinated: fine. That's why "herd immunity" is important: Most of us are vaccinated, partly to protect those who really, really can't be. If people keep trying to avoid vaccination for no good reason, it is a recipe for disaster for everyone.
Please, everyone: Try to listen to reason. Be vaccinated against common diseases, so all of us have a good chance to stay healthy.
111
Wikipedia: Propaganda is information that is not objective and is used primarily to influence an audience and further an agenda, often by presenting facts selectively to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded language to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that is presented. Propaganda is often associated with material prepared by governments, but activist groups, companies and the media can also produce propaganda.
13
A lot of harm is being done. A group associated with Wakefield has spent a lot of time with the Somali community here and the latter are afraid to vaccinate over fear of autism.
Also, another anti-vaccination wave started in the early 20th century with the introduction of chiropractic. Some modern chiropractors are still anti-vaxxers.
And this ridiculous hysteria has spread (primarily via social media, I think) to pets. Homeopathy for pets is grand, but vaccination--not so much. Maybe after a few innocent children have contracted rabies from the family dog or cat, we'll have hit bottom.
51
After working with children and adults with intellectual disabilities for over 40 years, I have seen the results of preventable diseases and their impacts on the brain development of infants born of mother’s who were not vaccinated and acquired rubella during pregnancy - lifelong severe intellectual disabilities and maladaptive behaviors. Children who get measles can die. I have worked with people who acquired polio and lived lifelong on respirators or in iron lungs. I don’t think the media does a good job on anti-vax reporting because they do not alert families to what can happen - the risks - of refusing to vaccinate their kids. Post some pictures of those who have these diseases in countries that do not provide vaccinations and perhaps mothers will stop playing Russian Roulette with their babies.
85
If all of the vaccine refusers kids die from treatable diseases then would the remaining vaccinated kids have Heard Immunity? Just a thought.
8
We are not a healthy nation. We are number 35 with 34 countries healthier than we are and it is not the fault of the anti vaxers. We have 3 times the infant death rate that some countries have.
Europe on the average gives one half the vaccinations that we do.
There are doctors out there that claim diseases like measles or chicken pox are non fatal and leave the patient with life long immunity that may extend to their children.
And then there are the mistakes the FDA and the CDC have made in the past. They totally ignore the obesity epedemic. We lost 300,000 to opioids, We have laws against selling whole milk to school children. We knew how deadly cigarettes were for decades before anything was done. Wikipedia has a full page on FDA complaints.
see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Food_and_Drug_Administration
In short the government is killing us.
32
Full disclosure: growing up a friend of mine came down with polio. It was around the same time the "sugar cubes" with the Salk vaccine came out. I went with my family to take the "cubes".
Fast forward to yesterday: my pharmacy called, the updated shot for Shingles came in....did I want it? Absolutely I responded. Why? one of my uncles had Shingles and it was terrible. So today my arm is sore and I feel kind of "out of it". Have to go back in about 6 months for the follow-up shot. But no hesitancy in my choice. And I realize...it is a choice.
My experience: vaccines work. Is there a risk, of course. But then again there is a risk in my commute going home tonight too.
408
@NR Full disclosure would indeed be great. But that's the point: we don't get full disclosure.
Not all vaccines are the same and not all individuals are the same: so giving vaccine X to a person with characteristic Y may already be known to be dangerous.
Example? A person with an autoimmune disease would definitely want to know that individuals in his or her category were excluded from the Shingrix drug trial. They might wonder why they were excluded, and they might wonder why they weren't told on the warning label that they'd been excluded.
Might it be the case that someone with rheumatoid arthritis or Lupus, etc. might have, or be more likely to have an adverse reaction to the adjuvant that makes the Shingrix vaccine so powerful? And wouldn't it be useful to know that this adjuvant was being used for the very first time?
I take most vaccines, but I no longer take them blindly. Anyone who's read "Overdo$ed America," by John Abramson, Harvard MD, or "Deadly Medicines and Organized Crime," also by a respected MD and researcher, will no longer take any medication blithely.
The shame is that the unscrupulousness of the pharmaceutical industry causes us to very reasonably doubt the safety of our healthcare system, including vaccines. After all, we're not 43rd in longevity among the world's nations for no reason. Even the CDD has conjectured that the medications we take in huge quantities may be a significant cause.
StatinStories.com
40
Too often, people immediately label as "anti-vax" or "anti-science" those who do no more than have the nerve to raise questions about vaccines - even when a parent may have already vaccinated her kids but may still have concerns!
This knee-jerk reaction is the very essence of the anti-scientific attitude that some purport to find so loathsome.
Science does not need you to browbeat a mother with a newborn into submission, it does not need you to call her names or bully her or label her. If science has the facts, let science defend its facts. That what Science must always do. That's how it grows and develops. Science should quite easily be able to defend its insistence on the frequency of vaccines and the age at which a child needs such vaccines, without an angry mob at the ready.
There are better ways to educate than with a pitchfork and torch.
42
“To just say that these parents are ignorant or selfish is an easy trope,”
1. It's not a "trope" in the primary sense--a figure of speech.
2. Is it a cliche?--an overused theme or thesis? That depends on the dialect--the language subculture.
3. Among educators, it IS a common theme--but hardly overused. It's just a basic truth--teachers must save their students from their parents.
4. That is the basis thesis of required schooling--little more than a century old--depending on which state. Parents cannot be trusted to do their basic jobs--nutrition and education--due to personal failings (ignorance, incompetence, selfishness, laziness) OR social/political/economic failings (bad education, overwork, prejudice, systemic bad discrimination of all sorts)--thus required public schools.
5. "Public" because ignorant kids hurt/harm their communities--the public. So the public protects itself. On the other side, well educated kids are a great benefit to their communities.
6. And it's well known that a good way to educate the parents is through their kids--who in many ways "parent" them.
8
"I don't wear a seatbelt because I once had a friend who died in a car wreck because she was trapped and couldn't get out." - one of my coworkers who doesn't wear seatbelts.
Don't you just love the personal anecdote that supercedes all reason, education and rational thought?
Our lack of critical thinking skills wouldnt be complete without mentioning our lack of science and math in our education or the efforts to bring prayer into our government and schools. Yes! Let's pray away our cancer, diabetes & healthcare woes while welcoming Armageddon with the destruction and pollution of our planet.
Be sure to thank God when it's not your kid killed by an AR15 in the next school shooting.
People. Lol. What a mess.
70
There are also tragic, unexpected, and uncontrollable consequences. It was 1933, in Rockford Illinois, Before the measles vaccines were available. My Aunt Emily contracted measles. Three days later, she developed appendicitis: surgery could not be performed on a sick child with a fever of 103 degrees. Her appendix ruptured and she died a slow, needless death from sepsis. Vaccinate your children!!
46
The last anti-vaxx person I met also explained the health benefits of drinking urine.
She read about it in an online article that quoted some celebrity I had never heard of (I was told a "Housewives of...").
This is a symptom of a much bigger problem. When outwardly intelligent people cannot tell the difference between The Flavor of The Week and a well-educated CDCP scientist, we are in a world of trouble. Personally I felt sorry for her kids.
51
@John I agree. I am also ticked that the Times did not mention that Oprah is the one who gave Jenny McCarthy her platform. I am tired of people believing celebrities who have no education or training. No more TV/Movie/Internet stars for any government office! No more using them to impart information because the population cannot tell the difference between nonsense and reality.
30
Vaccines cause adults
72
Ignorance of history keeps leading us to making stupid mistakes. The vaccination train left the platform in 1796. If Jenner had let nature take its course many anti-vaxxers would not exist. They can have their natural paradise by isolating themselves on some island in the Pacific. Natural selection will keep their population in check and they will probably develop a super race. Leave the rest of us to the bubble of civilization.
12
It’s surprising the article failed to mention Russia’s role in the anti-vax debate.
Weaponized Health Communication: Twitter Bots and Russian Trolls Amplify the Vaccine Debate
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6137759/
How Russia Sows Confusion in the U.S. Vaccine Debate
Not content to cause political problems, Moscow’s trolls are also undermining public health.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/04/09/in-the-united-states-russian-trolls-are-peddling-measles-disinformation-on-twitter/
24
I am now 75, and I experienced polio epidemics that hit several of my friends and closed our swimming pools in the hot summer. Additionally, I contracted measles when I was 19 and spent a week hospitalized. I know the ramifications of not having vaccines and therefore I am wary: I have all mine up to date, and follow my doctors orders for further immunizations.
42
Both my kids are vaccinated. I watched the second go from an aggressive, smart on the verge of talking 12 month old to a non-verbal, withdrawn and repetitive child after his vaccinations gave him a fever and a rash. He finally started talking at 3&1/2. He is 6 now, clearly still autistic, but operating at the 90% level. He is like 1 in 50 young boys in this country diagnosed with autism (probably better off than most of the afflicted). I've got a simple hypothesis - the blood brain barrier of male infants is not sufficient at 12 or 18 months to take the recommended vaccine load. Medical science will state "we don't know the cause of autism, but it is definitely not vaccines." And the question is, "why wouldn't people believe that?" If you have a study of autism rates between vaccinated and unvaccinated children, please cite it. I haven't seen one, and I've looked. The revolving door between pharma, research universities, NIH and CDC is akin to finance companies, SEC, ratings institutions, and accounting firms. The only difference is you can't sue for vaccine damage, selling short is meaningless without litigation risk and they are playing with something more important than money.
40
@Doug...thanks for that intelligent analysis. As a victim of severe intermittent fatigue myself, that doctors can't diagnose, except to recommend prozac, I feel like a voice crying in the wilderness. Multi-valent vaxes harm ppl, no argument there. Btw, avoid prozac, it's poison.
Drs. at NIH like A Fauci will dismiss your damaged child as "collateral damage" for the war for "herd immunity"
21
Widely published data shows that vaccinations are associated with side effects. Most side effects are very minor and temporary, such as muscle ache and fever. Some are more significant. It is possible that some vaccinations for some babies on an aggressive schedule might cause more significant and longer lasting side effects that are challenging to diagnose, study, or quantify.
The entire population of the United States is both the control and test groups with vaccinations. It is challenging to identify and quantify all effects of compressed vaccination schedules on individuals and groups. We can't go back and re-do individuals lives with different vaccination schedules. We don't test outcomes or groups with different vaccination schedules. It seems conceivable that some people could experience long-term negative effects due to aggressive early vaccination schedules that are challenging to identify and quantify. Who is to say that 1 year old Johnny's 104 fever and rash after vaccination has zero long term negative effect?
23
Personally I believe that vaccines are entirely safe and had my kids vaccinated on schedule. Personally, since I've traveled extensively, I've taken many vaccines beyond what most people take. But I still think that we're asking for backlash when we attempt to coerce people to do what they don't want to do. This is especially true with children.
We say we're concerned about the health of those who cannot vaccinate. If that's true, why don't we require everyone who can to get the flu vaccine every year in order to protect the immunocompromised? Thousands die every year from flu or complications from the flu (while very few have died of measles), and yet we're not forcing everyone in the country to get a flu shot to protect those who can't be vaccinated.
7
@roseberry...Flu vax efficacy is not very high.
13
I am a science person and that is why I am wary of the extreme push for all the vaccinations. I am not aware of long term studies demonstrating the safety of babies receiving multiple vaccines for a variety of illnesses. Where is the data that shows that the immune system is not compromised by all these vaccines?
Money is almost always a factor that conflicts with the science. Why are newborns given a Hep B vaccine if the mother doesn't have Hep B or the behaviors that make her susceptible? Surely profit is at the root of this, not the baby's health. Show me the study that says otherwise.
44
Vaccination schedules published by federal, state, and local agencies do not necessarily provide the best schedule for each person, group, location, month, year, etc. These are one-size-fits-all schedules designed to best protect the entire herd, not necessarily you or your child as an individual.
"Well Baby" doctor visits are marketed by government agencies as opportunities for government recommended vaccination schedules to be applied to all babies. Government-recommended vaccination schedules can be considered to be quite compressed and aggressive for babies and toddlers. Babies and toddlers generally receive dozens of vaccinations within a few years, and many vaccinations are administered 2 or 3 at the same time.
It could be argued that government-recommended vaccination schedules are more compressed and aggressive than necessary and / or beneficial for individuals. It could be argued that government agencies don't trust parents to administer vaccinations on a less compressed schedule, because data shows that parents adhere to recommended vaccination schedules less for older children.
It could be argued that if a child is sick or has some other problem at the time of one or more government-recommended vaccination periods, it might be most beneficial for that child to delay one or more vaccinations for months or years.
22
I had both kinds of measles as a kid; no vaccine for it when I was a child. My parents didn’t let me go swimming in public pools because of polio. The vaccine came along several years later.
When we lived in Bombay (Mumbai) for a few years, our children contracted several different infections. Impetigo was common. Lice, various kinds of intestinal worms, and communicable diseases were also plentiful. But we and our children were vaccinated against almost every kind of infectious disease of the time. No adverse reactions. There was also the problem of air-borne bacterial infections since so much dried dung was stored in various locations around the city. And, of course, we always boiled and filtered our water. I traveled a lot in India and left the country as an asymptomatic carrier of amoeba, discovered in stool samples during a medical check-up at the State Department. I had to take an arsenic purge and send in more stool samples. The doctors were worried about cysts in my liver.
It boggles my mind that parents would deny their children protective vaccinations out of some mind-numbing misinformation from Internet websites. They should experience a child sick with a contagious disease or with pin worms or amoeba or some other opportunistic organism that uses the human body as a host. Watch a youngster thrash about with fever and come close to (or perhaps pass through) death. Millions of youngsters and adults in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere are glad to receive vaccinations.
32
The same parents that choose to not Vaccinate thier children have more often than not been vaccinated themself. When my children were little my insurance company did not cover baby wellness, (Shots) I paid out of pocket. Now most insurance companies pay for vaccines. I guess paying for vaccines is cheaper than paying for the disease. Nothing in life is 100% but by not vaccinating your child you put your child at risk as well as other children who are possibly to young or sick to be vaccinated. Your choice to not vaccinate, takes away another parents choice.
12
I am seventy one years of age. During the course of my life I have had my share of illnesses but not once have I ever contracted whooping cough, rubella , diptheria , or whooping cough, or other diseases that I was vaccinated against .
My children were vaccinated and none of them have gotten any of these diseases.
18
Large percentages of people have measurable mild temporary reactions to vaccinations, such as fever.
Different people have different probability of contracting disease, being affected by disease, and spreading disease. Age, location, living situation, work situation, number of people contacted per day, use of public facilities and spaces, diet, use of health care, use of information, stress, hand washing, cleaning, and many other factors affect peoples' probability of contracting, being affected by, and spreading disease.
For some people, (especially babies and toddlers), for some diseases, the probability of having a significant adverse reaction to a vaccination may be higher than the probability of contracting, being significantly affected by, or spreading the disease associated with that vaccination.
The probability of contracting, being significantly and permanently affected by, and / or spreading most diseases in the United States is extremely low and close to zero, especially when considering small time windows for individuals, such as a few months or a few years. The same is true of vaccinations; the rate of contracting disease, adverse permanent reaction to a vaccination, or spreading a disease from a vaccination is also nearly zero. These probabilities differ for each person, group, location, time, and disease and are generally very close to zero.
4
Some vaccinations, such as varicella (Chicken Pox) are arguably optional, due to the low risk of long-term effects associated with non-vaccination. Varicella vaccinations require booster vaccinations every 10 years, while exposure to wild Varicella imparts lifetime immunity. It is possible that profit motive exists in the system that delivers this vaccination and other vaccinations. It is possible that early vaccination schedules are somewhat affected by profit motive.
It is arguably possible for some people to be scientifically and ethically concerned and responsible when considering implementing alternative vaccination schedules for their specific children and when proposing modification of current vaccination schedules.
10
@Anon
What profit is there when you get a vaccination every 10 years? I suspect that Big Pharma would rather you take statin drugs every day for the rest of your life to lower your cholesterol. Varicella is admittedly a more mild disease in childhood. if you get Varicella as an adult, you will wish that you got the vaccine as a child.
11
A big part of the problem is that the vaccines have eliminated the illnesses so well that parents don't have the experience with the diseases that they prevent. I had a classmate who had had polio and had to walk with crutches. We didn't see the kids in iron lungs. We didn't lose siblings to Whooping Cough, etc. I and my children have been immunized against things you don't hear about because I traveled overseas as a child. I am not only healthy and smart but I never got the flu and hardly ever get a cold. I take flu shots.
8
As a physician, I would point out that it is a serious mistake to not have the chicken pox vaccination as a child. Once one has chicken pox, the virus remains with you for the rest of your life. The virus reactivates later in life or in those who are chronically ill, resulting in herpes zoster. These are extremely painful chronic skin lesions. In some cases the lesions can appear elsewhere, even causing brain damage or blindness, which happened to the husband of a nurse that I work with. The only protection against this reactivation is, you guessed it, the zoster vaccine. My wife and I are no longer young, and yes, we have had the vaccine.
20
@Bill I should mention that herpes zoster is shingles.
6
One factor not mentioned in this article is an aversion to being treated like a herd rather than as an individual, which is understandable given the unfortunate choice of words in talking about "herd immunity".
This aversion comes up with the flu vaccine which many people, including myself, feel is more discretionary than polio, measles, and other childhood vaccinations. For us, we feel like the medical industry is brow-beating us into getting an annual flu shot, that makes little sense to those of us who rarely get the flu and stay home if we do. This angst is amplified by the poor efficacy, as low as 50%, for the vaccine. Yet when we say 'no', we are ridiculed as "anti-vaxers" for what we see as a legitimate medical decision for what is best for each of us.
I worry that public policy with its emphasis on statistics and demographics is losing sight of the fact that the herd is made up of unique individuals.
8
This is not an anti-vaccination message.
It is possible that the best course of action for some people in some situations is to diverge somewhat from the vaccination schedules published by federal, state, and local government organizations.
In extremely rare cases, people have adverse reactions to vaccines. In extremely rare cases, adverse reactions cause permanent injury. The United States government has a National Vaccine Injury Compensation program that pays people who have suffered injuries caused by vaccines.
https://www.hrsa.gov/vaccine-compensation/index.html
Vaccinations are mostly voluntary.
Federal, state, and local governments generally do not require people to take vaccinations in part due to potential liability, perceived liability, litigation costs, and potential negative public perception caused by adverse reactions and perceived adverse reactions to vaccinations. If governments required vaccinations, governments would potentially incur greater liability and vaccinations would potentially incur more negative public perception.
5
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) website publishes vaccination and disease data about who, where, when, and much more. From this data, anyone can see that for some diseases, such as Polio, more people contract the disease from the vaccination than from the disease in the wild.
Some diseases only affect a small portion of the population, yet the entire herd is immunized at very early ages. Rubella (German Measles) is an example.
Mostly fetuses in the first and second trimester of development are significantly and permanently affected by Rubella. Only women of child bearing age who expect to become pregnant in the imminent future need to be vaccinated against Rubella.
The United States government does not trust that women in this situation will vaccinate themselves against Rubella, so the entire population (herd) is vaccinated at a very early age. While any risk of adverse reaction is extremely tiny and is almost zero, risk associated with Rubella is spread from a small portion of the population to the entire population. Some people might have an ethical or scientific objection to this distribution of risk.
People can also reasonably and successfully argued that the entire population benefits from fetuses not being affected by Rubella, so in weighing all costs, risks, and benefits, vaccination of the entire population is appropriate, acceptable, and justified.
2
I can only see anti-vaxxers as ignorant and self-centered. Their refusal to vaccinate has led to over 1000 cases of measles this year in a country that thought it had eradicated measles.
Given that science has shown clearly that vaccination does not cause autism, there is no excuse to refuse to vaccinate all children other than the few who are allergic to the vaccine itself.
We need the herd immunity that such vaccination provides for those children as well as for all others.
14
The author attempts to blame Libertarian principals as a reason for withholding vaccinations. The core Libertarian philosophy, however, is that you cannot harm another as a result of your actions. Spreading measles, mumps, and rubella throughout the community, thus harming the immunocompromised violates that foundation. People choosing that course are liable for the resulting injuries. Since linking the two events would generally be impossible, government would have a compelling interest in enforcing immunization. The real reason parents do not immunize their children is pure selfishness while hoping to free ride off their community.
7
My father was a polio victim, this was 1929 when a vaccine was still decades away. I saw how this disease impacted his entire life as he moved from a brace to a walker to a wheelchair. His career options were limited by his disability and in the years before the Americans with Disabilities Act, I saw how just parking near a store was a struggle. Anyone who thinks these diseases can't kill or permanently disable you needs to wake up.
15
An even simpler explanation. People have much higher estimation of their knowledge and wisdom than is warranted. They choose the sensational, conspiratorial, the prejudicial, the credulous willingness to accept the hair-brained fantasy explanations because they don't want to expend their effort on tracking down what's true.
And a basic misunderstanding of what constitutes evidence.
5
So many references to what courts have found. As a scientist who's been an expert witness, I cannot state that I'm "100% certain" about anything. Sunrise isn't 100% certain; it's a local case of ancient rules about gravity and rotation, embedded in far weirder cosmic models physicists work on. Yet no one loses sleep. We're good with the odds.
But like anti-vaxxers, the law seeks Truth. I have been asked in court, "Isn't it possible" such and such "could be true?" I could only reply that yes, it's possible. The law could care less about the odds I try to shoehorn in before I'm silenced.
Similarly, the world is chockablock with correlations. Each has its odds. Each its intervening variables. But anti-vaxxers jump to causality: "How can you be certain vaccines did not cause" such and such? Doctors reply with odds; it's extraordinarily unlikely. That whisper of uncertainty, that one in 10,000 p-value that the safety study picked the wrong horse, is enough of a trigger a pre-held belief. Off to cherry pick friendlier references.
Look at the U.S. lifetime odds of being:
Killed by automobile crash - 1/77
Killed by medication or drugs - 1/96
Killed by a case of whooping cough - 1/143
Killed by assault with a firearm - 1/370
Killed by a case of measles - 1/500
Killed by drowning - 1/1,188
Killed by legal execution - 1/119,000
Killed by lightening - 1/161,000
Killed by an earthquake - 1/318,000
Having a serious vaccine reaction - 1/1,000,000
(NSC, HHS, Nat Geo)
13
@SMB In the United States, the odds of contracting diseases that vaccinations prevent is comparable to the odds of having a significant long-term vaccine reaction in the case of many diseases, such as polio and measles. The odds in _both_ cases are practically zero. Not all people in all locations have the same risk. Some people have even lower risk of contracting, being affected by, and / or spreading disease. Some parents might want to DELAY vaccination schedules for some babies, depending upon many factors, such as location, population density, contact with public spaces and people, nutrition, stress, etcetera.
Some informed people argue that government promoted vaccination schedules are considered to be needlessly aggressive and compressed for all people.
Government promotes aggressive vaccination schedules because government does not trust people to immunize older children, (with good reason statistically). Attentive conscientious parents might implement longer vaccination schedules from informed, scientific, and ethical perspectives.
Also consider that industry has profit motive in promoting compressed vaccination schedules.
4
When I need medical advice, I always turn to actors and politicians because they're experts in acting and politicking and therefor must have greater medical knowledge than real doctors and scientist.
And when I have questions about really important medical issues, I turn to religion because religion has the answers to everything.
And then there's Bill. Bill heard from a guy who read a story on the web about the five foods I should eat because they prevent cancer and the five foods I should avoid because they cause cancer. Thanks for passing along that important medical info Bill!
15
A lot of anti-vaxxers on this comment thread, really sad when people get into listing all of the research they quote to bolster their point of view. Much of it can be debunked easily with a quick google search, or is being misused as a means to an ends like a Bible verse. Sad also because this is coming from passionate and intelligent people, and saddest of all that they and their loved ones will most likely, get sick. They say history is doomed to to repeat itself, but I never thought it would be like this - or so avoidable. The Flu epidemic of 1918 claimed 50 million lives, all of WW1 claimed 16 million...
9
Calling anti-vaxers ignorant or (maybe and) selfish might be easy. Absent any medical reasons not to be vaccinated, however, it's also true. Maybe they have the right to avoid vaccination. They most emphatically do not have the right to risk other people's lives in a quest to feel smugly supeior.
7
But here is a thing that this article ignores ... people like me and my family who have experienced an adverse reaction to a vaccine. I have seven children and was gladly vaccinating on schedule until one child had a serious adverse reaction to the MMR vaccine ten years ago. Ours is not some made-up aversion or some concern we learned about from social media. Ours is not some mistrust of big Pharma. Ours is not some anti-government libertarian bend.
We are now deeply educated on vaccine ingredients, vaccine testing and clinical trial methodologies, vaccine efficacies, vaccine risk profiles, AND the risk of the diseases they are meant to prevent. Based on this, we make an informed decision about whether to accept risk of vaccination or to accept risk of something like Hep B or chicken pox.
This is not anti-science to make a conscious, personal, informed choice based on experience and understanding of a preventive medical treatment. I'm all for the science of vaccination to improve to the point where my son does not have an adverse event, forcing me to make a difficult choice going forward.
146
@Seth
There is no such thing as either a preventative or treating intervention that will give you the 100% certainty of no bad effects that your last sentence suggests is your standard. To use something similar to that as your standard is, in fact, a deep misunderstanding of how the science of medicine works and thus inherently anti-science.
119
@Seth This is, in fact, mentioned if only briefly. This would be labeled a "medical opt-out." These are exceedingly rare, but once discovered play a role in making educated decisions, as you have, about how best to manage your vaccination schedule. This does not, however, excuse the vast majority of opt-outs due to religious or philosophical reasons that put the minor and society at risk, as the focus is "anti-vaccine sentiment," not medical exemption.
62
@Seth The negative outcome you described from a vaccine- assuming your child actually did have a negative outcome (many people claim something happened when there is no provable causative link)- is far, far more rare than the positive outcomes that society as a whole receives from vaccines. I know it sounds really strange, but for large-scale public health, there will almost always be a very small number of people who have a negative outcome to the health treatment that wouldn't have happened otherwise, but when evaluated at the societal level, the huge amount of positive outcomes outweigh that. This is especially true when the positive outcome is millions of lives saved.
122
By using any form of electronic media, all Americans are forced to drink from the firehose of pharma advertising for treatments that appear to be searching for diseases that sound far-fetched. It is little wonder that some see the same hucksterism, even in scientifically-valid recommendations for childhood vaccination.
And what about the claim on the demonstrators' posters in the photos that "we have the sickest children in all the developed world?" How does the US compare to nations where vaccines are required or accepted with respect to the diseases they are designed to prevent or their side-effects?
4
Capitalism is the true reason individuals turn away from vaccinations. No one can trust medical and pharmacuetical companies that infuse our government with their research and the huge flow of money that dictates everything in this country.Parents saw the list of recommended vaccinations grow exponentially by these companies. It is a total lack of trust in the way money has controlled every sector of our healthcare.
10
“Scientific opinion” used to be the backbone of western civilization. Now it is just another opinion.
4
“We ask parents in the first two years of their child’s life to protect them against 14 diseases, that most people don’t see, using fluids they don’t understand,” Dr. Offit said. “It’s time for us to stand back and explain ourselves better.”
I find this sentiment in my own profession, environmental consulting, as people "forget" or never knew the risks before the laws were passed that have made the world better. I now spend my time explaining the history of environmental laws, which allows people to be more receptive these necessary "regulations". Our Doctors need to do the same, provided they are not on the side of "Freedom" and "personal beliefs" over riding the Common Good of Public Health.
5
I have stood at the bedside of parents whose children have suffered the consequences of refusing vaccines. As an infectious disease expert I have sympathy for the child’s suffering but less so for the parents. There have been times that I have had to explain that there is nothing that can be done to save their child’s life. I do strongly suggest they immunize their other living children. I find it extremely hard not to view this as a form of child maltreatment.
While we have a nation wide outbreak of measles due to under immunization I worry how long before we have an outbreak of polio imported from abroad. Polio can be shed in the stool for up to 4 weeks after an illness.
464
@Dawn
Maybe you should stand at the bedside of a vaccine injured child a few times. Maybe it would balance out that one sided view so many of you seem to have.
While all you see is a measles outbreak where absolutely NO ONE in the US died and hasn't in years, meanwhile....,.. we have a nation of over vaccinated and vaccine injured children being swept under the rug in the name of "the greater good."
25
Unfortunately, the average person is not familiar with the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program which has paid over $4 billion towards vaccine injuries and deaths, which HHS claims represents 1% of vaccine injuries and deaths. For a liability free product. The US has the highest vaccination rate of most industrialized countries worldwide, also highest infant mortality, childhood cancer, chronic health issues and neurological disorders. Fear mongering Pharma sponsored advertisements are the new norm. The majority of outbreaks are taking place among vaccinated recipients, due to live viruses. Add neurotoxins, carcinogens, animal and aborted fetal DNA, not tested using true inert saline placebos. It’s a disgrace. St. Judes and Johns Hopkins request recently vaccinated recipients not visit patients. And most adults are no where near vaccinated with the 70 doses required for children, yet hypocritically point fingers. Health can be acquired naturally with proper nutrition and lifestyle, not with toxic concoctions. When did fear take precedence over critical thinking? We no longer live in a time where we need to fear mild childhood illnesses. We do, however, need to be concerned about tyrannical government mandates over our bodies while enforcing medicine. This is the United States, not China, not Nazi Germany. All the information provided above is verifiable and true. Over 90% of people you call “anti vaxxers” were pro-vax until their child had a reaction.
10
The photo of the baby receiving a vaccine is disturbing. I had three children and all were vaccinated on schedule in the pediatrician's office - none of them were held down on a table like that.
10
I met my first anti-vaxx NYC resident at my neighborhood compost drop-off two months ago. She is inquisitive and smart, but also deeply religious. Her friend group successfully convinced her to home-school (and thus not vaccinate) her child this year. Because she does not trust what government agencies say without concrete supporting evidence (e.g., she refuses to believe that there was a measles outbreak because she cannot find a single picture of an actual sick child with measles), debunking her arguments takes much more time and care than most neighbors, doctors, newspapers, or city governments are ordinarily willing to give.
Articles like this should, at a minimum, discussed the substantive arguments and evidence that caused the mothers quoted in the article to stop “drinking the kool-aid” and link to better neutral resources rebutting anti-vaxx arguments.
The NYC Department of Health, similarly, as of now has no resources on its website or available if you call them through 311 that directly rebut anti-vaxx arguments about the NYC measles outbreak.
Both the media’s approach and the city government’s need to change, fast, to rebut anti-vaxx conspiracy theories point-by-point, if we are to resolve this slow-motion public health crisis.
185
@Benjamin
The CDC, among other sites, does have explanatory materials (here is a starting point: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/additives.htm ). I've had the unfortunate experience in the clinic (and seen it in comments here) of people who have already decided the CDC is somehow involved in a conspiracy with pharma or other mysterious actors. So I fear that more people end up funneled to truly untrustworthy organizations like ICAN and vaccine action network that push the antivax line.
16
@Benjamin
Good points. The friendly neighborhood compost pile is a ready source of all kinds of opportunistic bacteria and other organisms that can be transmitted to children if proper sanitary precautions are not taken. Pets are a great vector for transmitting communicable diseases. We learned all about this while living in India for several years. Fortunately, we and our children were vaccinated against almost all contagious diseases. I alone contracted amoeba and, later dengue fever and - boy - you don't ever want to have these illnesses.
26
@Benjamin
Unfortunately, the average person is not familiar with the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program which has paid over $4 billion towards vaccine injuries and deaths, which HHS claims represents 1% of vaccine injuries and deaths. For a liability free product. The US has the highest vaccination rate of most industrialized countries worldwide, also highest infant mortality, childhood cancer, chronic health issues and neurological disorders. Fear mongering Pharma sponsored advertisements are the new norm. The majority of outbreaks are taking place among vaccinated recipients, due to live viruses. Add neurotoxins, carcinogens, animal and aborted fetal DNA, not tested using true inert saline placebos. It’s a disgrace. St. Judes and Johns Hopkins request recently vaccinated recipients not visit patients. And most adults are no where near vaccinated with the 70 doses required for children, yet hypocritically point fingers. Health can be acquired naturally with proper nutrition and lifestyle, not with toxic concoctions. When did fear take precedence over critical thinking? We no longer live in a time where we need to fear mild childhood illnesses. We do, however, need to be concerned about tyrannical government mandates over our bodies while enforcing medicine. This is the United States, not China, not Nazi Germany. All the information provided above is verifiable and true. Over 90% of people you call “anti vaxxers” were pro-vax until their child had a reaction.
3
This is an odd photograph accompanying the article. Here in Scotland the child would sit being cuddled on its caregivers knee not being forceably held down. No wonder the baby looks upset.
11
@hectoria
Same in Germany.
2
@MK That's how they do it in the U.s of A
The root of this and so many social issues is that too many Americans believe personal opinion/belief trumps hard scientific facts.
It's why anti-vaxers are so numerous.
It's why man-made climate-change deniers proliferate.
It's why "fake news" flourishes.
It's why social media's full of opinions masquerading as facts.
It's why our gov't is dumbing-down agencies that rely on science.
It's why vaping is on the rise, ignoring so many deaths.
Science figures things out, the correct way.
Opinions are basically guesses.
Anti-vaxers live in a world of opinions, emboldened by anecdotal stories like "I know someone's kid who...". These anecdotes are not factual, but are emotionally charged myths. They spread such stories, not realizing they may be incorrect or assumptive. They ignore the facts in the story -- that the reason why "someone's kid" caught "some disease" was never properly investigated, and so they instead began assuming that a coincidentally-given vaccine at the same time was at fault (that it caused the "some disease" to that "someone's kid").
People who "think" in this way tend to rely on "word of mouth" rather than proven/provable facts.
Baseless opinions are destroying our world.
421
@IN Hard scientific facts? Try corporate scientism disguised as science and sponsored by the very same pharmaceutical cartel that stands to make $25 billion a year on vaccines. I dare you to step outside your bubble and start researching the truth on vaccine injury.
19
@IN
I wholeheratedly agree with IN. As the article points out, this is yet just another example of "a byproduct of an internet humming with rumor and mis information".
29
@IN
I disagree. Many of those who are grappling with the risk/benefit analysis of vaccination are people who have experienced adverse events. We are working from experience. To compound things, we are being told that it's evil to make a choice that could result in increased suffering (disease) but perfectly acceptable and just tough luck for us to suffer from the effects of the vaccine.
12
I have never read so many opinions that are entirely divorced from the research evidence. People seem content to state that the evidence shows whatever they think it shows without basing it in science. If you have an opinion, base it in facts. Anyone knowledgable about evidence or debating can tell you with no facts your argument withers like a flower in the desert. Try some evidence on for size, and then dismiss it out of hand, if you will:
Brain's Immune System Triggered in Autism, " Johns Hopkins Midieince, November 15, 2004; Pardo, Carlos, "Nueroglial Activation and Neruoinflammation,in the Brain of Paiteints with Autism, : Annals of Neurology, 57, no. 1 (2005) 67-81; Patterson, Paul, " Maternal Immune Activation Yields Offspring Displaying Mouse Versions of the Three Core Symptoms of Autism, : Brain Behavior, and Immunity, 26, no. 4 (2012) 607-616; Shaw, Christopher, et al "Aluminum Adjuvant Linked to Gluf War Illness Induces Motor Neuron Death in Mice, : Neuromolecluar Medicine 9, no. 1 (2007) 83-100; Shaw Christopher, Mechanisms of Aluminum Adjuvant Toxicity and Autoimmunity in Pediatric Populations,: Lups 21, no.s (2012) 223-230; Gherardi, Romain et al, " Biopersistence and Barain Translocation of Aluminum Adjuvants of vaccines, : Frontiers in Nuerology 6 ((2015) art. 4.
I could quote dozens of others; the research is plentiful.
You may dispute these findings but you can't say I haven't educated myself about the research. No, I guess you can, but you'd be wrong.
14
@Samantha I'd be more intrigued if your citations weren't full of typographical errors. From what web site did you copy/paste?
10
It would be great if science would provide research on why there is a rise in autism. Is It the fertility drugs that stars don’t want to admit they took to get pregnant? Vaccines have been being given out for decades now. Let’s find the real reasons for autism, please.
9
Some of us are old enough to remember getting the polio vaccine and the iron lungs for those who did not receive the vaccination. The anti-vaccination movement is the result of ignorance of scientific fact and the dissing of truth and truth-tellers by a raft of television hucksters telling people that "alternate facts" are the truth and that televangelists will cure if you send them money. If people were told that it is ok to cripple or kill your children there would be massive revolt, but this cry against vaccination is really no different except it is asking for a license to spread disease thought to have been banished. Nuts.
11
This article should be about money in science. Money leads to biased science and confuses parents on both sides.
8
@Delmar M. - But that’s not what this article is about, regardless of what you may wishfully think. Stop acting like science is the bad guy here; ignorant people, and the misinformation campaigns that target them and prey on their fears of diagnoses such as autism, are.
4
Is this all about anti-science or anti-bigpharma?
In an age when we can easily know what is in the food we feed our children, and what is in the clothing they wear…how are we to trust the for-profit health industry?
We are inundated daily with ads for drugs, drugs, and more drugs. We are told that we can’t wake, live, or sleep without…drugs.
Some of us just don’t buy it.
How can we trust the for-profit health industry when they want to inject unknown substances - and probably too much of them - into the tiny bodies of our children?
What is their motive to NOT over-vaccinate our children with the highest-profit-margin chemicals?
How can we trust doctors who are - thanks to the health industry - overworked and over-focused on profit production?
What can be done about this?
Writing as a human profoundly aware how irrefutably essential vaccines are, I say…stop yelling about the science of vaccines and the stupidity of anti-vaxxers.
What’s in those vaccines? Why so many? Why these dosages?
Why can’t vaccine labeling be as transparent as food labeling?
Parents ‘get’ the necessity of vaccines.
If they could trust the purity and dosages of vaccines as well, more children will be vaccinated.
130
@Darrance King
I too am skeptical of the American style of blanketing everyone with pharmaceutical cures and the desire for companies to make the next billion dollar drug. But vaccines are not drugs which promote constant daily usage, thereby reinforcing a huge profit incentive. From this article "Many companies stopped making vaccines, which were considered loss-leaders and not worth the corporate headache." Much of our health system is profit focused but vaccination is one area that seems to actually have public health in mind.
65
@CitizenD "Many companies stopped making vaccines, which were considered loss-leaders and not worth the corporate headache." is a perfect example of the lies that pharma tells to buttress their rotten agenda. Merck made $675 million in the second quarter of this year on MMRV alone. The industry is worth approximately $30 billion, with projections of $50 billion dollars in the next couple years. And another lie, that measles was eradicated in the US in 2000. As per the CDC, in 2000 the US saw 86 cases of measles. Lies, lies, lies.
21
Do you ask similar questions when you board a jet (e.g. how do the pilots know if this heavy piece of machinery can get off the ground?) or drive your car (e.g. what is the science behind this highly combustible liquid I’m about to ignite?)?
The answers to your excellent vaccination questions can be found with many years of education in post graduate studies. I recommend getting your application in soon.
108
High risk drivers pay substantially more for auto insurance because of their potential for causing harm and damage to others. Why not have high risk citizens (i.e. “anti-vaxxers) pay a substantially more for their health insurance because of their potential for causing harm and damage to others? That leaves them with the freedom to make their own choices, but allows society to recoup some of the expenses associated with their high risk behavior.
15
@Sandy because federal law prohibits discrimination in health insurance rates. Sick people and nonvacinated people pay the same rates as healthy people
@Sandy
Lets fund a kids health study with with and without vaccines. (it has never been done) My money would be on the group that did not inject aluminum, phenol, formaldehyde, triton X, glutamate, cells derived from cockerspaniels, aborted fetuses and monkeys into their kids before the blood brain barrier was formed to protect them from such toxins. Who would be high risk then?
John Hopkins school of public health publishes a great list of vaccine ingredients. http://www.vaccinesafety.edu/components-Excipients.htm
6
Part of swaying opinions includes having honest, complete conversations on the topic. Vaccines and antibiotics are the medical interventions that have done the most in improving average lifespan (by massively reducing child mortality.) We're all are able to discuss antibiotics in a nuanced way (recognizing that, while life-saving, they do have risks, and shouldn't be automatically given for every infection.) But no one is allowed to say any such thing in regards to vaccines for fear it will fuel the anti-vax sentiment. If your dog gets a vaccine, your veterinarian will warn you that the dog may act tired, have diarrhea or be slightly ill following it, due to the immune response to the vaccine. If you get a flu shot, you may have muscle aches, a slight fever and feel lousy the next day. But your doctor will not tell you that, and if you report it, they'll likely tell you it is unrelated. Vaccines do have side effects, mostly mild, as well as some more concerning risks. Generally these are not a reason to avoid the vaccine. But by pretending they don't exist, and refusing to discuss them, people feel lied to, and this leads to more anti-vax thinking.
9
My mother-in-law got the pneumococcal shot on Friday and spent Saturday in the ER, hooked up to an antibiotic IV. My neighbor got the shingles vaccine earlier this summer and spent two days on her death bed with shingles-like symptoms. My friend's co-worker took her son to get his shots, and on the ride home his lung collapsed. So what? Who cares? "Vaccines are safe and effective. Period" says the New York Times. I expect this whole vaccine madness will work out just fine.
9
I'll take, Things that never happened for 100, thanks.
15
To those who oppose vaccines,I urge them to go to the library and peruse microfilm copies of newspapers from the late 19th and early 20th century, an era from before the development of vaccines.
They will find that the death rates from diphtheria, tetanus, polio and whopping cough were quite high.
9
@mikepsr1
Yes you should do that. You will find that the rates of death and disability was dropping significantly prior to the introduction of many vaccines.
3
Anti-intellectualism is not the exclusive domain of the right; as this article mentions, "all natural" types have also declared their own truth, conflating "natural" with "good."
I think part of this stems from our society tip-toeing too much around religious/personal belief. Us teachers are more or less required to pretend that declaring something to be offense (e.g., "no, the bible is not the truth, and yes, evolution is fact") suffices as an argument. We're required to cater to personal belief even if it is devoid of argument. What do we expect when we put feelings above reason?
4
The anti-vax movement is an indictment of our public school curricula. Too many people have never taken even a high-school biology, chemistry or physics course. We are becoming the most poorly-educated nation in the industrial world. At the very least, we should tell parents that if they do not have their children vaccinated and have no doctor's exemption, taxpayers will NOT pick up the tab when their children end up in the ER.
3
We do a terrible job of educating. We have been so successful at herd immunity that virtually no one saw measles, polio, etc. while growing up, so they don't know the repercussions of diminishing the herd immunity.
My father contracted polio when he was 2 in 1922. He had a life long disability and died from the disease in 1999, having been wheelchair bound for the last 5 years of his life, and in a nursing home for the last 2 years of his life. Post-polio syndrome kills people, slowly and mercilessly.
Do I vaccinate? You bet! And you're welcome.
297
@impatient Please research Transverse Myelitis, Guillain Barre Syndrome, Meningitis, Acute Flaccid Paralysis and other polio-like illnesses and tell me they didn't just rename the disease so they could claim the vaccine was a huge success.
6
@Alex
Having treated most of this, let me say with gusto: You are utterly wrong. Find a different conspiracy.
89
If there were epidemics like smallpox, polio, diphtheria, etc causing serious illnesses and death among our children on a daily basis (along with the accompanying daily photos and headlines) I couldn’t imagine people not immunizing their children.
The alternative to immunization is returning to higher mortality rates and turning back the enormous achievements of modern medicine and decades of scientific research. You just can’t make stuff up.
7
A few points: in 1986 legislation signed by Ronald Reagan gave vaccine makers freedom from financial liability for their vaccines. Merck produces the most US vaccines and is currently paying off over 4 billion dollars in fines related to safety issues with its other medications. Current mandates force American kids in some states to take large numbers of vaccines for which the manufacturer has no stake in safety from a financial viewpoint. Of course, we can just assume Merck has a very big, soft heart.
The much praised science behind vaccines raises numerous questions rather quickly. Why are no true placebos used in safety studies? Why is the Hep B shot given the first day of life when extremely few babies are at risk as the disease is sexually transmitted or spread by needles and the mother is tested? Yet even premature, fragile babies are injected for a disease that virtually none are at risk for. This is a dangerous policy that no science can defend. Some other developed countries have stopped the practice. There are a lot of other red flags as far as safety is concerned not the least of which was a prominent vaccine researcher who sought federal whistleblower protection and received it. He asked to be called in front of Congress to testify on manipulation of MMR safety data. He never was. Last I heard, there were three times as many full time lobbyists in Washington plugging vaccines as there are legislators.
10
@LI can you please name this whistle-blower or cite anything you spoke about? I'm interested to read more.
There has to be transparency between the manufacturers of vaccines and the public. For proprietary reasons, pharmaceutical companies keep many formulas for drugs a guarded secret, but in this current climate where children and adults are now dying from measles in higher and higher numbers, we need to stop it before it spreads out across America and devestates our population. People often conflate measles with chicken pox, and it breaks my heart to hear a dear friend say matter of factly that she "hopes her son catches measles." I had to explain to her the dangers of measles because in all of her careful research about the evils of vaccinations, they had downplayed the danger of contracting measles to the point where she thought it was the same as chicken pox. So if big pharma is lying, so are the anti vaxxers. What we need is to take the profit out of the equation altogether. If nobody is making money from vaccinations, people are more likely to trust them. There also needs to be accountability. If your child becomes ill after a vaccination, then their medical care should be free. If we didn't live in a country with such a greedy and broken healthcare system, people wouldn't be so quick to mistrust. Unfortunately America has a long history of lying to individuals. The Tuskegee syphilis study being just one example. Rebuilding that trust will take bold moves.
2
“Science has become just another voice in the room,” said Dr. Paul A. Offit, an infectious disease expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “It has lost its platform. Now, you simply declare your own truth.”
Let's not forget how US industry has been allowed, in general, to corrupt science in order to enhance profits, at least for the last 70 years.
Witness the the ubiquitous "studies" of the nutritional benefits of one kind of food being used to promote that kind of food. When, in reality, the studies were funded by some entity that at first appears to be an objective 3rd party, but is really a shell company controlled by a major player in the heart of the industry that benefits from the claims that are based on the results of the study.
This has been going on in the US without mitigation for so long, people just shrug and move on now.
4
A common argument of the anti-vaxxer goes like this: "if you're vaccinated then you have nothing to worry about; you won't get sick from us." But vaccines don't work for everyone every time. Your body has to produce antibodies in response to a vaccination in order for you to secure immunity. Not everyone's body does that. So, there exists a percentage even of the vaccinated population who are still at risk of infection. Now, if you add to that a growing percentage of unvaccinated people, you have a population at an increasing risk of a disease outbreak. The question then becomes, can those unvaccinated persons develop antibodies against deadly diseases (Polio, Diphtheria, etc) on their own, and if so, will their number sufficiently outweigh the number of those who will not acquire natural immunity - whether vaccinated or not - to offset an epidemic? Unlikely, or we would not have needed the vaccines in the first place. It's a war against a deadly bug. And like in any war, the more that your side is alive and fighting, the more protection you will have against the enemy.
3
I have been keeping a list of children and babies from parents that gave their account about how their child has died after getting vaccines. Out of 103 , 37 of them died from getting their 2 month CDC scheduled vaccines. A lot of the parents said they saw a little foamy blood coming out of their mouths and or noses. But all the pro vaxxers can worry about is a case of measles. But they are right, technically If a child dies from their 2 month shots they will never get the measles or any other vaccine preventable disease.
4
@Char is this written down someplace where people can see the data you've collected? The numbers you spoke of are compelling, however without the ability to know what other factors were in play around the time if these deaths, it's hard to say with absolute certainty that their deaths were caused by the vaccinations themselves. Where are you drawing these cases from? Your own hometown, a single state, the entire country? Correlation is not causation. Plus factor in confirmation bias. It's just not enough information altogether.
4
"The constituents who make up the so-called vaccine resistant come from disparate groups, and include anti-government libertarians, apostles of the all-natural and parents who believe that doctors should not dictate medical decisions about children."
Or, said more generally. anti resistant groups are comprised of the emotionally and intellectually deficient citizens whose fear of reality has gotten the better of them. They are folks who need to act out their frustrations with whatever, and use their children as both the scapegoats and victims of their illogical nonsense. This may not be something that Trump has promulgated, but my bet says there are very few of these sorry sorts who are not Trumites and or Fox News devotees.
Birds of a feather flock together. They can't be ignored ( which is what they enjoy the most) because they pose a health hazard to society. But too much attention to them simply fuels their lunacy. Public health demands and dictates that they be kept out of schools.
3
These people who think they can "control their health" are in for a big surprise.
3
@Chris Surprise! Your kids are healthier than the others with auto-immune disorders and chronic diseases and severe allergies and learning disorders etc.— i.e. the sickest generation in history.
there really is a simple solution to this problem. All unvaccinated children should attend the same schools. Let nature do its thing.
3
@Lexie Great idea. Except the state won't allow it. The unvaccinated are not allowed to go to ANY schools: public, private, charter or religious. Basically pharma wants to eliminate the control group, ie the unvaccinated, before people catch on how much healthier they are. Even my pediatrician says the unvaccinated kids are the healthiest. And he spends his life injecting kids for a living.
6
Vaccines are causing the autism epidemic. Exactly how that is taking place is subject to much discussion both within and without the vaccine safety community – again, vaccine injury denialists claim it never happens. But far too many parents, families, and an increasing number of independent journalists and medical professionals know the truth. Vaccines that are untested and unsafe when given individually or in combinations – whether a mercury-laden flu shot in utero, as many as nine vaccinations at 6 months, or the MMR at age 1 – are clearly implicated. Because that threatens many powerful interests and comfortable orthodoxies, confronting the vaccine-autism link is assiduously avoided.
Nobody should have the power to ruin your life simply because they think it will make someone else’s better.
6
@USNA73 people ruin lives everyday in order to make somebody else's better. That's the entire premise on which our current economy stands. The "have nots" suffer for the good if the few "haves." Also there are many factors at play in the increase of instances of autism. One being that we are able to diagnose it simply because we're more aware of its existence. Sort of like when you never noticed a song before, but then it's suddenly everywhere at once. It feels meaningful, but it's our awareness that has changed, not the world. Also there is more pollution in our air, water and soil than ever before. We have more chemicals floating around inside of us than ever before. An interesting note, some autistic children are now fighting climate change with a focus only an autistic individual could hold. Perhaps they are life's way of self correcting for our overly emotional denials of what we are doing to the Earth?
1
Anti-vaccinators are a self-correcting problem. The problem is both their own children, and other vulnerable people whose health does not allow them to be vaccinated, can be killed by this decision.
“To just say that these parents are ignorant or selfish is an easy trope,”
Ok, I won’t say that. Criminally liable is how I would describe them. Complicity in the death of others should be punishable in the criminal justice system. Do that once or twice and watch the vaccination rate skyrocket.
2
There is science to support the caution and skepticism about the safety and efficacy of vaccines, especially the number of them now being mandated for young bodies, the immune systems of which may be overwhelmed.
Check out Gary Null's recent film Deadly Deception, and post replies.
5
It's good to have groups questioning authoritative advice, too bad the arguments of the anti-vaxxers are based on superstition.
2
Sorry, but I’m still going with the easy trope: “To just say that these parents are ignorant or selfish is an easy trope.” I’m tired of the people who live in the world and don’t understand that there are things that are required of us FOR THE GOOD OF SOCIETY. It is not all about ME AND MINE, MINE, MINE.
Also, why in the world does it take THREE adults to RESTRAIN a baby in order to give a shot? I held my children in my arms while the nurse administered the shots.
329
@Michelle: Worse, they are *willfully* ignorant and selfish.
Vaccines have been one of the greatest public (and personal) health successes the world has ever known. We even managed to actually eradicate smallpox.
It is a sad fact that the words of Dr. Paul A. Offit, quoted in this article, are true: "Science has become just another voice in the room; it has lost its platform. Now, you simply declare your own truth." And that's a direct reflection of something Issac Asimov observed so accurately years before, "The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'"
82
@Michelle My daughter would kick, scream and cry when she had to have shots even though I held her. I completely understand the picture!
15
@Michelle
Absolutely correct. This is not an issue where false equivalency "some believe..." nonsense is permissible.
16
This type of article is why we're not making progress with the "anti-vaxxers." The narrative is full of unnecessary tropes that don't strengthen the pro-vaccine side and are easily taken apart. For example, it is implied that vaccines are a "loss leader" manufactured out of the goodness of their hearts by Big Pharma. Why go there? Anybody can look up articles in Forbes or whatever and learn that the vaccine business is highly profitable. Relying on silly arguments just damages credibility.
The case for immunization is very strong. We need to tell a good story, but it needs to be rigorously based on evidence about effective vaccines.
14
I think that your need for evidence is heard, but shouldn't time,history, and lives saved by vaccines serve as a reminder to the public? They're free citizens, but if they don't want to home school their children and put them in group settings sometimes wrong. Like bringing them to public schooling that other citizens tax dollar goes toward. That's overstepping into then making their risky decisions impact other children's well being. I think these decisions mean they can no longer just pretend non vaccines aren't a risk yet some of these parents still bring their kids to the store and public places. The notion of emotion over science has to end. We're already deterring my generation from wanting to teach or go into stat based work because no matter what, it seems the internet can flip the rhetoric even on some of scientists life work. Sad.
3
@Evidence Guy Indeed. What you call an "unnecessary trope" is what I call a lie. Merck made $675 million on the MMRV vaccine alone in the second quarter of this year. The industry as a whole is approximately $30 billion with expectations to hit $50 billion in a couple years. This is just one of many lies on the vaccine topic that have been taken for truths. Another big one that appears in this article as well is that measles was eradicated in the US twenty years ago, in 2000. As per the CDC there were 86 cases of measles in the US that year. There are many more "unnecessary tropes" in this article, about the DTP shot (which as a result of various investigations was reformulated in to the safer DTaP. Isn't that a good thing?), or Andrew Wakefield, pharma's punching bag (whose study was perfectly fine. Take look at it someday). If, as Dr. Buttenheim says in the article, vaccines are not 100% safe, then they should never be mandatory.
4
@Alex however as they stated, no medication or medical procedure is ever 100% safe. You simply can't guarantee that to anyone for anything. There are no 100%s in this world. Its an unrealistic expectation based on fear for your child's safety, a very powerful emotion that can override all logic and evidence. If people feel a thing is true, in their mind it's truer than all the studies in the world. We need to take the profit out of vaccinations and provide them free as part of our national healthcare. We also need full transparency and people working to make sure e art vaccine is as safe as possible as well as creating a more reasonable timeline for vaccinations and being accountable for any illness due to vaccinations. The two sides nerd to work together before its too late.
3
Nobody is talking about Gardisil. Suddenly here was a vaccine that was being sold to all the authorities as being absolutely necessary and for what? To prevent some kind of cancer which, scary as it may be, is unlikely to affect any given person or anyone they know.
It's one thing to eradicate polio and measles, to get rid of childhood diseases like mumps and rubella with their horrendous consequences. It's quite another to mount a campaign against a disease almost nobody has heard of and do it in a "we're coming for your daughters" manner.
You couldn't design a better way to make people angry.
So yes, anti-vaxxers are wrong. But they're also angry, and with reason.
9
@Daedalus
"It's quite another to mount a campaign against a disease almost nobody has heard of and do it in a "we're coming for your daughters" manner."
What?! Haven't heard of human papilloma virus? How about "cervical cancer"? Heard of that one? It is caused by HPV and HPV is the target of Gardasil.
Anti-vaccination advocates are angry "with reason"? Here, again, is some of the faulty "reason" used as an argument against vaccination.
14
@Daedalus Almost 3,000 women die of cervical cancer in a year in the US. THAT's why HPV vaccine was developed.
13
@Daedalus
More women die of cervical cancer in the US than all forms of pediatric cancer combined..TIMES TWO. I would say it is indeed an important vaccine
10
In Maine a few weeks ago I was asked to sign a petition to place a referendum on the state ballot that would reverse a recently enacted law tightening vaccine requirements for school children. Eventually there were enough signatures obtained to force a referendum. Mine wasn't one of them.
The request was from a "religious" person. When I objected on the basis of history (past small pox vaccination requirements, memories of polio epidemics, public health tenets) and my belief that no valid religion should take an anti-vaccination stand, the petitioner brought out her "big gun": fetal tissue "used" in vaccine development.
The anti-vaccine folks are a motley crew. There is no easy solution to ignorance, as we know from the last presidential election and it's aftermath.
There are some risks associated with vaccines. The risks associated with the actual disease is greater. Public health may not be important to the anti-vaxxers, but it is critical to the rest of us
11
@Cindy Good for the people of Maine! They are fighting for our Constitutional rights for freedom of religion, the very first article in the Bill of Rights. We should all be cheering them on! Our bodies are God-given and inviolate. No corporate entity should have the power to force us into a medical procedure without our consent. There's also something called the Nuremberg Code, which has its first article No Forced Medical Procedures. You can come to the conclusion that vaccine benefits are greater than the risks, and go and get all your inoculations. That's fine. I come to the conclusion that they are not. There are thousands, if not millions of adverse effects that go unreported. Dr. David Kessler, the former head of the FDA, stated that fewer than 1% of adverse effects are ever reported. And as the article states, most physicians have no idea about the federal vaccine monitoring system (VAERS) and refuse to draw any connection between vaccines and injuries because it is not in their interest to do so. Every single vaccine has the capability to harm or even kill. As such, it should always remain a choice.
5
How easily we forget history.
If persons don't allow their children to be vaccinated for whatever reason should the rest of the populace be put at greater risk?
If that's the choice a parent makes, are they prepared to take on the responsibility of educating their unvaccinated children?
Why should the public be put at risk because of religious or other personal opinions of others?
2
@Alex:
If your choice to leave your child unvaccinated (unprotected) puts risk onto other children in your school system, then your child MUST be excluded from those schools.
Your "choice" is putting all other children at risk. So have your choice, but your actions will cause you to lose the right to educate that child at the state's expense.
Rights come with responsibilities.
P.S. regarding your saying "There are thousands, if not millions of adverse effects that go unreported"... this is a paper tiger. Adverse events include a "headache, and a sore, and a cough that goes away. Adverse events do not prove anything. If a treatment causes anything significant (more than a cough or sore, etc.) then a doctor will be involved by the patient, and THEN a report will be made to the FDA (all doctors know they must do this). So... you are wrong. Nearly 100% (all) serious adverse events DO get reported to the FDA. You have picked up a non-issue (about adverse events) and are trying to ontort it into your opinion that vaccines are "dangerous".
Paranoid people think in the same way, using zero proofs.
Please learn even a modicum of science. Science has let us to send robots to Mars, and have them autonomously do research!
3
Thanks, NYT, for a thoughtful article on a divisive topic. I shouldn't be shocked by the hubris of people to deny science, because it has been repeated time and time again, but I still am. For the record: vaccines are safe and effective. They protect both individuals and the community. Getting immunized supports the common good. Spreading vaccine misinformation hurts the most vulnerable among us.
17
@Sharon McMullen, RN But think of it this way: refusing to have children vaccinated may prove a boon to the funeral and wheelchair industries.
2
Schools for the deaf may re-open
1
Interesting piece as it examines the historical timeline and cultural influences, as well as role media unfortunately played. Five years ago, when we had our second baby, we decided to cloth diaper, co-sleep, and breastfeed and every social circle we found that involved meeting other parents like ourselves meant we were suddenly face-to-face with dozens of anti-vax families. Every playground meetup, every Babywearing get-together seemed to involve conversations about which doctors would allow non-vax families in their offices and which school districts are easiest to allow religious exemption (even though many families weren't religious but seeking that loophole for just their personal, or fear-based, choice). We have an autistic kiddo and never have we ever thought vaccines played a part. We find it mindboggling that in many African countries, vaccines aren't readily available and people need and want them, yet in America, they are widely available and too many parents just opt-out...meh, just because.
11
@Jess:
Hopefully you did the socially correct thing, and tried to tell those parents that science and the facts showed they were wrong. If they objected, ask them to bring truly scientific papers/articles that supported their opinions.
If you didn't do that, you lost an opportunity to educate these well-meaning, but frankly SCARED AND MIS-INFORMED, group of anti-vaxer parents.
1
Lack of confidence that vaccines are safe in a world where for profit companies are self policing with little or no governmental oversight is the problem. If parents had confidence that drugs were safe they'd vaccinate. The opioid crisis created by drug companies to increase their profits is a perfect example of why we've lost confidence in our system. Everyone wants an effective health care system with safeguards to protect us, but the US Medical INDUSTRY today isn't it. We have the most expensive health care system on Earth & we can't trust it.
15
Fascinating, and reflects many things that I saw while practicing as a certified nurse-midwife. Great article!
3
What a great article.
So here is a problem that cannot be blamed on Trump. West Virginia leading vaccination rate indicates that the problem cannot be blamed on the white working class or bible-beaters.
Some people put more stock in Jenny McCarthy's anecdote than decades of sound science and this article, like almost all journalism these days, brings in a couple of anecdotes about parents who support immunization because of something that happened to them.
After decades of blaming our problems on Big Tobacco or Big Oil or Big Insurance we have a problem with people resisting immunization because Big Pharma will profit from it. Just to prove that, the article closes with a physician saying that paying pediatricians more might solve the problem.
The genie is out of the bottle. Ideally, people should make decisions based on facts and science. That is not going to happen until the name-calling and condescension stop, and then people are given all the facts without lecturing.
19
Did I hear @Jim Linnane say we were "blaming our problems on Big Tobacco or Big Oil or Big Insurance"? Is @Jim Linnane suggesting that "people" brought "problems" like lung cancer, respiratory illnesses, air pollution, global warming, and chaotic, deteriorating healthcare on themselves"?
3
I can still remember newspaper pictures of children in what were called "iron lungs" (ventilators which looked like oil drums with only the kid's head sticking out - they had a mirror over their faces so that they could see around a bit) in the 1950s. The children had polio.
It is sad, indeed, that parents are ill informed and fearful, but what they fear will harm their kid far less than what it prevents. Still, I know it is hard to get through. I have a college educated relative who refused to get the HPV vaccine for a daughter because she "heard" about a boy who got the shot and experienced "temporary paralysis." The relative said, "I'm not going to do that to my child. She can decide when she gets older if she wants to risk it or not." There was no talking to her about risks and benefits.
14
My anti-vaxx friends are the same ones who want to force women to carry fetuses to term that have incurable birth defects. They are huge on libertarianism for themselves, but happy to drop all kinds of health burdens on others.
It is impossible to argue with people who make up their own science, and who shift their values like the wind. Cherish your science education, and be kind.
78
We should thank these people for offering to sacrifice their children and themselves to help ameliorate world over population. Infectious diseases kill more people that all the wars of history. Thanks to them, America is doing their part.
21
If you would walk around with a dirty needle and poke it into random folks, they would lock you up in jail. I don’t understand how letting your unvaccinated kids walk around in public isn’t the same crime.
35
@Hugo de Groot
Walking around with a dirty needle and poking random folks is what happens in pediatricians' offices every day.
1
Really? Pediatricians use dirty needles?
7
Lay the responsibility at the feet of the worst public education system among nations with developed economies. The majority of the US population is a appallingly ignorant in particular with regard to scientific evidence.
45
@citizennotconsumer
Article like this are in fact the public education system when it comes to vaccination. This is why most people support vaccination, rather than educating themselves by carefully examining the research studies.
4
@citizennotconsumer You got that right! Kids in western European countries today come out of high school with fluency in at least three languages, a deeper understanding of history, and lab experience in biology, chemistry and physics.
2
“To just say that these parents are ignorant or selfish is an easy trope,” said Jennifer Reich, a sociologist at the University of Colorado Denver, who studies vaccine-resistant families.
Nothing in this article suggested that either ignorance and/or selfishness is at the base of every vaccine hesitant/anti-vaxxer patent. If they don't understand the science, or subscribe to various bizarre conspiracy theories, that's simply ignorance. If they understand the science, but choose not to vaccinate *their* children anyway, relying on the parents of other children to do the right thing, then that's free-riding, which of course is pure selfishness.
I suppose the "peer-pressure" parents who want to win the approval of whatever group they feel pressured by, might plead that they are neither ignorant nor selfish, but simply weak. OK, let's update the "easy trope" to be "these parents are ignorant, selfish, or simply pathetic."
19
Why not interview RFK, Jr. and Barbara Loe Fisher and see what they have to say? They'll gladly share the science.
20
@lechrist Does teir "science" include Dr. Wakefield's 1988 paper or any other discredited claims?
3
Excellent article!
7
Uniformed people making anti science, uninformed decisions based on fashion and emotion. Sad.
19
@Sara Mook
Before getting laser treatment for post-glaucoma, I decided to check out a website about side-effects. After reading a couple of the comments, I left it, because I had never in my life read such foolishness and disinformation even about the treatment as such. I got my treatment, have beautifully clear vision and will never check out a non-medical website ever again.
19
@EC said:
“A friend of mine who lives in London has a PhD in Cancer Research and she is an
anti-vaxxer”
I say:
yes because they are studied biomedical scientists that understand the very real risks that most of the non-scientist, parroting, commentators in this article cannot.
14
@Hamish
Then where is the intelligent argument? I've scoured the internet looking intelligent anti-vaccination arguments. If your friend knows something we don't why aren't they writing about it?
I think your friend is imaginary.
7
@Hamish That, or the "friend in London" is a fraud.
3
@Hamish:
No University grants Ph.D. degrees in "Cancer Research".
If there is even one scientist who eschews vaccinations, they would put forth scientifically valid points, that would quickly spread all over the internet. No such "points" exist because no true scientist denies vaccinations.
Your anecdote sounds exactly like anti-vaxxer nonsense.
4
Sad! This is what happens in a society so decadent and self-indulgent that the so-called privileged and educated reject life-saving vaccines for their children because they've never seen children die or become maimed from these diseases. They think it cannot possibly happen to them!
27
@Donna Meyer
Re: "...so-called privileged and educated ..."
Privileged, yes. But only partially educated.
We need to teach some probability and statistics in junior high school. Then perhaps more people will understand the difference between statistics and anecdotes.
4
I've known some anti-vax women. I do believe women are more prone to the persuasion of misinformation simply because they don't want to be isolated from a group, a herd mentality. I don't dislike some of the women who are of this mind, but I do believe they are mentally ill. Trump snickers to himself when he spreads conspiracy, these women aren't laughing. They are anti-science if to be otherwise breaks their clique or sense that, well, sometimes unfortunate things happen and it can't be explained.
Conspiracists often share this psychology, the inability to wrap your brain around the truth that in life, random bad things happen. They are comforted by a "reason", as flawed and disproven as it may be, they will never let go.
12
@MCS
Those women are not mentally ill but they are totally uninformed and subscribe to whatever their friends have allegedly heard or seen at some time, are too lazy to check out the facts. I had some American friends of this kind and they would not even discuss the matter. The reply was always, "But I have read it", or "I know it," or "That's what we believe here."
9
I think the fundamental issue is that the anti-vaxxers see their children's bodies as some sort of pure,natural temple. Where only organic food, non-flouridated water, etc enter their systems. They see vaccinations as a made up unnecessary health intervention trumped up by Big Pharma. They are extremely anti Big Pharma and analyze anything that is consumed into their bodies. Honestly, it is a very different way of thinking. You can not reason with them. They are the same people that blame doctors for everything...for instance, they believe chemotherapy kills people not cancer...there have been stories of parents denying chemo to children...it is the same group...They ask why isn't here a cure for cancer...I feel like saying why don't you go to medical school and come up with a cure.
14
Pediatricians should be tougher about accepting unvaccinated children into their waiting rooms where they mix with other children. Isolate them and their parents into specific parts of the waiting room and for pre-scheduled appointments, accept them only one to two days per week. Make it inconvenient, costly and a little shameful for parents to make this choice. Same for schools, libraries, day camps, etc.
26
That photo is not indicative of how all vaccines are administered. My kids were always on my lap and I would nurse them immediately after.
29
@Al When I got the polio vaccine in the'50s, the needle was stuck in my arm.
Those children who are vaccinated have a right to be protected from those who are not. Those not vaccinated due to the willful ignorance of their parents should be kept out of the public schools.
37
@Mike Murray MD
Pediatricians should be compelled to practice evidence based medicine or lose their licenses.
1
@Mike Murray MD
"Those children who are vaccinated have a right to be protected from those who are not."
Aren't the children who are vaccinated /protected/ by the vaccine?? Isn't that the point? Just sayin'
(I believe the problem is when a child _cannot_be_vaccinated_ because of a known condition that would create a _medical_ exemption.)
6
@MRM not every vaccinated person successfully is able to create the antibodies needed to protect themselves from the disease they were vaccinated against.
1
There's nothing new under the sun.
Read Anti-intellectualism in American Life (1963), and The Paranoid Style in American Politics (1964) by Richard Hofstadter.
Both books explain the predicament we find ourselves in today.
27
@David Henry
Thank you! Your point is a laser beam thru the fog of the article and, more so, the responses. Hofstadter was a genius.
The more children don't get vaccinated, the more deaths there will be, and the fewer young folks there will be to castigate politicians once climate change tipping points are reached.
Republicans should be jumping on the anti-vax bandwagon quite soon now.
4
@qisl
And please don't forget those unfortunate children who may get such an illness due to their parents' not having them immunized and end up handicapped as a result. I wonder whom the parents will blame then?
7
It's child abuse, and "parents" should be prosecuted, unless a valid exemption exists.
11
The cause is very poor Science Education in the US..
Science literacy should again be a national goal..
Back in the 60s and 70s Science was better understood by the American electorate..
16
It is time for medical to explain themselves better. What exactly is in the vaccine? Be less over bearing and rushed in appointments. How much mercury and fluoride do we all carry? Our food, what is in that process? Fear is not enough anymore, or perhaps until the next outbreak.
2
Small pox is eradicated today for one reason and one reason only. The mass immunization program with a live vaccine. . Vaccines saves lives. My father always said prevention is better than cure. Guess what we just marked his 100th birthday. Yes the small pox vaccine was not perfect for all persons and not especially for those who were immunocompromized for whatever reason . But many of the vaccines are killed vaccines. The there are the veterinary vaccines which have reduced the spread or rabies and parvo infection . Rindepest has been eradicated due to vaccine given to cattle. Measles and polio could have been eradicated if the vaccine doubters did not resist getting these vaccines against these infection. Those who don't want to get vaccines against deadly infections that regulatory authorities have judged as safe please leave mother earth and find another planet. You are endangering the human race.
11
Disclaimer: I'm not endorsing one way or another of getting vaccine.
Many questions by the scientific community have not been sufficiently looked at. Somehow I have a hunch that the vaccine is interacts with other DNA traits of the child or is a bad strain itself that only manifests itself under certain conditoins. There are a lot of scientific questions that the CDC glances over in it's "safe" promotion which really should be looked at. For example giiven the large sample size of children who have been vaccinated, and those children who have not, what is the breakdown of the population became autistic? Within the population of children who too the vaccine what was the strain (or manufacture info) of those children who became autistic and those who did not? Similar questions can be asked around DNA or RNA traits of the children or of the parents. To some this might sound a bit silly, but a recent article about autism in several children and the sperm doner might offer clues.
ref: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/the-children-of-donor-h898/2019/09/14/dcc191d8-86da-11e9-a491-25df61c78dc4_story.html
5
This issue is becoming similar to our national politics.Parents need to do what they think is best.I did some of the vaccines for my children but not all. That is my business not this incredibly corrupt government and the corporate medical mafia.People are worried because there children are becoming sick. They have every right to question what is being injected into their children.
7
This article opens up other questions of grave concern. Every month tens of thousands of people illegally enter this country. What are the health risks associated with millions of people in this country that may not have been vaccinated?
4
@D. Arnold There are Central American countries with a higher vaccination rate than the U.S.A. Just because people are entering illegally does not automatically translate into them being disease carriers.
14
Compare the American vaccine schedule to the European, Canadian, or Japanese vaccine schedules. You'll find that American children receive twice as many vaccines as children in other developed and healthy countries. But if you ask, "Why are American children being over-vaccinated in comparison to the rest of the developed world?", you'll receive nothing but insults. Why? The fact that parents aren't even allowed to ask a simple and objective question like this erodes trust in vaccinations, science, and the media.
27
@Sadie Slays—I support vaccinations, but this is a reasonable question to me.
12
It’s reasonable to ask why my child needs X, Y, and Z vaccinations. It’s not reasonable to pose that question with the presumption that American children are “over vaccinated.” As a parent, I wanted to ensure my kids were protected and that others were, too, by virtue of their immunizations. I talked about the timing and number of shots with their pediatrician and listened to his informed counsel. I didn’t go to Dr. Google or listen to other moms, unless they were pediatricians. We can’t all just make up whatever “alternative facts” we want.
7
@Sadie Slays - Could you offer some links about your statistics in Europe, Canada, Japan that support your statement that the US children receive "twice as many" vaccines?
3
The schools are failing our children. They should be taught how to interpret information to determine which information is false and which is true.
People opposed to vaccinating their children pay more attention to celebrities and ignorant people than they do to scientists who have studied health topics for for many years.
This absolute ignorance of how to determine what is right information and what is wrong information is a very dangerous situation for the US.
5
I will always remember the scene when I had a sudden return to Jefferson Hospital to be with my comatose mother who had a post-surgical complication. No, this is not a "be careful about routine surgery" comment.
Every doctor in my Mother's hospital room, save one, was smoking in 1979. The smell of that room was overpowering. That was 15 years after the 1964 report "Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General, Smoking and Health" was published.
My Dad was the only Doctor in that room that was not smoking, and he credited me for getting him to stop smoking by asking the simple question, "Dad, why do you smoke?" The concept that medical professionals know the answer is easily challenged by that visual of doctors smoking in 1979 when they knew it could kill them, and quite a painful death too.
So I ask the medical professionals the simple question of, "How many vaccines can the human body handle?" In the 60's when I grew up, we had 8 vaccines. Today there are 70+ vaccines on the CDC schedule. Is 500 too many? Can you show me the studies for the cumulative effect?
And stop calling me anti-vaccine! I want to have a real conversation about how many vaccines. I personally know that "88% of diarrhea-associated deaths are attributable to unsafe water, inadequate sanitation, and insufficient hygiene." I have never met Paul Offit, but could he one time mention this when he tells us how his vaccine "saves lives"? Saving lives in the developing world is different than here in NYC .
21
@Murray the Cop
"Today there are 70+ vaccines on the CDC schedule. "
Where did you get that from? Here is CDC schedule for childhood vaccinations. There are NOT over 70 vaccines on the childhood immunization schedule.
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/hcp/imz/child-adolescent.html
2
You miss two key points about Andrew Wakefield's paper that fabricated a connection between vaccination and autism:
1) Wakefield's work was a pre-conceived fraud. He had a financial interest in an alternative to vaccination so he sought to discredit vaccines. He created fake data and subjected children to unnecessary surgical procedures. Brian Deer, an amazing British journalist deserves much credit for unmasking Wakefield.
2) The claim that vaccination could cause autism makes no biological sense. We now know that the majority of autism is caused by mutations in children's DNA. See papers by Devlin, De Rubeis, Daly and Buxbaum. These mutations, which are present in virtually all of a child's cells, alter the development and operation of neurons in the brain. Since vaccines cannot cause mutations, there's no mechanism for them to cause autism.
21
Good that schools are banning unvaccinated kids. Maybe it should be considered a crime since it puts the kid and kids around it in jeopardy. Anyone with a baby too young to be fully vaccinated should be careful who they socialize with and ostracize those who aren't vaccinated.
7
All you need do is take a look at that baby being held down and stabbed with those needles. No sane parent would put their child through that for the dubious value of maybe being protected from common childhood illnesses which most kids fully recover from. Its time to revisit the number of required vaccines. Sure you can make a case for some vaccines but over 60? That's insane. We should go back to the schedules they had 30 years ago as they were much more reasonable.
5
I have never heard of a child being given an immunization in the manner that the child in the photo is being given one. I held my daughters in my arms and soothed them hte entire time. As a previous poster said, I would also nurse them immediately after.
4
I have four children fourteen and under and they have all been held on my lap and restrained by me at the behest of the nurse. The doctor is never in the room and usually i plus a nurse or two, depending on the kid and the day, have to restrain them. My children are fully vaccinated but I have always wondered whether it was of more benefit to the public health or the bottom line of the pharmaceutical companies.
1
What the article and commenters fail to acknowledge is that a major factor feeding distrust of science is the corrupt and dishonest conduct of the profiteering medical vultures, pharma and medical corporations. Time and time again they have lied about products, covered up injuries and deaths, faked results, and are given carte blanche by the capitalist government. This makes people susceptible to 'natural' hucksters, and engenders distrust of professions of vaccination safety. I happen to be fully in favor of mandatory vaccination but there is some risk, which much be acknowledged, even when outweighed by benefits. However, I do not trust the vaccine companies. I'd have to be a fool. I live in San Francisco, the epicenter of every fool believing in some 'natural' cure for whatever, like the 'genius' Mr. Jobs who died using "natural alternative medicine" for pancreatic cancer. San Francisco and other "enlightened" cities are stuffed with PhDs and also happen to be epicenters of anti-vaxer nutcases, usually correlated to higher education. There should only be proven medical exemptions for vaccinations. However, until all medical care is freed of the profit motive none of can or should trust claims by Big Pharma, and even less those by Big Natural Snakeoil. Only universal free medical care and education can help create an honest trustworthy rational medical system.
7
This is the age of unreason. I worry for the children. They willl deal with preventable illnesses, they will inherit a devasted planet. Mad men run amok. Makes me think of the first stanza from Yeat's The Second Coming:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
9
A good friend has severe rheumatoid arthritis. She is effectively immunosuppressed using a combination of drugs. Unvaccinated kids pose a true risk to her and anyone else who is immunosuppressed especially other kids. Their only protection from these illnesses is the herd immunity vaccines confer. This isn't a choice based on personal freedom. It's a dangerous, unscientific belief that does pose a real threat to other vulnerable people. They are certain costs associated with living in modern civilization. Vaccination is one of them.
14
I was intrigued by this article so I went and looked up the vaccine schedules of today, which bear little resemblance to the vaccines I received as a child. Why would an infant need Hepatitis B vaccine when most health professionals consider this a sexually transmitted disease? What is rotavirus and why was no one of my age ever vaccinated against this disease (I was born in the 1960s). How is it that I've never heard of anyone dying from rotatvirus? How is it that no one received flu vaccines 40 years ago yet I don't recall anyone who wasn't already elderly and sick ever dying from the flu?
9
@Anne They died. It was called pneumonia. Hep B can be transmitted in many ways. It can happen through unprotected sex, tattoos, piercings, pedicures, manicures or medical procedures with improperly sterilized equipment, sharing personal hygiene items with an infected person (e.g. razors, toothbrushes, nail clippers) or providing emergency first aid in which you come in contact with blood or other body fluids. Sure you don't want immunization before your tattoo?
9
@Anne the flu pandemic in the early 1900's killed an estimated 20 - 50 million people (including almost 700,000 Americans). While some of those people were elderly and sick already, certainly not all were. Additionally, small children/babies are at an increased risk of flu related deaths.
1
Somewhere you might have mentioned the demonization of psychiatry and psychotropic medications in which The Times took a very active part.
Read the comments whenever it publishes an article about psychiatry with people believing that the medications were only prescribed because psychiatrists were in the pocket of Big Pharma and were being paid off.
Before the current crop of anti-vax celebrities came forward as experts we had Scientologists like Tom Cruise saying they were experts on mental illness and its treatment.
I wonder where doctors like Dr. Offit were when this was occurring. Was it that because they weren't psychiatrists, they didn't care?
3
@Steve Maybe those doctors were still in Medical School?
1
Those who feel the government should not be able to tell them what to put in their bodies have no compunction about telling women and loudly advocating what they can't do to their bodies ; it is the ultimate hypocrisy . Polio is no joke and in countries like Pakistan they murder health workers who voluntarily vaccinate children against it ; it is ignorance and one can chalk it up to backwardness and yet when someone like Joe Kennedy advocates against vaccination , we are just as gullible in this country to believe him . My older sister almost died of diphtheria as a baby when there was no vaccination available ; my mother would tell us the harrowing story of almost losing her young child . I was born much later and when the vaccines became available , she had us all vaccinated .
7
Anti vaxxers are fond of saying that chicken pox and measles are "rites of passage" and fondly remember measles and chicken pox "parties."
They dont remember "polio parties" or "smallpox parties." Maybe we can bring those diseases back for them to celebrate
I had the chicken pox and the mumps, the latter accompanied by a fever so high, I apparently hallucinated that the very nice woman who owned the luncheonette across the street from our home in East Flatbush was under my bed biting me.
Fortunately the vaccines for measles and rubella came out before I got those illnesses and I was born after the polio vaccine. I had a friend whose parents
had polio and were both disabled and wore braces and used crutches. They both also suffered terribly with post polio syndrome.
My kids are vaccinated, I am grateful to the researchers who developed these vaccines and kept them and others from suffering. I'd say I'm shocked by such anti science ignorance, but then again, every morning I wake up and trump is actually still president.
18
What anti-vaxxers need is a history lesson. Consider all the diseases that claimed lives by the millions: polio, small-pox, measles to name but a few. These numbers have been brought down to virtually zero.
Do anti-vaxxers really want a return to those times?
7
@Santa I’m sure this has nothing to do with sanitation, clean water and the nutrition we are so lucky to have in a modern era.
We had sanitation and clean water in the 50s when I got measles and lost my hearing.
1
@Ann
Polio has been eradicated from most nations worldwide, including the poorer and less developed parts in Africa, Philippines, India. None of these places are quite known for their clean water and sanitation.
2
The key problem is that the vast majority of people, including people with college degrees, do not understand science, do not understand probability theory, do not understand risk assessment. Hence, they are gullible to anything they read on internet. Understanding science requires hard work and time. It is much easier to come up with your own two-bit conspiracy theory, then find someone on internet who will confirm it with some cherry-picked pieces of data, which become false because they are chosen a priori to prove a pet theory, while knowingly excluding all the other data that would disprove it.
12
@In medio stat virtus
They shouldn't have to understand all the science & wouldn't need to if the for profit Medical Industry that spawned the opioid crisis were worthy of our confidence. We the public don't trust them anymore. If big pharma & big Med were properly regulated people wouldn't have to try to figure out for themselves whether a prescribed medicine is a lifesaver or a poison.
3
This is the result of raising celebrities onto pedestals. The US is a culture dominated by celebrity opinion over expertise.
9
How did public health become so poorly understood and so poorly embraced by so many? When the medical system and professionals became obsessed with profits, treatment and crisis management public health lost its cool. Public health has to be brought back. It requires both grassroots education and top down policies. Leaving it to the people exclusively, many uneducated and unscientific, will result in epidemics and pandemics. Fine parents and segregate families who don't do basic vaccination against polio, whooping cough, diptheria, small pox, measles, etc.
5
@ExhaustedFightingForJusticeEveryDay
Fine drug companies & big Med for pushing opioid drugs & regulate them to restore confidence so people can feel good about protecting their kids with vaccination. If we could trust again the problem would be over.
2
The lead picture for this story is a very poor example of how children are given immunizations and is likely adding to parents’ anxiety about immunizations. As a former immunization nurse at a health department I know that an infant held securely in the arms of their parent is an easy, humane and more comforting way to provide immunizations.
12
As a parent of children born in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I used cloth diapers, made my own baby food and breastfed my babies. But I also vaccinated my children and used car seats even when a nurse belittled me for not holding my first born on the drive home from the hospital. My parenting choices were based on a strong feminist philosophy and my confidence in making informed decisions based on science. I was often shocked by the illogical decisions made by the Mothering Magazine crowd I encountered in a liberal east coast college community who, for instance, forbid their children to have any sugar whatsoever, even in a birthday cake, but did not use car seats because their children were "in God's hands." The echo chamber enforcing such beliefs is not new in the internet age. Peer influenced ignorance has existed through out human history with many obvious examples. Unfortunately, children suffer from their parent's ignorance and superstition in numerous ways, some life threatening to them and others.
10
@kat you should go and find out how many vaccinations your child had during their lifetime... I was born in the late 70s which meant I had approximately 10-15 vaccinations in my lifetime. A child born today should expect to receive upwards of 75 shots before the age of 18.... the CDC schedule is out of control and since they ARE in the actual business of making vaccines and earning money off them (they own patents to a handful of vaccines) it makes sense. I’m all for reasonable but this is getting out of hand, when will it end?
3
Additional proof of how social media is used in order to organize others and to spur them to reaction we can point to the fact that the TV broadcast refere to by Hoffman in the article "DPT: Vaccine Roulette" is widely available (just use a search engine). I suppose that this broadcast is still protected by copyright yet the owners (also named in the article) have not taken effective action to cause it to be taken down. Since the video of the broadcast seems to be accessible on different social media platforms it also becomes in part their responsibility that this misinformation can continue to circulate. It is high time to do something about regulating social media.
10
As a retired teacher, I'm glad I don't have to put up fighting with these anti-vaccine groups. My view is if you want to put your children at medical risk, keep them home and you teach them. Parents should not be allowed to put other children at risk because of their views on medicine.
There are sometimes rare exceptions for a few children that have been identified with special problems regarding vaccine problems. They can be handled in special ways so as not to infect others.
33
@Don indeed that’s why herd immunity is so important. All who can have the vaccine should have so that those who can’t are unlikely to suffer.
4
Ah, yes, for all of the anti-vaxxers, let’s return to the happy times of about 1958, when I had pneumonia, chicken pox and measles, all in the space of about 6 months. Okay, the chicken pox was basically a walk in the park, compared to the measles that came next... I remember so vividly being, as the saying was back then, “out of my head,” trying to grasp objects floating in the air that weren't’ there, vomiting, the fever. It was a night where my mother was convinced I was dying. But, I didn’t. I was weak as could be and then a cold came along which progressed into pneumonia. Oh, I survived, obviously, but at 68 years old, the thoughts of being that sick as a little guy still haunt me.
You better believe my child had shots. So has my grandchild. And yes, I get every vaccination I can find now. We didn’t have vaccinations back in the 1950s like we do now. Young parents now are so lucky to have the miracles of medicine they do... any parent that doesn’t take advantage and protect their child against these diseases is just totally derelict of being a good parent.
73
@The Nattering Nabob back to a time when clean water, sanitation and access to basic medical care were few and far between. We live in a time where these issues are no longer a concern. How many vaccinations did you have as a young growing child? How many did your children have? I can tell you now you had no more than 10-15. In 1987, vaccine manufacturers became exempt from all liabilities associated with their products... vaccines sky rocketed at that point and children today can be expected to receive upwards of 75 shots before 18. This issue is about the right of a parent to decide what is best for their child and maybe a delayed schedule is what a parent sees as more reasonable.
4
Do you actually believe that Americans did not have clean water and sanitation in the 50s? Food was better, garden grown. I lost my hearing from measles and I say it over and over again because, believe me, it’s a stone cold drag not being able to hear.
3
Your article fails to mention one obvious source of the anxiety and uninformed fear that motivates many anti vaxers, our current for-profit medical system which promotes assembly-line care delivered by clinicians who may as well be strangers.
Despite very good (you'll pardon the expression) science indicating the relationship between patient and clinician is a critical factor in providing quality care, our mammoth, corporatized care systems eliminate the once-predominant family doctor model for a rotating staff, digital records that are regularly proved inadequate and are rarely consulted by providers anyway.
The lack of personal relationship, the loss of personal confidence in a professional one knows well and genuinely trusts vastly limits the impact of clinician statements and recommendations.
Of course it does produce higher returns on investment, the gold standard in American medicine.
15
@oogada Sorry but I'm afraid you are wrong. In the past most people could not afford a doctor and so this "personal relationship" that you talk about was restricted to those who could actually pay for one. But, back then they didn't feel the need to get cozy with their doctor to get a shot b/c they could see kids dying of or maimed by diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, measles, mumps, rubella (stillbirths) polio etc. in their neighborhoods. Seeing really is believing and if these parents today saw their own or other kids dying (or maimed) by these preventable diseases, they would begin to get in line for the shots and not care who was giving it.
8
@hmsmith0
I agree with oogada. if you can't trust your doctor because they are the tool of corporate profits you're in trouble. Our family doctor in the 50s & 60s cared about our health & if money was tight his priority was still our health & we'd pay when we could. It's not like that anymore!!! What happened to the Hippocratic oath? Is that just a joke of history today?
3
I trust my doctor.
1
Of course it's not right to "declare your own truth," but parents are not necessarily anti-science or anti-vax just because they are understandably suspicious of a scientific community that has willingly and often sold itself to corporations bent more on profit than the well-being of the people.
Do you really need to Google the many incidents over the past century in which a drug has been hailed as safe only to find that it isn't, or that it causes, say, physical dependence or deformities or death? And when the lives of one's own children are at stake should these parents now blindly submit to the same corporations without demanding genuine answers? Instead, they are called anti-science and people scoff at them. But children do die.
17
@S Jones Indeed, children do die of the diseases that can be easily prevented by vaccines. Vaccines were invented about 200 years ago. They have been proven to be extremely safe for 200 years, they have prevented and are preventing millions of deaths. And the scientific community has continuously improved the formulas. Science, differently from religion, works by continually revising and improving its discoveries, thank goodness. And, as anyone who understands probability theory and risk assessment knows, zero risk does not exist, but an incredibly low probability of risk does, and the latter describes the risk of adverse effects of vaccines, which is a vastly lower risk than catching the diseases prevented by vaccination.
16
@S Jones over 50 years of vaccines and very few die or have adverse reactions. I scoff at them for exactly the reasons listed in the article. They think Jenny McCarthy has better answers than honest-to-God scientists. They don't understand the maths behind success rates or complication rates. They choose to believe one or two anecdotal situations over achieve. And they put other children at risk. They deserve the scorn.
9
@S Jones over 50 years of vaccines and very few die or have adverse reactions. I scoff at them for exactly the reasons listed in the article. They think Jenny McCarthy has better answers than honest-to-God scientists. They don't understand the maths behind success rates or complication rates. They choose to believe one or two anecdotal situations over achieve. And they put other children at risk. They deserve the scorn.
This article makes the error of talking about children as property when they are really their own persons. They should not be hit, starved, or denied education or medicine by the grown-ups tasked with caring for them. And yes, vaccines are medicine.
"My child, my choice" is nonsense if your choice is to hurt "your" child.
19
This article led me to Dr Jennifer Reich’s book “Calling the Shots” - it’s fantastic. Very readable and persuasive (and not un-generous) in its contextual analysis of vaccine-resisting/refusing parents.
In this domain as in others, Individualism is damaging our collective social life.
22
Threaten to drop coverage and increase premiums if the child isn’t vaccinated. See how quickly people change their mind when money is involved.
47
@John
So risk severe health complications from toxic vaccines overloaded with aluminum and other toxic ingredients never tested for safety employing a saline control?
3
@tmauel If what you state were true (and it is not), then can you explain why I, my children, my husband, my friends, etc...etc... have always been vaccinated against every possible disease for which a vaccination exists and are enjoying excellent health? One example: My parents-in-law, who are vaccinated every year against the flue (which we all do), and have also done the vaccines against pneumonia, shingles, etc..., are 96 and 94, and are still skiing, traveling around the world, biking, taking walks in their beloved mountains, etc.... If what you said were true, they should be dead, considering how many vaccines they have had. Millions of people take vaccines every year around the world, and they are in excellent health, disconfirming your statement above.
9
@John It takes more than that. anti-vaccination people endanger other kids.
The only answer is to make vaccinations law everywhere.
5
Both of my parents were born during the depression and had strong childhood memories of the polio epidemic in the thirties and forties and early 50s. There was absolutely zero question in their mind about whether my brother and I should be vaccinated. I had the chickenpox before the vaccine was available and just recently received my second dose of shingles vaccine because I've watched friends of mine get shingles and it isn't pretty.
33
Just got my second dose of the updated vaccine, too. First wasn’t a good two dats, but beats the heck out of shingles.
2
Calling it “vaccine hesitancy” is so benign and doesn’t do justice to the repercussions of refusal to protect against dangerous (and in some cases deadly) communicable diseases. Before people refuse vaccination they should be required to learn about the potential repercussions of their actions - how an immune compromised person could easily contract a disease or a baby could come down with a fatal condition. People should know that they are putting not only those people at risk but ALL of us at risk by undermining the key health benefit that all of us had heretofore benefitted from - herd immunity. It is utterly depressing to see such an amazing medical advancement crumble due to sheer ignorance.
32
@Honest Tea
You should learn about the many complications from vaccines that employ toxic heavy metals such as aluminum as an adjuvant. Read the package inserts that list the many complications from never safety tested vaccines.
4
Here’s complication from measles: hearing loss. Happened to me. But go ahead. Risk your child’s hearing. But keep your unvaccinated children away from my granddaughter
1
I am not an anti vaxer, but when I look at the vaccination schedule promulgated by the CDC I question why a 2 mo old infant must endure 20 vaccinations? This was not the case when my children were born, and when my oldest grandchild was born, my daughter asked that the vaccine be “unbundled” so that the shots could be administered in stages, not all at once.
I have not followed the anti vaxer’s arguments since I don’t have a dog in that fight but I do have sympathy with parents who do not want a two year old receiving upwards of 50 vaccinations. Why does big Pharma not allow some discretion, unbundle the shots, give parents some say in how the vaccinations are administered? I’m sure it comes down to money. But I think they’d gain some compliance if they did.
31
@Elizabeth
"give parents some say in how the vaccinations are administered?"
Do you give patients a say in how an operation is performed? Or how a mechanic should repair a car?
Choose your professionals, and then let them do their job. Unless you want to go back to school and become one of the experts that you criticize.
45
@Elizabeth unfortunately, disease doesn't wait for parents' discretion.
23
@Elizabeth Okay, do you have kids? I've had one in the modern era and it is not a problem. They are not injected 20 times! I recommend if you really want the answer to that question that you look up, on google, what kids get as they grow older.
Parents also have a lot of leeway in how those vaccinations are administered already. Vaccinations in the modern era, and how they are delivered, are not a problem.
9
Consider seatbelts and airbags. They save so many lives and even more people escape car accidents without horrible, debilitating injuries. Yet, occasionally and tragically, someone dies or does suffer a terrible injury because of seatbelts or airbags. Fortunately these incidents are rare, but each is a tragedy for those involved and their loved ones and friends.
However, it is widely understood that these safety devices save far more people than are injured or killed. There are laws that mandate their being included in vehicles and used by occupants. I’m sure many of these parents who attend protests against mandatory vaccination buckle themselves up when driving to the protests, and secure their beloved children in car seats and booster seats prior to each car trip.
Vaccines are similar. Their positive contribution cannot be denied, and the number of children sickened and killed by what were once common and severe illnesses have been dramatically reduced by their use. While no reasonable parent would knowingly place their child in harm’s way, that is exactly what is happening when children are not vaccinated. And to then expose the too young and the too ill, who cannot be vaccinated, to these deadly illnesses is a preventable tragedy.
I have four sons, ages 37, 35, 12, and 10. All have been vaccinated according to their pediatrician’s recommendations. None suffered the catastrophic results of those illnesses.
31
I wonder which one of our celebrity heroes will volunteer to risk contracting a horrible illness like polio.
26
I don’t see what the prob would be, as we’re assured that polio is a minor, trivial little problem that never existed before vaccines and anyway just makes you stronger.
It’s like people never heard of FDR’s world record in the 40-meter dash.
18
We should be able to indict Jenny McCarthy and Andrew Wakefield for Crimes Against Humanity. Also, the Russian trolls fomenting the anti-vaxx movement.
45
@No recall
Andrew Wakefield has produced twenty five well informed You Tube videos on the complex subject of vaccines and the widespread health problems from toxic vaccines that have never been tested scientifically employing an inert saline placebo.
Do some research and learn the issue instead of repeating hysteria from the corrupt vaccine industry and their appendages atthe CDC and FDA.
4
Wakefield is a quake who lost his license to practice medicine.
3
Raise insurance premiums and deductibles for families that do not vaccinate ... a lot. Keep kids out of school.
80
@Penn Towers
That will not stop the horrendous rise in autism that has swept the nation since the passage of the 1986 Childhood Vaccine Act. Since 1989 1,085,000 children have been diagnosed with autism. One in thirty six children are now being diagnosed with autism and the number continues to rise at an alarming rate.
1
Lots of over diagnosis as with ADHD, but in any case fortunately nothing to do with vaccines.
7
It has been shown over and over again that autism is not caused by vaccines.
Many other factors to consider such as food grown with pesticides, meat filled with hormones, polluted air, polluted water.
1
It's noteworthy that not a single one of the illustrations in this article shows what antivaxxers need to see to bring them to their senses: a miserably sick or very dead child who would almost certainly be alive and healthy if vaccination had been permitted.
Of course, NEAR certainty and overwhelming odds of safety apparently aren't good enough for some people.
34
@Bob, Not even a near death experience is enough. In March this year, newspapers covered the story of young boy who contracted tetanus. He was healed after a 57 day hospital stay and $80K bill. His parents still refused to have him vaccinated against tetanus as a part of the follow-up.
10
@Bob How about the exponential rise in SIDS deaths following vaccinations.
1
@DM if he had tetanus, why would he need to get vaccinated?
1
According to the Health Resources and Services Administration website, "since 1988, over 21,051 petitions have been filed with the VICP [Vaccine Injury Compensation Program]. Over that 30-year time period, 18,173 petitions have been adjudicated, with 6,792 of those determined to be compensable, while 11,381 were dismissed. Total compensation paid over the life of the program is approximately $4.2 billion." Only about 1% of vaccine injuries are reported and it is very difficult to get compensation for them. The fact that it was determined that 6,792 were compensable and $4.2 billion was paid out, shows that there is real risk to vaccines. Instead of criticizing people for not listening to science, let's hear from people with children who have been injured or died from vaccines, rather than censoring their stories. Articles such as this one are very one-sided. People make the difficult decision to not vaccinate from awful life-changing experiences or hearing about other peoples real experiences. It would be easier to choose to vaccinate than go against something that people feel so strongly about.
39
While this article does make some good points that have a valid basis given the social fabric of this country - it’s a very “me me me” society here in the US - the omission that vaccine manufacturers are shielded from compensation claims is a startling omission. Especially while making the argument that it is unreasonable to assume vaccines are risk free and comparing them to other medical treatments where the provider or manufacturer is accountable for injury caused.
Let’s not also forget the efficacy of some of these vaccines.
9
@KM
So the difficult decision not to vaccinate, and increase the risk to every child everywhere who crosses paths with that family deserves careful understanding and exceptions to legal regulations while the difficult decision, say, to have an abortion invites calumny and legal retribution.
Another group of privileged people demanding their rights and their freedom while happily withdrawing them from everyone else.
The fact is no one is forcing anyone to vaccinate. But if that's your decision be prepared to honor the rights of those who choose to vaccinate and deserve the benefits of participating in a healthier, safer community.
Go, if you like, and live in an anti vax colony. Your kids have no place in the general public.
Your choice, make it freely, and leave the rest of us alone.
If our economy is anything like as rational as economists pretend, you'll need to be prepared to pay more for insurance, and to bear the costs of resulting disease on your own.
9
@KM
If the immunization rate falls below 95% what do you think will happen? Dr's are well aware of the research you cite and significantly more on top of that yet they continue to overwhelmingly say this is the right thing to do for their children AND yours. Why would they do this? This is the part where a vast conspiracy is suggested to have overtaken the medical world and fooled everyone but a tiny fraction of terrified mothers. I mean honestly, does that sound right to you? It's foolish and dangerous to push these ideas with all the benefit of science and history to guide us.
8
I remember vividly Ronald Reagan remarking that the scariest words to hear were, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you.” That was the beginning of not only the modern anti-government movement, but also the movement to distrust all authority and established sources of knowledge.
31
@Mikes 547 The vaccine industry has exploded since the passage of the 1986 Vaccine Act. The industry has gone from $1 billion in 1986 to $50 billion in 2018.
The number of doses has gone from 8 to 72 by the time a child is 18. These mandated vaccines are never tested scientifically using a saline placebo and vaccines are the number one growth driver for big pharma.
Why are we allowing are children to be exposed to these large pharma companies that have collectively been fined, paid damages, and penalties of $33 billion in the last ten years?
12
@tmauel Vaccines are a loss leader for most producers. Nobody gets rich vaccinating patients. Not individual doctors, not drug companies. The reason the government instituted a system for compensation for injuries is that it is in the public interest. Most companies would avoid vaccine production if they continually had to risk lawsuits from patients and their families, for injuries or disabilities temporally related to vaccination, but not necessary caused by vaccination. The vaccine court’s decisions are generally quite generous. This helps insure the availability of vaccines, which are usually manufactured by only a few companies. If one company were to drop out, it could lead to a shortage nationwide.
13
@tmauel
Meanwhile the population has increased from 3.5 billion to 7.2 billion and children around the World have been able to access those vaccines developed to prevent the worst diseases that ravaged humanity for millennia.
This article failed to mention the biggest government intrusion into our right to decide what to put into our bodies and the bodies of our children.
Fluoride.
And don't get me started about iodized salt!
10
@pjc
If you or your kids eat sugar, then you are doing more harm than either fluoride or iodine could hope to do. Focus on the risks that count.
11
@pjc Please, this is non-fact based hype and conspiracy theory propaganda. Of the many, and there are many, problems we face in healthcare, no there is not a problem with fluoride.
The problem with salt is strictly that it is in too much of everything, like sugar. That is an issue of food companies trying to crank people for money and getting them hooked on eating more.
6
@D Collazo Most food companies don't use iodized salt, however. Too expensive.
A small canine example of the inanity of anti-vaxxing. I brought three dogs to the groomer. My two had bordetella vaccines. My neighbor's did not. A dog at the groomer (also unvaccinated) spread the illness. My two dogs were fine. Never had a day of illness. The neighbor's dog got bordetella. This is like whooping cough in humans. The neighbor ended up using all his sick leave to care for the dog, who had to spend two weeks at home. The neighbor has seen the vaccine light ... a year in which your only vacation is taking care of a labrador coughing its guts out will make you see reason. He got off easy ... thankfully the dog survived, albeit in a very weakened state.
27
@Liz Siler
Bordetella (kennel cough) is annoying but rarely fatal.
Leptospirosis is DEADLY. If the dog survives the initial infection, there are long-term consequences. Lepto is the leading cause of fatal renal disease.
40 years ago all we had was a live vaccine for 2 strains. Dogs often had reactions - swelling at the site, vomiting, low grade fever, etc for a day or so.
We GAVE it anyhow because the lepto infection could kill the dog - treatment had to be started within 24 hours, survival rates were bad & those who survived had kidney & liver damage.
For many years now we have had a killed vaccine for the 4 most common strains. It is 95+% effective. The gold-standard study (1,200,000 dogs) showed that the lepto vaccine has no more reactions than the distemper-parvo shots - 28.8 reactions per 10,000 doses. (Reaction does not mean dead - 99.9% of the time it means some lethargy, vomiting, swelling at the injection due to mild allergic reaction, slight fever, etc)
There is a huge fad even among responsible breeders & owners to NOT vaccinate for lepto because their Muffy might throw up.
They DO NOT REMEMBER how dogs died from kidney or liver failure or the thousands in medical bills to rush the dog to a vet school for dialysis.
Last year my vets (regional center) had 2 patients DIE from lepto - the owners wouldn't vaccinate because their little dog never left their own yard.
I vaccinate for everything - vomiting a bit is much better than dead
14
I'm all for letting people opt-out even if it weakens the herd immunity that protects me.
But when their kid contracts measles or Diphtheria we give them a bottle of aspirin send them home and put a quarantine sign on the house. If the kid lives or dies they made the right choice and we didn't waste any money treating a preventable disease
9
@Glenn This still won't stop people Glenn. A lot of them will somehow believe that 'it was unavoidable'. Some of them will heretically claim that 'it was in God's hands'.
It needs to be law, pure and simple, to have children vaccinated. All of them.
2
The problem with that approach is that those sick kids could expose your children and mine to these killer diseases before they are diagnosed and sequestered.
3
I am in my fifties. I learned that some MMR batches in the 1960s were weak. I got tested and found I had no immunity. I immediately got immunized. Adults should speak to their doctors about their immunity and it's not only children who are at risk from the deterioration of herd immunity.
24
Adults should also be aware of their own immunization status as these diseases can also be very serious in adults. Before the varicella vaccine was available, my father had a friend in his 50s who contracted the chicken pox, and everyone thought it was amusing that he had a childhood disease. Pretty soon he was in the hospital, and he died shortly thereafter. I wouldn't count on herd immunity anymore.
25
The writers who want to ban the unvaccinated from public places are misguided. If a vaccinated person comes in contact with an unvaccinated person who has the disease (measles for example) then the vaccinated have little to fear if the vaccine is truly prophylactic. The only concern the vaccinated should have is if the measles infected person comes in contact with an unvaccinated person who cannot get vaccinated because of age (babies) or health reasons. If the measles carrier comes into contact with a person has not been vaccinated because of their own or parental choice, it is an unfortunate by-product of individual liberty. Sometimes people make bad choices.
7
@qazmun
When a person with measles comes into contact with a baby, a pregnant woman, or an individual who because of a medical condition cannot be vaccinated, the bad choice is the one made by the person who refused vaccination. Unfortunately, the sometimes severe consequences of that choice are borne by the other individuals.
17
@qazmun Vaccines don’t work for a small percentage of people - so even if those people are vaccinated, they are not fully protected. Some people also have real medical issues that prevent them from getting vaccinated. That is why herd immunization is so important.
9
@qazmun
If a critical mass of un-vaccinated exists, it creates a reservoir for the virus to mutate to the point where the vaccine is less effective for EVERYONE. This is part of the concept of herd immunity alluded to in this piece and others. This is a clear cut public health issue. There is no defense, even when leaving aside the large number of people who can't get vaccinated for medical reasons or people who are immunocompromised.
17
If the harms could somehow be limited to the anti-vaxxers I would say let them do as they will. No public school. Dedicated pediatrician facilities (paid by the anti-vaxxers). No public help or subsidies for any health related issues that arise from not getting timely vaccinations (private insurance is a subsidy as well).
21
I'd like to know the role needle phobia plays in this. Something like 10% of Americans have needle phobia.
This can be a real problem; people with severe needle phobias don't just avoid vaccinations, but all medical treatments.
Instead of letting kids say that they are afraid of needles, earlier generations shamed for being afraid. These kids have grown up to become adults who cannot bear to see their own children get vaccinated, and spin elaborate, ever-changing stories to rationalize their own fear.
NPR reports that needle phobia rates increase in direct proportion to the number of shots a child receives. It may be too late for this generation of anti-vaxxers, but perhaps we can do something to make the vaccination process less frightening for today's young children.
5
Anyone opposing vaccination is committing a crime against humanity. Vaccination is a modern miracle, and one of the few medical treatments that actually prevents illness instead of just treating symptoms. How have we descended into a population with no critical thinking skills? Individual thinking is to be encouraged up to the point that it is contradicted by fact. At that point, one is expected to revise their "personal belief" to reflect reality.
33
We can vaccinate kids put on helmets knee and elbow pads on 'em,strap them in tightly for a car ride, protect them from every possible injury, disease,pathogen/bacteria in a sterile padded environment. At some point immune system and microbiome could become compromised leading to apparent rise in asthma, obesity,diabetes and other 'new' ailments replacing measles, mumps chickenpox, flu,skinned knees elbows on dirt and hard bicycle crashes without a helmet.
This should not be political. There may be more at stake.
2
I entered Clark University in Worcester, MA is 1956, at a time when people were still terrified of polio and thought that it was propagated by public swimming pools. I seem to remember that the university, worried about a polio epidemic in its student body, offered free polio shots to all of us, for which I am grateful to this day. Both a sister of mine and her husband were polio victims, and I do not consider the argument that before the Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin polio vaccines we had perfectly fine iron lungs an adequate answer to the claims of the anti-vaxxers.
17
I’m old enough to remember the summers in the early 1950s when all of us kids were ordered, by the city, to stay in our own yards. The city parks and the city pool were closed to us kids, as were the local theatres. Why? The polio epidemics that happened with great frequency before the development of the Salk vaccine.
Is that what the anti-vaxxers want to return to?
17
Maybe I missed something but kids who aren’t vaccinated can still get autism. So vaccines can’t cause something you can get without having them. Also saying the rate of autism is going up is very misleading. Autism was not even tracked until recently. Doctors are much more in tune with diagnose now then in the 70s and 80s. Even kids with subtle symptoms are place in spectrum. And yes it is true that vaccines have side effects. But it’s also true that all the side effects reported in the vaccinated group also have in the control group that get a sugar injection. Side effects happen even in placebo. And so what if the vaccine companies are protected. If there really was a huge case you really don’t think that some law firm wouldn’t be taking that exception the the Supreme Court so they could get their millions. Come on. They sued the weed killer company and won when the only evidence they have is that round up MIGHT have a POSSIBLE carcinogen in it.
9
@Donald - My son is involved in autism research. All the results to date show ZERO link between vaccination and autism. That has in fact been known for a number of years. As an aside, there seems to be some link between parents with anxiety or ADHD and a child with autism. Sorry I don't know enough about the latter research to expound on it.
8
As a family doc who had polio and missed a year of middle school I have a special interest in this issue. I was shocked when I went to the internet to get information on vaccine efficiency and pre-vaccine deaths. Most of the easy to get and read charts were from anti-vaccine posters and information from the CDC was mostly verbose narrative, less attractive, and lower down on the search list. Come on folks you can do better than this!
16
I've known two women who were crippled by childhood bouts of polio, one who contracted it just as the vaccine became available. My siblings and I had all the childhood illnesses, starting with chicken pox, followed by measles, German measles, and mumps. Our first vaccinations, I believe, were for TB. So I've seen what the illnesses can do to relatively healthy children, and believe it best to avoid them.
But the pro-vax voices need to acknowledge that there can be problems with vaccines and stop soapboxing about herd immunity and punitive measures. There's a deeply flawed op-ed on this site that makes that kind of argument, and the letters show a lot of push-back.
The U.S. government provides a program for people harmed by vaccines. It's sobering to think that there have been enough incidents to warrant institutionalizing specific benefits for the harm.
"The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) is a Federal "no-fault" system designed to compensate individuals, or families of individuals, who have been injured by childhood vaccines, whether administered in the private or public sector. . . Three Federal government offices have a role in the VICP:
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)
The U.S. Court of Federal Claims (the Court)
The VICP is located in the HHS, Health Resources and Services Administration, Healthcare Systems Bureau, Division of Vaccine Injury Compensation."
12
@Penn
Yours is a very misleading post. Regarding the VCP:
"Approximately 70% of all compensation awarded by the VICP comes as result of a negotiated settlement between the parties in which HHS has not concluded, based upon review of the evidence, that the alleged vaccine(s) caused the alleged injury."
The number of cases compensated: in the past decade, about one in a million of those vaccinated.
Maybe look a bit more carefully about what this program is for: to try to prevent needless litigation (https://www.hrsa.gov/vaccine-compensation/data/index.html).
No medicine of the market is free of side-effects. Most vaccines are on the low end of the scale. Calling criticism of anti-vaxers "soap-boxing" is the pot calling the kettle black. As far as not vaccinating children, it is more a sign of parental neglect or abuse--even understanding that there are a few contraindications to any vaccine. Those situations should not dissuade the vast majority of the problem from receiving vaccines.
3
We’re pro-science and reason, and against infantile gears and guff, actually. Also not big on the loot the professional anti-vaxxers, homeopathists, dietary supplement, and general quackery industry rakes in.
3
As others have mentioned here, the choice of photographs is unfortunate. Hopefully the choices were just poorly thought-through rather than intentional, but the effect is 1. showing a infant held down for something in a very intimidating way that never happens for vaccines and 2. advertising the anti-vaxxer rhetoric in the form of their protest signage and swag bags. Where is the calm baby held by their parent next to a caring pediatrician? Where is the pro-vaccine signage?
Pictures are powerful. Emotional. The decisions on which to include in such a charged article deserves far more thought.
25
The perfect is the enemy of the good.
Yes, some, a very few, have adverse reactions to immunizations. I’m one of them: my shingles vaccines made me ill for weeks. But ya know what: that illness was easier than the shingles I’d had thirty years earlier, and which I’m pretty sure I couldn’t deal with now.
Herd immunity is the answer. And, of course, recognizing that we are a herd.
14
It's disheartening to once again read a long hit piece on the rights of parents to demand vaccine safety in validated and legally binding way. Just like if I take the "risk of driving to the airport" and I'm injured, I have legal rights. Not so if I or my child are injured by a vaccination. And injury from a vaccine is possible for a variety of reasons which this paper seems unwilling to explain. It's to obvious obfuscation and truthiness of Dr Offit that make parents paranoid about what they're unwilling to address.
Vaccine "immunity": is it testable, reproducible and falsifiable? (Science)
12
Another article which assumes doubters are misinformed and avoids facing the very complicated choices parents face. We do not have to be so polarized on this issue. We can explore without emotion how much risk may really exist with vaccines, break it down by vaccine and age and seriousness of side effects and weigh against effectiveness. And then ask honestly what is causing so much neurological damage and cancers in our children? Is it what we are putting into their bodies? Is it environmental damage? I am 67, grew up in NYC and never knew any child as damaged as the ones in Childrens Hospitals today. This is an epidemic at least as scary as measles. Until the experts figure out what is going on, how can we so harshly criticize parents trying to protect their kids?
27
@Roy Lowenstein
"We can explore without emotion how much risk may really exist with vaccines, break it down by vaccine and age and seriousness of side effects and weigh against effectiveness"
You do not think this has already been done? Many times over? Perhaps you'd like to do some reading on the subject from reputable sources. The NIH would be a good place to start.
I'm your age, and my mother told me the terror that existed when polio was round. I missed that one, but I remember the misery of being in bed with measles. I was one of the lucky ones. I eventually got better.
10
@Roy Lowenstein It's so refreshing to read a comment whose main thrust is curiosity rather than "knowing." Thank you.
1
@Roy Lowenstein
If you think the research you're describing hasn't been done, then I'm sorry but you are misinformed. Contrary to your last sentence, experts have weighed in on this issue and you seem to think it isn't enough. What would be? My guess is that it has nothing to do with experts at all but your own feelings.
If you'll allow me to be a pedant, it's also completely normal that children in a hospital are more "damaged" than the ones you grew up with. Hospitals serve communities of millions of children and only the sickest ones are hospitalized. Misunderstanding conditional probability is a big part of the scientific illiteracy involved in this issue in general. It's worth brushing up on it.
5
My mother told me that I was extremely ill as a very young infant with measles. I was hospitalized in isolation, my mother was not allowed in the room. Both, of my ear drums ruptured and one of them did not heal closed. I have pretty good hearing but I favor the other ear.
I have never thought of measles as a “mild illness”.
20
If your choice is not to vaccinate your children then accept the restrictions that accompany it. Your children are precluded from visiting public places or attending public school. You've made your choices society gets to make theirs. If you intend to subject others to measles, mumps, whooping cough, polio, etc... then society has the obligation to protect us. One need only look at the outbreaks in the Hasidic communities in Brooklyn and Westchester County to understand the potential magnitude of what could occur if this goes unchecked.
42
I had measles - 2 weeks in bed with a high fever (104 F) in a darkened room. That is the sickest I have ever been and I would not wish it on anyone. A childhood friend who had a mild case of polio is now in his 60s and suffering again, severely, because it came back. I will be getting the latest shingles vaccine because I had chickenpox as a child, and saw what shingles did to my father, in his 80s.
But I do need to say - that is a horrible photograph - what is wrong with those physicians, holding that baby like that? I remember my mother holding my baby brother in her arms while the doctor snuck in with a shot. There is no need to treat children as shown in that photo.
43
I can still remember the polio alerts and the closures of public pools in Boston when I was a child and of course we had schoolmates who used steel braces and crutches to walk. My Uncle had polio as a child. He recovered but one leg was an inch shorter than the other as a result. After he recovered, his crutches were hung inside the Mission Hill church on Tremont Street and he took me there once. The site of hundreds if not thousands of crutches hanging from the walls is something I will never forget. In my professional life, I worked on a vaccine for MRSA which failed and I also knew Maurice Hillesman who was the father of the MMR vaccine. He was a great man who saved many lives but whose name is unknown. Please vaccinate your children.
31
Sadly, perhaps the only way anti-vaxers will understand the risks that they put take is when their child contracts polio, is paralyzed and is confined to an iron lung for the rest of their life.
19
@Fascist Fighter Unfortunately. Years ago I researched an oral history for a funeral home that had been in business 100 years. The bulk of their early business was infants dying from mumps, whooping cough, scarlet fever and measles. If some of these people could read those notes, they wouldn't talk about "mild illnesses." Childhood diseases are deadly.
15
Yes! Thanks to researching a family tree, I’ve learned of so many young relatives lost to diphtheria, TB and Typhoid before WWI.
My baby-boomer parents were the first generation to not lose a sibling to a disease now preventable by a vaccine.
Our earlier generations would be shocked at our amnesia and the trend to not vaccinate.
6
The anti vaxxers would say that poor sanitation caused those diseases.
1
let's eliminate non vax folks from public life. no public school, childcare or participation in organizations that are tax exempt!
21
Their children. Their choice.
Please stop destroying the Constitution. Yes, you’re occupying the moral high ground. You’re the smartest people in the room.
But still: their children, their choice.
15
@MLT The problem with "their children, their choice" is that these diseases are extremely contagious. and can cause disability and/or death. Some, like measles, can easily spread to vulnerable people, such as infants who haven't yet received their full complement of vaccinations -- who are far more likely to die if they are infected, and whose parents didn't make the "choice" for their baby to become ill. It isn't right to put other people's children at risk out of a sort of petty urge to be in control at all times. I also think people should ask Grandma or at least look up these diseases online before deciding against vaccination. I wouldn't wish any of these illnesses on my worst enemy, much less a little child. They are that bad and terribly traumatic, even if one escapes the possible complications. Who would "choose" that kind of experience for a child?
17
@MLT
It would be their right to make their personal choice if the parents are the ones suffering the consequences of the choices.
But what about the right of the children? Is it the child's choice when they are suffering from measles that their parents don't vaccinate them and protect them responsibly based on false belief?
What about the rights of immunocompromised people who want to, but cannot, vaccinate?
These parents choose for themselves, but they are not the ones suffering the consequences. It's not all about personal freedom, it's about protecting other innocent people.
11
@MLT. Wrong — their choice affects the health of ALL of us, especially those with compromised immune systems. It is a matter of public health, not free speech.
18
Not again. :(
Will it ever end, this war against informed consent and for forced medical procedures by those who profit (including you WHO, who holds patents)?
If you have your shots, which are supposed to theoretically protect you, why worry about others? Bandwagon? Even commercials tell you not to be around the vulnerable, if you had a recent shot--so much for Offit's falsehood about shedding.
Read the vaccine inserts. There are up to 150 adverse events, including death, listed. Greenmedinfo dot com (published science from all over the world of studies done on natural items, not patented chemicals).
22
@lechrist. Disease and death are natural, too. So let’s all just be okay with getting diseases and dying.
13
@lechrist
All risk is relative. Disease has far more and worse "adverse events. "
Read the statistics on death and permanent disability from preventable epidemic diseases like measles, mumps, rubella, and chicken pox. My mother's sister died of measles as a child. My uncle 's childhood mumps rendered him sterile. My father's youbg sister died of encephalitis.
And the cells used in vaccines contain DEAD virus that cannot be "shed" to others. " Citing some unnamed commercials as a scientific authority is absurd.
6
There is no huge profit in vaccines. Besides, do you want our sons to lose fertility due to mumps? Do you want children to have life long joint problems due to measles? Both these things happened in my siblings who were all born in the 1950's
2
I think the anti vaccers are nuts, and should be barred from public places because they run the risk and infecting people with compromised immune systems. If the anti-vaccers get sick and die, at least it will thin the herd.
77
@Richard Watt
Sir, I agree with you, but please consider your language. How can we hope to change anti-vaxxers minds if we imply that they are better off dead! You can’t get anywhere with people by insulting them.
2
We're faced with a situation that, as put by Kellyanne Conway, has established "alternative facts". My mother was a nurse in a suburban hospital when the polio vaccine was made available. She didn't wait for an appointment, she brought them home that day and administered them to my sister and I. I remember pushing a classmate in a wheelchair or helping him navigate in his braces in elementary school. I remember the "March of Dimes" campaigns and the joy that came with the advent of the measles vaccine (remember birth defects from exposure to Rubella?). There is no polite way to put it but these people, in their arrogant stupidity, put the rest of us at risk. Despite all the actual evidence to the contrary they insist that their conspiracy memes of big Pharma conspiring with doctors to sell vaccines for profit at the expense of children are the truth. Now, compare them to Alex Jones and his ilk and they're scandalized by that, horrified even. Yet, they are doing exactly the same thing. Promoting and believing lies and aggressing against anyone who dares question them. The same at those that harass survivors of mass shooting justifying their actions on the search for "truth". These people deserve, at best, pity. Never give them a shred of credence since that only serves to validate their idiocy.
62
I wonder if willful ignorance as adults would diminish is we taught children a few basic concepts about science somewhere in the elementary school curriculum, when most children are still paying attention.
These are not self-evident:
-- In biologic systems, including humans, there is no such thing as 100%; there are always outliers
-- Statistical risk (this one would also help in understanding the prediction for tomorrow's weather)
These necessarily carry an uncertainty which is probably tough to deal with when first encountered as an adult, if one is used to classifying things as either black or while.
10
If only pediatricians were researchers. Or at least first learned the science behind vaccinations, I believe we would have effective promoters of the same. Sadly, most that I have met, while kindly, don’t care to explain the science, if they do they either dumb it down or worse don’t quite know it themselves. It is time doctors offices employed folks who could spend time with people who are hesitant. A parent always looks out for their child over even community, so offering their loved one as sacrifice for the greater good of the herd is hardly a sentiment that would elicit a rush to vaccinate. It would be best if researchers wrote articles in popular media and spoke on the news. It would make their names familiar, make folks feel like someone with knowledge and authority is proffering advice. It would help bring science to the dinner table. Most doctors and scientists speak to the general public like they are kindergartners and then wonder why folks stop believing in science. This is the age of the internet and a lot of very good information available. So all it takes is for scientists to point to websites, reiterate information and empower people to read for themselves. Vaccination should not be difficult in this country.
15
@Meena doctors are trained to use the simplest possible explanations because studies have shown that 15-20% of Americans read at below a grade five level and about a third of American adults only had a very basic level of health literacy. What we need to do is to tailor the messages to different audiences and increase the quality of education in American public schools.
18
@Meena You think they talk to people like kindergarteners. Well some people have the intelligence level of one and anti vaccine people fall into that category.
6
@Meena The problem is time. Even doctors who are well-informed need TIME to explain their positions and answer parents' questions. However, if they took the time to do this, many other patients would not get seen and we already have a shortage of primary care providers. Additionally, they don't get reimbursed for the time spent so their practices would go under economically.
(This is a problem across all of medicine, not only pediatrics.)
I am an MD who has an interest in educating patients well so I make my own handouts of some topics. But that is something I do out of my free time, with my own funds. The "med student" is right that materials often need to be placed at surprisingly low level (like 5th grade) for most of the public to understand it. It's not about the public being "dumb"; rather it's because the subject can be so technical that using simple language is important. Like the time a lawyer explained estate planning to me: the terms were gobbledygook to me. (These aren't opinions but based on research about medical education.)
The other issue is use lots of visuals which can get ideas across better than words. For example, I learned to use 999 dots and 1 red dot in a figure to illustrate a 1 out of 1000 chance. Most people will not understand if you put it in language or number forms (0.1%)
3
Do the anti-vaxxers not have parents (or grandparents) to remind them of what happened to babies and children before vaccinations came out? Are they just too self-righteous to care? I'm young enough to have two toddlers but old enough to remember my grandmother talking about her younger brother that died in the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic. My mom remembers the fear of getting polio and people wearing iron lungs. I can't imagine how my parents would have reacted if we did not vaccinate our sons - wouldn't have been pretty.
56
There is something about this moment in time. Ignorance is worn like a badge of honor.
110
@Real Thoughts “. . .Ignorance is worn like a badge of honour.” This is so true, and so disturbing. When my engine light comes on, I know that reading about possible causes on Facebook will not enable me to accurately diagnose, let alone correct the problem. I certainly don’t understand how folks think that reading Facebook posts guarantees accurate information about any topic. If social media won’t help me repair my car, I sure wouldn’t trust it to tell me what I need to know about scientific topics.
2
A friend who is old enough to know better recently commented that she thought vaccines deprived people of the ability to naturally resist infectious diseases. I reminded her that human beings had largely failed to combat plague, scarlet fever, measles, small pox, chicken pox, mumps, polio and a host of other diseases when they were solely dependent on their own immune systems. I hate to think millions of children will have to die to convince the anti-vaccination crowd they were too arrogant to see what was obvious to everyone else.
133
@Richard Frank
As a child, I lived through the polio outbreaks and diphtheria and small pox and measles and hooping cough and flues---that took hundreds of thousands of lives and left countless others incapacitated and disabled. Mothers and fathers were praying for medicine to immunize their children from the scourges that ravaged communities. Thankfully, the immunizations were created so that my generation could serve and give hope to the newly minted saviors of society who have no idea how dangerous they are.
20
As a father of three and grandfather of four with one on the way, all I can say is that this article is too kind. Folks who refuse to vaccinate suffer from the worst of the human condition—ignorance infected with selfish hubris.
125
School children at risk for gun violence, and now, after many decades of never having to face major illness, now they and their families have that too. Both, BOTH can be avoided!!
43
A friend of mine who lives in London has a PhD in Cancer Research and she is an anti-vaxxer.
It is very confusing.
24
Actually, there is a correlation between "higher education" and credulity in 'alternative' fad diets and 'natural medicine.' The lowest vaccination rates are concentrated in wealthier and liberal areas. Northern California not Southern Mississippi. Part of it is just a cynical calculation: better to let the poor children of workers get vaccinated and run any risk to provide the unvaccinated children of the elites with herd immunity. It's called capitalism.
5
@EC - That's a shame. My son works in autism research, and the supposed link between vaccination and autism was convincingly debunked several years ago.
2
@AR
Yes––Capitalism. Elites constantly outsource risks to others and make the public sphere bear all the costs, while privatizing and capturing the benefits for themselves and their overprivileged children.
How times have changed.
Earlier today I watched an interview with a Christian evangelist praising our president for attending a UN symposium on religious intolerance. He declared that intolerance was the genuine crisis, not a “make believe” one like climate change. To lift one legitimate concern, he felt it necessary to denigrate another. Classic zero sum thinking.
The certainties of basic 1960's era Science Class are now questioned, by anyone with an agenda and amplified by the social media echo chamber.
Evolution.
Vaccination.
Pollution, of all kinds, and it’s global effects.
Extinction.
Sadly, I witness the failure of my generation.
30
None of my children were vaccinated by being held down and restrained as in the unfortunate choice of a photo. I was advised to hold them in a standing position and chat playfully with them while the injection was administered in the leg. They barely let out a peep.
84
Once again, for the (anti-vax) people in the back:
Vaccines save and improve lives. My friend’s aunt, now in her 70s, contracted polio as a child before a vaccine was developed for it. The disease attacked her heart, significantly weakening it. It now operates at limited capacity. She has had cardiac problems most of her life thanks to polio. So no, polio may not kill your kids, but it could cripple them or permanently damage their hearts. Maybe you should start looking into how much cardiac transplants cost these days in the event that you want to gamble with your kids’ lives.
Measles was a real, dreadful thing back in the day. Five of my dad’s six siblings had measles. One of my uncles had to spend time in a darkened room when he was sick so that the illness, which impacts vision, wouldn’t cause him to go blind. If you are OK with exposing your kids to an illness that could render them blind for life then by all means, don’t vaccinate.
My mom had mumps as a kid. She was very sick, and she remembers my grandmother tying a scarf around her chin to support the salivary gland swelling in her face. Mumps can also cause hearing loss, which thankfully my mom didn’t suffer. But if you’re OK with your kid possibly going deaf, forgo the mumps vaccine.
Oh and FYI, it’s not just about your kid: pregnant women who contract mumps can miscarry. The elderly and the immunocompromised are at risk no matter what the illness. Have some regard for other people. It’s not all about you.
260
@Lindsay K The immune system is primed with mild childhood illnesses like the measles so when serious illnesses come near as an adult, the individual is stronger. That's mother nature. 54% of today's kids have chronic illnesses and are clearly less strong. While childhood illnesses were not fun, avoiding them is folly long-term. Surely you know that the recently vaccinated are to avoid being around those who are vulnerable for up to six weeks. Why do you think that is? Shots are not a magic bullet.
7
@Lindsay K, thank you for your comment.
I am just gobsmacked, at my age, to see that this is even an issue 6+ decades after so many lives were saved thanks to vaccination and so many advances in immunology.
46
@lechrist except the disease aren't mild. I chicken pox and mumps. And measles. They were not mild at all.
Thank god, I didn't have whooping cough or scarlet fever. How can I say this: the diseases are deadly.
Shot may not be a magic bullet. But they're better, far better than the alternative.
25
Vaccinations should be a non-issue. The federal government should require all children to be immunized per the recommended vaccination schedule except for medical exemptions. That's the right thing to do because it protects the greater good.
So why does the U.S. allow religious exemptions and parents to set schedules? I think it's because there's a history of individualism and distrust of government. This tendency to question government has been used by the Republican party since Reagan to great success for their party, but at great cost to the country.
Save the country, save the planet. Vote Democratic.
60
@Eric I agree completely Eric.
2
@Eric
It is not "the government" randomly deciding to force people to vaccinate, it is medical professionals and accomplished researchers demonstrating repeatedly and convincingly that vaccination is safe and extraordinarily effective.
Government took on two roles in response. First, making vaccination is available to everyone, going so far as to distribute polio vaccine to every person in the country free of charge.
Socialism, I know. Yet, somehow, miraculously safe and effective.
It was the end of polio as an important entity. Although perhaps we should anticipate a comeback. Good times, yes?
Then, to assure the continued good health of children, tracking who has been vaccinated and who not, and requiring schools to insist children be vaccinated for the sake of the entire community.
While an individual parent may wish their little Petri dish to remain vaccine free, they have no right to compromise the safety of every other child in the place.
So go ahead don't vaccinate, then go live in the woods, if you can still find any.
3
Paul Offit has been a tireless pro-vaccine advocate and appears in nearly every newspaper or radio story on this subject. I commend his dedication but I really wish he’d pass the torch to someone else.
In the anti-vax community his name is well known and he is perceived as having a financial interest in people using his vaccine. It would be more effective to have 20 other doctors spreading the message than for him to be interviewed 20 more times.
23
@William Wait, so a guy with great knowledge of the topic must be sidelined because he such a formidable opponent that the ones who make up their own science theories attempt to discredit him with lies? Please let me believe you did not just write that. Also, of your 20 other docs or whatever, are they as well versed, capable or is there even 20?
6
American media have downplayed the importance of science for decades. The anti-vaccine movement and the widespread denial of global warming are two consequences. Another is the steady decrease in the fraction of the federal budget that is devoted to science--even when military applications are counted. The policy in China has been the exact opposite. so unless we wise up fast, we will be doing their laundry.
51
@Kevin Cahill The two are unrelated (those who want safe vaccines and those who don't believe in global warming).
7
@lechrist
Actually, they *do* share common characteristics: ignorance and credulity.
10
@Kevin Cahill
Science is not settled. The media is not in support of any group who opposes vaccines (are you kidding!) Safety of vaccines are froth with doubt. Dont add politics to the discussion, no fear no laundry, rather protect our kids by demanding better clinical safety studies!
4
No mention of the inverse correlation between income and vaccination rates in the US.
The elites don't like to be told what to do.
17
I've practiced Pediatrics in the 3rd world and now do here in the US. I know this: these vaccine preventable diseases are unbelievably relentless and sooner rather than later, they will return: even Polio.
Then lets see how quickly the anti-vax sentiments evaporate: I would say in about 2.5 seconds.
114
@aj
See India.
1
The statement that the HPV vaccine can prevent cancer is so wrong. Since the vaccine is given at an early age and cancer surfaces later in life (like in the 40's and 50's), we would have to wait for 20 or 30 years after inoculation to determine lowr rates of cancer. And some studies are indicating earlier incidence of cervical cancer since the advent of the vaccine. Also, the HPV vaccines have caused deaths and disability to numerous women.
As to vaccines in general, none of these articles ever mention the $4 billion paid out top vaccine injured (and killed) people. The Supreme Court, in its ruling, stated that vaccines were "unavoidably unsafe", having bought into the greater good argument. The "anti-vaxxers" are actually parents whose children were hurt by vaccines.
And tell me this: if vaccines are so safe and effective, why does Pharma need protection from lawsuits? And if they are so effective, why do you care if I don't vaccinate if you're vaccinated?
29
@Dan the HPV vaccine gives 100% protection from nine HPV types; latest research shows the vaccine still offers close to 100% protection more than 10 years after it was received, and this protection shows no sign of weakening; it has already shown strong signs of success in reducing HPV infections, genital warts and pre-cancer of the cervix.
http://www.hpvvaccine.org.au/the-hpv-vaccine/how-effective-is-the-vaccine.aspx
12
@Dan
Please provide citations for your criticisms of HPV vaccination. Peer-reviewed medical literature only, please. "I saw it on the Internet" and "I heard it from a friend of a friend" won't suffice.
12
@Dan There is SO much wrong with this comment. I won’t get into it because I know I will probably explain until I’m blue in the face, and even then you most likely won’t agree. For everyone else reading, vaccines are NOT 100% effective nor are they 100% safe. Practically nothing in medicine is! But, they work due to something called herd immunity. Look it up. I would hate to see the day when an outbreak of a deadly disease becomes the prime motivation for anti-vaxxers to change their minds...even then I’m not sure they’d make the right choice.
6
I stubbed my toe after I was vaccinated. Internet sez my stubbed toe was caused by vaccine. #AmericanExceptionalism
78
@Joe B. I am laughing out loud! Thank you.
1
Individual choices with socialized consequences.
24
Part of a whole range of refusing to accept the scientific consensus. Creationists, global warming deniers, overpopulation deniers, anti-glyphosate hysteria, anti-GMO hysteria, the UFO cult, believers in psychic powers, believers in homeopathic medicine, the list is long. These people are not stupid or crazy, but they have embraced their biases so strongly that they can't let go no matter what the scientists are saying.
30
Vaccines are necessary. Scary that parents are willing to put their children at risk and get their “facts” from social media. People go to medical school for a reason ...
42
I never had a MMR vaccine because it wasn't invented yet when I was a kid. (I had measles and rubella. So far I haven't had the mumps.) My point is...I never had the vaccine, but I do have autism. Explain me that, Wakefield.
87
@Eva D.
Wakefield merely said that the vaccinated children he treated had gastrointestinal disturbances and that the effects of vaccines should be studied to prove or disprove that vaccines caused the problem. For that he was pilloried and more, but no safety studies were done.
16
@Dan Let's not trust the medical profession always. But sorry, not support or sympathy for people who endanger my children and me.
Andrew Wakefield should be in jail for what he did. Now he is funded by the Right Wingers in Texas. He said during the last national election that he saw the upcoming Republican primary in Houston on 6 March as an “an extremely important time” to advance his anti-vaccine agenda.
9
@Dan No, Wakefield, the Lord and Savior of Anti-Vaxxers, conjured up a link and wrote about the alleged link between vaccinations and autism. His fraud was pronounced and egregious. Thus, Wakefied's scientific paper withdrawn. Nevertheless, Saint Wakefield attempts to persuade people with bogus talks, videos and a recent movie - figuring if he tells tales often enough, those tales will be come rhetoric people believe despite its falsity. Looks like his fraudulent scheme is working.
5
News flash: There is no anti-vaccine movement! There are no anti-vaxxers! No, I'm not crazy!. The membership of the anti-vaccine " movement" is never named. If there is a movement, how can it have no leadership, no spokespersons? There are mostly people who blindly go along with the government's and the WHO's theory that vaccinations are safe and effective and those who get that the science to support this theory has quite a few holes in it, even as there may be a small amount of truth to it. Andrew Wakefield is not a leader of the movement. He published a paper (read it, why don't you?) saying the matter of autism and MMR needs further study. For this he has been crucified, scapegoated. RFK Jr. is promoting the triumph of science over myth every where he goes. Yet he's the one being accused of being anti-science. There is no anti-vaccine movement. It is a largely disorganized congeries of mostly well-educated individuals and parents or relative of vaccine-injured children who want their suffering acknowledged. Right now the pro-vcxx movement is denying it. If there is a movement here, it is a well organized one consisting of the CDC, big pharma and the medical profession, who have decided that science can be discarded for the vaccination issue and those who support it can be ridiculed. For those who believe otherwise, I say where's the beef? SHOW ME THE BEEF!
29
@Samantha, nothing I say is going to change your mind, but I'll address one point. You say Andrew Wakefield's paper said that autism and the MMR should be studied. Well, it has been, over and over and over again, and his findings have never been confirmed.
You don't trust big pharma--that's fine, I'm a physician and I don't either--but you trust Wakefield, who was being paid by people and lawyers suing vaccine makers to fabricate data implicating vaccines.
Well educated people are not immune to being hoodwinked; if anything, education gives many people a false confidence in their own knowledge and their ability to separate fact from fiction.
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@Samantha
Although I may not agree with all of your statements, I do appreciate the courage you show to post here, knowing the vitriol you will receive. Within the current hysteria & near fascist lock step of social media gangs, there exists no room for counter discussion or tolerance. When was the last time anyone discussed a willingness to meet the vaccine fearful partway; such as agreeing to delay some vaccinations as long as the parents were aware of the need for possible quarantine & immediate vaccination in the event of a true emerging epidemic? (As just 1 starting talking point.) As a pro-vaccination physician, I am also aware that not all vaccines are created equal, & that the suggested schedule in current use is a mishmash of various disciplines & statistics & are NOT universally followed in other countries. I did try to encourage the parents in my practice to vaccinate their families, but was also willing to work with them & their beliefs, education, fears. I do believe that because of my willingness to respect their parental rights, the vast majority (certainly well above herd immunity requirements) of my patients were fully vaccinated by age 5.
If every punitive, extremist commenter here used that energy to improve exclusive breastfeeding rates in this country, the healthcare benefits to children & society at large would far surpass any risk the general population faces from an unvaccinated child born in this country.
20
Fact - People who don't get the measles vaccine will get and spread measles when exposed to it. I could go on with many more examples but you obviously are set in believing without evidence that vaccines are harmful. There is no reasoning with you and people of your ilk.
11
The next kick these anti-Vaxers will be on is not vaccinating their precious dogs (cat people have more sense) for rabies. That should work out well.
37
Already happening.
8
@Kb. Horrifyingly, that is already here. Over 5 years ago, my vet told me she had a woman client stating she didn’t want her dog to get a rabies vaccine.
3
“People are notoriously poor at assessing risk” Fear of terrorism and fear of flying are two other examples of people being poor at assessing risks. So what to do about it? Reason based arguments don’t help. What will?
14
To some extent this is a product of the media pushing questionable pseudo science like emotional intelligence. How do you measure that, you don’t. So people apply their emotional intelligence they feel intuitively deep in their psyche something is wrong about vaccines. Suddenly they are Nobel Prize worthy and all it takes are a few rich famous half wit Hollywood stars to make their weighty pronouncements and they are certain they are right.
12
Back in the ‘80’s I asked out children’s pediatrician about the concerns with the pertussis vaccine. He was a very kind and reserved man, but he almost shouted at me “You’ve never seen whooping cough!”
51
When my children were young, I hadn’t heard about all the rumors or supposed falsehoods, but I was frightened of the vaccines. Back then, you were made to sign a waiver with a list of possible bad things that could happen. It was a long list of very scary stuff. Then it said your kid couldn’t go to school unless they had shots. I’ve looked for the waiver online and couldn’t find anything about it. It’s stuff like that and the fact that pharmaceutical companies are corrupt that makes matters even worse. Where is that waiver, I wonder, with the long list of scary side effects? Why don’t they mention those side effects today?
20
The "scary" list is in the prescribing information. All you have to do is ask to see it, or take your medical record from that day's visit and look up the individual vaccines given. All that information is readily available in two formats: a physician-focused lengthy description (called the prescribing information and the important safety information) and as a patient-focused version which distills the most important details into a more readable format for people without an advanced medical education. Try it! Any drug, google the name, you'll land on a site and be asked if you are the patient or the physician.
The formats for these documents, and the information they must contain, is rigidly proscribed and rigorously patrolled by the FDA. All the information is there. All you have to do is look it up.
19
@Elizabeth Carr
You have a far greater chance of being killed by a vending machine, than experiencing scary vaccine side effects. Are you afraid of vending machines? Why not?
15
I would like to share my truth. I earned my PhD in molecular biology at an Ivy League University and was trained in pharmacology at a highly ranked American medical school. For over 35 years I worked as a biomedical scientist in the area of drug discovery. Friends often ask me for information about drugs and vaccines.
When people ask me about vaccines I simply cite CDC (US centers for disease control) guidance on vaccine use. And in many cases this ends the relationship. People accuse me of being insulting, offensive, arrogant, hostile and belligerent because my position disagrees with what they read on some ill informed website.
Strangely I have gone full libertarian on this issue. I, my spouse, my child, and my grand kid if I have one, will be or have been fully vaccinated.
Please don’t have you kid take the vaccine if that’s what you believe in. But I don’t want to have my taxes pay for your kid’s measles treatment, mumps treatment, or polio treatment, etc. If your kid gets polio, buy your own leg braces for your kid or pay the cost for having them live in an iron lung. And if your kid is too damaged to become a full economic contributor to society, I do not want to carry him/her. You have the liberty to make your choice, but not the liberty to have me pay for your errors.
209
@DRK I understand your sentiment, but what about those too young or too immune compromised to protect themselves by being vaccinated. Those are the people I worry the most about - that is the suffering that moves me to want laws and policies forcing vaccinations on others too ill-informed to make the right choice.
18
@DRK
There is the problem of unvaccinated children as carriers of diseases being set loose on everyone else. Not only should the families of anti vaxers be responsible for the costs associated with their children getting preventable diseases, but they should be charged with child endangerment, and their children should never ever be allowed in public spaces such as schools.
22
DRk. What’s your solution for someone who gets pregnant, has a child and can’t afford to raise it? Should we have to pay for that ?
5
Aaaarrrrghghgh. Did I mention that parents who don't vaccinate their kids should be criminally charged? Just saying.
41
The anti vaccine movement is related to more fundamental trends in our society having to do with distrust of intellectuals (so called "elites"), as well as choosing self interests over interests of society, like buying a gas guzzling car over an electric vehicle. Everything comes with risk; getting a vaccine, not getting one., buying a small care versus a large one. Society depends on having enough of us willing to assume some small risks to ourselves for the benefit of our neighbors and their children.
24
@Robert Herman, M.D. Automobiles have nothing to do with safe vaccines. Actually, it is many of the informed "intellectual elites," as you call them, who want to see the double-blind placebo-controlled safety studies and not take the word of the profiteers.
3
There have been countless studies about the dangers of whooping cough, polio, measles, and plenty of studies about the safety of vaccines. Can you read a science research study?
These articles never talk about the fact that since the 1980’s, vaccine manufacturers have been protected from any liability resulting from damage or injury from their products.
We also never hear about the government run vaccine injury court and the vaccine injured children.
Instead we hear derogatory commentary about the anti vaxxers as well as other nastiness.
If vaccines are so safe and effective, remove liability protections and I bet the vaccine schedule might get back to a more reasonable number of shots like when I was growing up.
43
You never hear about "vaccine injured children" because statistically they simply do not exist. That is, incidents of adverse reactions to vaccines resulting in permanent injury or death are so rare as to be almost non-existent.
24
If you do that, personal injury lawyers will file thousands of frivolous lawsuits every year. The defense costs alone would either bankrupt the industry or make vaccines unaffordable to most people.
12
@Tracy You really can’t take into consideration the “number of shots.” There are actually a much LOWER number of immunologic agents in the ENTIRE childhood vaccination series today than there were in just two vaccines in 1980. Many vaccines are also now available in combinations, such as Pediarix. This is great for decreasing the number of pokes (great news for my son)!
8
I was scared of vaccines even though the link to autism had been ( to my mind) debunked before my 2nd was born. I was more worried about how manipulating an infant's developing immune system and possibly overwhelming it, could be harmful. I'd already lost a child, in infancy, to a birth injury. I was so afraid. I learned about vulnerable children, with compromised immunity, and I felt ashamed of 'protecting' my children at other peoples' expense. So I sought out a supportive doctor, and got my kids (belatedly) immunized. Education works.
The thing is, the CDC cares about the aggregate, not your individual child. If you have any reason to fear immunizations, if you are reluctant to have someone inject things into your child's body, and you already know that a small number of babies will react badly to vaccines, you are not going to be swayed by shaming, sneering, scolding, and bullying.
Honor parents' fears, work to address those legitimate fears, and maybe press the CDC to find out why some kids react very badly to vaccines.
38
@Megan Thank you for explaining your thinking. It’s easy for people to make this a black-and-white issue when it is not. The people I know who selectively vax have graduate degrees in the sciences. I separated vaccinations and delayed some based on a troubling reaction in my first child, opinions of two doctors, and the data in the primary literature. I’m a Ph.D. Scientist working as a risk assessor so I know how to interpret the studies. The vaccine schedule (as all public health decisions) is based on a compromise between risk, benefit, and pragmatism (e.g., how often can we reasonably expect parents to bring their child to their medical provider). If you go along with it, you are implicitly adopting that decision-making process, but if you understand what’s behind the decision-making process better, you might make slightly different decisions for your family. For instance, one of my children just finished his HepB series at age 11 because I understood the the decision-making process that led public health officials to recommend this vaccine for day-old infants and knew the risks were exceedingly low for our family. We also skipped the rotavirus vaccine. It is unfortunate that intelligent people have difficulty with the decision to simply follow CDC guidelines because of a lack of trust, due, in part to past mistakes by CDC and pharma. (e.g., carcinogenic monkey viruses contaminating early polio vaccines, intestinal occlusions from early rotavirus vaccine)
13
@Megan
Eminently reasonable. But I fear in the rush to maintain "herd immunity," your reasonable voice will be drowned out.
3
@Megan The workaround you describe is what was best for you, not for your child. I don't claim that the fear you felt was insignificant or irrelevant, but delaying vaccination does harm children and creates not benefit. All it does is help you feel a little more in control in a very scary world, which is valuable to be sure, but don't make me and other doctors lie and say it isn't selfish.
6
If you would like to educate yourself on the harmful effects of vaccines watch the documentary “Vaccine Nation” by Gary Null. The documentary can be viewed for free on You Tube.
10
@Charles R What about the harm done by guns?
2
@Charles R
And it's worth every penny.
2
I’m sure much of the anti-van propaganda comes through social media and the internet. But don’t discount the influence of the old-style (sorry, NYT) media. A newspaper near me has been beating the anti-vax drum for more than a decade ... only recently did they stop using Wakefield as a source. The same newspaper also sees any discussion of climate change as a hoax.
What these have in common is a willingness to believe in conspiracies fomented by some nameless so-called “experts” in far away places. When a “mainstream” source such as your local newspaper starts peddling these conspiaracies, they gain undeserved validity.
12
It is the same anti-science, conspiracy-minded attitude that have us climate change denial, chemtrails, and Sandy Hook trutherism.
27
Uneducated scientifically illiterate people using social media...
36
Let’s be blunt: Why would a country that puts Trump in WH in 2016 NOT also produce an ignorant/stupid (you pick the adjective) population that denies medical science?
219
The photo of the baby receiving an inoculation is hardly assuring, and gives the opposite impression. That is not how most babies and children receive injections and inoculations.
A happier photo was surely available.
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@Ellen Morrison Nurse here. I agree, although unfortunately this is the way it HAS to be sometimes. It’s safer for the patient, the parent, and the person administering the vaccine.
3
@Ellen Morrison My thoughts exactly! I couldn’t believe that photo. Please change it to one showing how most of us administer vaccines (I’m a family doc) - safely cuddled in dad’s or mom’s arms, sometimes even breastfeeding! I asked myself if you had an anti-vaxxer choosing the photo image for this article...
8
@Ellen Morrison
As an RN myself, I find it reassuring that the providers (and mom) in that photo are meeting the standard of care by implementing contact precautions and restraining an obviously (and transiently) unhappy infant to vaccinate expeditiously and prevent injury to one and all.
1
Evolving life bene(according to a theory,)fited by nature's culling of the 'unfit'. Mankind attempts to by-pass nature's method of 'sacrificing the unfit so that the more fitter to adapt have survived. Now, some by-passers hope, by by-passing nature's culling, to comfort themselves by stopping nature's culling process at the expense of future generation's being un-adapted to past environment changes. Vaccination is, therefor a crime against future life.
2
@robert arvid johnson
Not buying that flight of fantasy, but in its wake I would entertain the notion of a "crime" against logic, and ultimately against public health. I dare you to try that argument with parents bereft at the needless loss of a child victimized by such a paranoid delusion.
1
@robert arvid johnson
Tell your friends that had life-saving surgery for a congenital defect, are on insulin, statins or a myriad of other medical treatments that prolong lives, that you wish they had died before breeding..."for the good of the species".
You'll have even fewer friends than you have now...
Yes, indeed, some who WANT vaccines have a LOT of trouble getting them. It took me three years to convince my insurance company to cover a measles shot. Oh, you were born before 1957 (in my case, 1944), therefore, you have had measles, they said. Well, I have not. I got a blood test to prove it. And still, I had to fight to get the vaccine. Even though my work takes me often to third world countries. How I avoided measles (both kinds) all those years is beyond me. But at my age now, I wasn't eager to experience it. At some point, I got every vaccine I could think of (I still have my yellow fever card). And though I have never had the flu, I get a shot to protect anyone around me with a compromised immune system. I still can't get a straight answer on whether I could get such a light case I wouldn't know I had it but could still transmit it. So I get a flu shot every year.
12
@Yvette Cardozo Good for you. I was tearing my hair out yesterday after I saw some local woman on FB post that she would never get a flu shot because it's "just" the flu and "no one ever dies of it." Not kidding. She didn't respond to my post noting that 80,000 Americans died of the flu in 2018.
23
People have quality problems with almost everything they buy today. There is a problem with the systems that control over site of all aspects of our society. Corporate control with profit over perfection leave most aspects of our society in question for the average American. I don't have children but was vaccinated decades ago when people felt they could trust the sources of things they put in their body. To stomp out the anti-vaccine movement you need parents to feel they can verify the source and purity of the injection and that there are no contaminates or trace elements in the vaccine that could cause issues.
11
@Tony this is absolutely true. There are systemic problems that involve exorbitant profits; complete legal immunity - something that doesn't really exist for any other industry; and draconian government mandates that inherently add unavoidable distrust to this debate. The problem is much deeper than simply convincing people to get vaccines.
6
So humorous. These are the same parents that think nothing of feeding their kids all manner of processed junk like chicken “tenders”, Mac & Cheese box dinner, washed down with some sugary “juice”.
11
The writer makes a observation that is of great importance. The more effective a vaccine is the more likely it is to produce a misconception that the targeted disease is gone or unimportant.
Not many people are around who recall the deadly polio and measles of the past. The relatively recent (1990s) H flu vaccine is so effective that many younger pediatricians have never seen a case, though it was once a yearly winter scourge.
People often have to see to believe and there just isn’t much to see except yawn-producing graphs and tables of data. Sadly it may take an extensive outbreak and multiple deaths to open eyes.
25
@John Vance - In in my early 70s, and I well remember classmates who'd had polio. I was in 3rd grade when the first polio vaccines were administered. There are plenty of people around my age and older who remember those days full well, along with remembering all the school we missed because of staying home with measles, 3 day measles, mumps, chickenpox, and other childhood illnesses. Some children had a comparatively mild form while others were deathly ill from one or more of those illnesses.
2
Most of this points to a poor public and private education system, where people are not learning basic science. So much has been accomplished in the last 50 years in medicine and immunology and genetics, the knowledge gap is staggeringly huge. What could America do to fix this? Start requiring basic science high school and continue it going forward through to college and trade schools.
15
@M People also don't learn history. Just reading about how many children died of (now preventable) diseases in the 19th century and earlier might be an eye-opener to a lot of people. When we talk about the rise in life expectancy, a whole lot of that is not because people live longer, per se, but because fewer children die than did before.
12
@RMS
Even a little family history/genealogy might help. There's a reason that couples of 3 or 4 generations ago had huge families, and it wasn't just for lack of contraception: half of their children would likely die, before coming of age, of infections which modern medicine has virtually eliminated. How does a life expectancy at birth of 35-40 years strike you?
2
According to two neurologists, the Guillian-Barre I contracted was because of my first (and I assure you my last) flu shot.
If people want to have vaccinations, go for it, but leave the rest of us alone to make decisions about our own bodies.
26
@KarenAnne It is simple (KISS). The Flu kills. The flu shot saves lives. Anyone who works with children, the elderly, or anyone who is immune compromised is well aware of the value of immunizations. The FLU KILLS.
12
@KarenAnne there is no way a neurologist can reach this conclusion.
12
@KarenAnne Sadly, your decisions about "your own body" are also decisions about other people's bodies. Believe it or not, this not just "about you."
6
I guess I can thank a time when science and advances were seen as both our future and our guarantee of a better future. The jet age was in full swing. Rockets were lifting off into space and the moon beckoned, and when we lined up in the school corridors to be vaccinated against the diseases the ravaged those who came before.
My grandmother suffered from polio in her your and later in life when her body's defenses started to wane latent symptoms came back which were diagnosed of the polio that really never quite left her.
I thank my lucky stars for growing up when I did. Sure, we didn't have iPhone's and video games but cynicism was the realm of old people not young.
15
The inherent bias of this article is a perfect example of why people are losing trust in the establishment and learning to think for themselves.
Nowhere does it mention that the current vaccine hysteria was brought about and exploited to the hilt by the recent measles outbreak, an outbreak which in the US resulted in zero deaths. Nowhere does it mention that in fact there has been exactly one death from measles in the US in the past fifteen years. Nowhere does it mention the reality of vaccine injury, the $4 billion payment to vaccine injured families, or the fact that, as Dr. David Kessler, former head of the FDA, noted, that less than 1% of adverse reactions are reported.
Tell me, are we really supposed to put our trust exclusively in science sponsored and funded by Pharma? Are we really to question nothing about vaccines? To not question the experts, not question the science, not question the schedule, not question the ingredients, not question they’re “safe and effective,” not talk to anyone with opposing views, not engage on social media with these same people? Because that’s what I’m hearing from the NYTimes and others.
The idea that healthy unvaccinated people pose the biggest threat to our nations healthcare is a joke—both measles and especially mumps have broken out in populations that are 100% immunized. In fact this whole vaccine hysteria is a sick joke. Maybe just maybe people will begin to see through the media-stoked fear and wake up!
35
@Alex
I remember life before the MMR vaccine. Many children lost hearing, vision, and suffered brain damage due to very high fevers these illnesses produce. I had all of those illnesses, but I had very good medical care and escaped side-effects. Many of my peers were not so lucky.
Pregnant women who contract measles will have babies with birth defects. Also, adults who come down with any of those illnesses you trivialize become very sick, often need hospitalization and often suffer side effects.
So, Rock on, Alex. But please find a nice island and move there and form an anti-vax community. The rest of us prefer to be polio-free. I hear your concerns about science driven by big pharma, but that's not enough to quit vaccinating children.
47
@Alex Science is hard.
19
@Alex there is no place where everyone is 100% vaccinated in the US, forget where active measles outbreaks are happening. The most recent measles death in the US away in 2015. But measles is extremely virulent, and can cause permanent disability, including seizures, deafness, and intellectual disabilities. All avoidable with a vaccine.
18
"Now, you simply declare your own truth.”
Very true indeed. The first casualty is always truth. The republic has become thoroughly infested with conspiracy theorists like the anti-vaxxers who declare their own phony baloney reality. You cannot argue or debate them; doing so immediately confers legitimacy and should you somehow disprove their conspiracy another one (or ten) will immediately pop up. The internet and social media have allowed previously disparate conspiracy groups to network, coalesce into an organized movement, and weaponize their toxic conspiracies. The future (for truth) would seem bleak. Witness one imposter-in-Chief, who rode to Washington by spreading lies and conspiracy. It will get worse, not better
21
@anon My grandson got his MMR shot and shrieked all night long, it was so bad they took him to urgent care. They were told that it would stop, he was just having a reaction. This child was perfect before that day. After, his behavior began to change. They took him to experts who said he had autism. Then, they did genetic testing and determined it wasn’t genetic. Something had to happen environmentally or being born to cause his autism. Since, he’d only been alive a short time that pretty much narrowed it down to two or three things; toxins in the water, his birth, or the vaccinations. He was perfectly fine at birth. So, what would you think if you were a parent? I have pictures of the child looking lovenly in my eyes, smiling, gurgling, laughing. Then, we have pictures of a child that won’t look at you, doesn’t make noises, etc. Seems to me, that the vaccine damaged his brain. He goes to classes everyday and is improving greatly. I used to think the same way you all think until I saw it with my own two eyes. No one in either family has any history of autism. So until the day they find out what causes autism, how can they say it is not the vaccine?
12
@Elizabeth Carr
Thank you for sharing your story, and I am so sorry . . . When we're told there's 16 adverse reactions in a million shots, every parent is wondering, "What if my child is one of those 16?"
4
@Elizabeth Carr In all likelihood, there is no simple cause for Autism. Multiple genes are involved, on the genetic end and for environmental causes roundup or other pesticides or other known toxins are more likely candidates for causal agents.
3
Darwin's Theory will soon resolve questions for these folks when they experience their children's illnesses and it doesn't go the way they expected. Some kids won't live to tell their stories. I knew kids in iron lungs, kids who lost eyesight, kids whose organs had permanent damage. This anti movement is folly.
31
I live in a country with Aztec zombies, and wrestlers with names like the "Blue Demon," and "El Santo" who provide an important public service - in addition to entertaining millions of Mexicans - by settling the hash of all those obstreperous Mayan vampires.
But polio? Diphtheria? Whooping cough? Measles? Even the most benighted of our countrymen seem to be on the same page about vaccinating against those evils.
You've got an anti-scientific thing going in the States. And it's catching...
38
Many falsehoods stated in the article. Vaccines are dangerous and have never been tested for safety or efficacy. Dr. Wakefield never retracted his story. He always said there was a strong association between the trivalent MMR vaccine and autism and the CDC twisted the data and said his article was “debunked”. For the most part the usual childhood illnesses are not fatal and the vaccines are killing and damaging many more children than they are saving. Many of the so called “measles outbreaks” are in vaccinated children where the partial immunities have either weakened or were never effective. There is no denying the association of the heavy metals, aluminum and mercury; in the vaccines, being associated with autism. If the pharmaceutical companies and government wanted to put the controversies to rest, they would do the proper scientific studies .to prove the safety and effectiveness...none have ever been done!!
2
@Nezahualcoyotl
You forgot to mention that it is THE LAW.
Without the "Vaccination Card". which the parents have to be sure to comply with the regulations, children are not allowed to go to any school at all. Therefore no contagion.
When it comes to medicine in many things Mexico is way ahead than the US.
3
@Steven Smith Not only was is fraudulent article retracted. He also lost his medical license.
4
The CDC first began tracking Autism rates in 2000 and rates have steadily increased. Parents have a right to be concerned with the health of their children, but by blaming vaccines, they are taking the easy way out with false science, The media refuses to even approach the possibility of other causes and what else might affect the health of fetuses and babies. Consider the increase in pollution and the possible link to fetal and infant development, a subject that is poorly researched, and add to this the toxic effect of mass media with its power to misinform. Vaccines do protect children from mortal disease at little risk, but can anti-vaxers say the same for pollution? Is the exhaust from a gas guzzler safe for babies?
13
I am a freelance health journalist who has interviewed many leading researchers about vaccines. The consensus is overwhelming that vaccines do not cause often cause significant health problems in children Please see my previous post on autism. Air pollution and other factors could be a possibility, but it is not a certainty. Older men fathering children is also a consideration. A lack of folic acid consumption during pregnancy could contribute as well. There is a definite genetic component as well. But one thing is for sure, thousands of well-controlled studies have shown that vaccines do not cause autism or other disorders. We need more research -- not hysteria.
14
Recent reports indicate that 12 children whose mother had received sperm from an anonymous have autism.
This strongly suggests that autism has a genetic origin. I can understand why neither parent of an autistic child will be happy with that fact.
12
Just look to the history of the John Birch Society and fluoridation of drinking water. It's well within the lifetime of many Americans. My immigrant mother would never have skipped a vaccine or immunization for us!
11
@Dan Broe My (very Republican) mother was sure that fluoride was a Communist plot. (Both she and my dad had false teeth in place before they were 60.)
4
Yes, by all means let's go back to the days of no vaccinnes. Polio, after all, could now be cured by CBD infused lollipops. (according to Jenny McCarthy, PhD Immunology - Harvard University) If only FDR was around. He'd be cured!
We live in an imperfect world full of imperfect people and processes. Modern edical science, which has saved so many lives and prevented the premature death of millions, is to be lauded and trusted. Is it perfect? No. Is anything perfect? No. (Well, maybe Amazon Prime)
I put my faith fully in modern medical science. But hey, that's just me.
If you feel a failed (whatever she is these days) and her ilk are a better repository for your trust then go for it.
But, don't come crying when the quackery that you've put your trust in fails.
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@Raven
Spot on Raven,spot on. I too put my faith in modern science. As a child of the 50s' I loved to read books about famous drs and the illnesses that they had found cures for.I also knew people who had polio and people who'd lost loved ones to polio.Thanks but no thanks,my mom made sure we were all vaccinated and My wife and I made sure our two sons had all their vaccinations.It's the height of stupidity to suffer from a disease that's easily preventable.
14
I spent the first 22 years of my life in India.
India has a population of 1.3 billion and you will find no worries or complaints there about how vaccines harm kids or cause autism.
That is because they know the alternative to vaccines, they know about how dangerous and deadly infectious diseases are.
104
@SM I’m pretty sure America can not be compared to a country that lacks clean water and sanitation.
1
@Ann - The last time I checked, not all the water in Michigan was clean. I believe Flint has been having a problem.
Your comment to SM was very insulting: as if all India had to do was clean up a bit and they wouldn’t have experienced infectious diseases of any kind. While certain circumstances do promote illness - unclean water can cause cholera, and mosquitoes can pass along malaria - the fact remains that at the end of the day, an illness such as polio doesn’t care how clean you are. It’s going to do its thing one way or another, and the best defense against its ravages is being vaccinated if possible. Not everyone can be, of course, but those who can be should. SM gets it: anyone who has lived through some of these diseases, or knows people who have, does. Take your wave-the-American-flag snark elsewhere.
15
@Ann
So the uneven availability of clean water and sanitation somehow disqualify the success story of immunization medicine in India? I shudder at the thought of India being compared to the USA in terms of science education: it might not go well for us.
9
It isn't surprising that a growing number of Americans reject 'science' in a political climate where 'facts' are obsolete.
Strangely, older Americans who WANT vaccines, can't get them. For more than a year, there has been a severe shortage of GSK's Shingrix (https://www.medicaleconomics.com/article/shingrix-shortage-advice-physicians) with little relief in sight. If a manufacturer cannot deliver adequate quantities of a vaccine for more than a year, exclusive rights granted by the patent should be voided so other manufacturers can step in.
15
@ShenBowen - My husband and I had to wait several months for the shingoles vaccine to become available, but I just had my second of the two inoculations. Having had shingles, I'd have taken ten injections if it prevented me from getting shingles again.
1
Refusing to believe the science is a big problem in America (and elsewhere). Conspiracy theories easily take hold. People believe that guns are not a problem, that there is no climate change, that vaccination is dangerous, etc. The trouble is that they actually believe these things, and will clutch at anything which seems to support theses beliefs. It’s a bit like the myriad religions - once a person has been indoctrinated into their particular religion, they do not want to listen to alternative views. I can’t see any of this changing soon.
13
My child is vaccinated without a negative impact. I am however concerned about the scores of vaccinations given to children today compared the required number in 1962. From my perspective the quantity issue is not addressed. We are holding opioid manufactures responsible yet we shield the makers of vaccines from ever having to defend a lawsuit It is only when that happens will we truly get answers
26
@Patrick.
Thanks so much for saying this. In addition, to minimize the number of shots, children are given "multivalent" vaccines. But is that really as safe as "monovalent" vaccines in terms of reactions?
7
@Patrick.
Tha answers are in the data. If you care to, you can educate yourself. I'm not the first to say it: Science is hard.
3
Simple fix, no vaccination, no school, no health insurance, no air travel. I’d say no public transportation, no movie theaters, no malls or public spaces but that’s not feasible. You don’t want to vaccinate, home school or set up a school for anti vaccers with no public support. When we travel overseas we need a shot record, require a national shot record. Draconian you bet but it’ll be effective.
68
@Jacksonian Democrat You know what we need? We need to criminally prosecute parents who don't vaccinate their kids. Just like we would prosecute parents who don't feed their kids, or lock them in a closet for years or beat them. It's child abuse, plain and simple, as well as being abuse of OPC.*
* Other People's Children
5
@Jacksonian Democrat, i couldn't agree more, thank you very much.
Let's go further: many elderly now live (with minimal subsidies) in HUD/Section 8 housing, and though they are surely at risk due to age, there is at present no rule in place to prevent other, un-vaccinnated elderly from moving in alongside them.
Is this madness? Of course it is.
I suggest, recommend, and hope to see enforced strict rules that deny un-vaccinnated persons access to HUD / Section 8 housing, unless exempt by valid, reviewed medical necessity.
My view, this anti-vax nonsense is not just a "Jenny McCarthy" or "Kennedy" bit of idiocy for the chattering classes but instead affects all of us, including children and the elderly, where we live, where we work, where we shop, and where our children go to school.
I say, up and down the socio-economic scale there must be accountability and reason, and rationality must prevail: vaccination saves lives.
Let those who wish to be pariahs revel in their dissent, and let their children die. Let ours live. Darwin would approve.
But we, us, you and me, we do *not* have any duty to subsidise the nonsense these fools believe in: our duty is to ourselves, not to Kennedy, and certainly not to Jenny McCarthy and her followers.
john128
2
@Jacksonian Democrat why are you so afraid of those who don’t vaccinate if the shots you receive are supposed to keep you healthy and disease free?
2
There is a much more significant relationship between autism and neonicitinoids, the nerve killing products in today’s insecticides, than there is between autism and vaccines. These neonics are also believed to play a significant role in the demise of bees, butterflies and many other insects around the world.
However, the story of neonics and autism will never come out while there are billions of dollars to be made from insecticides.
32
Another cost of allowing Derrida a foothold in universities in the last quarter of the 20th century.
9
@David Gerstein, it’s probably safe to say that few among the anti-vaxx movement have studied Derrida or Foucault. This much is certain: They haven’t studied immunology.
13
My mother had polio as a child, and continues to struggle - every day - with post polio syndrome. A teacher her entire adult life, she raised two wild boys, but has been sidelined by a legacy not known in generations earlier because of reduced life expectancy. Still active - a traveling grandma! - every trip out of the house is a calculation of energy expended and needed.
As such, science and medicine have always been celebrated in our now spread out homes & families. Salk is revered, appropriately so.
This recent version of indulgent medicine deniers aren't addressing their children's well being, they're playing out their own issues with authority, to the extreme detriment of us all.
That we're entertaining these destructive fantasies of control is a sad testament to how low our shared civic discourse has slumped.
33
I somehow missed getting chicken pox as a child, and came down with it in my 30s, about 2 years before there was a vaccine. I have never, ever been as sick as I was then. I had a fever of 105 and was literally afraid I was dying. I wouldn’t wish chicken pox on any adult.
55
@Been there I am a physician. I took care of a young adult with initial infection with chicken pox during my internship. She had to be intubated because her lungs were failing from fluid infiltration. I was too busy to find out why she had no immunity, but I know she was not immunocompromised. I was in the MICU trying to save her life and we did, all of us, 24/7, until she could breathe on her own. I would guess she would be supportive of vaccinating the young.
17
@Been there - I had chicken pox as a kid but one of my colleagues didn’t, and she came down with it as an adult. She was very sick and, to make matters worse, shingles immediately followed. She was out of work for weeks and, even when she returned, it was obvious she was still not totally well. It took a long time for her energy level to get back to normal. It was a terrible experience for her, one that made me glad that I had the disease as a kid. I’m also glad that we now have a vaccine for it.
10
Average lifespan in 1900 was about 44 years, now it is closer to 73. Most of the increase in longevity is due to vaccines.
42
@Left Handed Vaccines, antibiotics, hygiene.
4
One problem with this issue, as well as abortion, is that in too many areas of the country is a long time ago is 50, 75, maybe 100 years. And that where old is older few people visit cemeteries.
In New England where headstones dating from the 1600s and 1700s you see the painful death of children and young adults taken before their time by disease. You see all the children who were baby boy or baby girl because life did not begin until they had reached a viable age where it was no longer bad luck to name your children.
These stones are stark reminders of how it was before science and medical advances.
25
@Marie
A trip through the archives of a local paper that's been in existence for at least a 100 years will also reveal the deaths of children to diseases now prevented by vaccines. Our local parer archives describe an outbreak of whooping cough in around 1908 that claimed the lives of around 7-10 children in one small village.One mother was described as being extremely distraught over the loss of all 4 of her children to the disease.
8
@RJM - Onen side of my family has a complete genealogy that goes back to 1653 in Canada, when some of our relatives immigrated from France. These were French Catholic families who had a dozen children or more. But until the early 1900s, it wasn't uncommon for a family to raise only 3 children to adulthood. One memorable entry showed one family who lost 8 children within about a 4 month period. The cause wasn't specified but it had to be some contagious disease that people no longer die from.
3
Hard to believe that anyone takes medical advice from these actors, rappers and politician none of whom have medical degrees: Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey and Alicia Silverstone, the rapper Kevin Gates and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
25
Why wouldn’t we take advice from celebs on medical issues? Congress has them in all the time discussing foreign affairs. Race relations and every other issue. Why shouldn’t we listen to them on vaccines? We are forced fed their opinions on every other issue.
I am amazed at the stupidity of parents unwilling to protect their children from horrendous diseases based on bias from unproven non-medical thought. Those great thinkers Jenny McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. now have a special place in history for their personal linkage to this anti-intellectualism.
39
Soon the Flat Earthers will demand that their kids be spared the conspiracy of a spheric earth. This is what happens when rights become absolute and the fear of slippery slopes gets in the way of common sense.
46
Laws to make not vacinating your child first degree murder or abuse if they get sick.
9
Tragically, the possession of a famous surname does not prevent you from advances dangerous no scientific nonsense.
9
@David Triggle
If anything, it enables it. The ancestors who earned that fame must be spinning in their graves.
America is degrading as it turns away from science and even basic facts and more towards tribalism, Internet rumors and rabid religion.
29
Turning down medical treatment that may carry certain risks is ok - as long as it only affects the patient. You can choose not to have that biopsy; you can choose to forgo that next round of chemo. These are personal choices that we are at liberty to make. Vaccination, on the other hand, is NOT a personal choice; it's a community responsibility.
114
@Nick
I guess that means vaccines don't work? After all, if you are vaccinated, how do you get the disease from someone who is?
@Good Reason
Some people cannot get vaccines because they are too young, too immunocompromised, or pregnant.
7
How many times does this question have to be answered? There are babies too young to be vaccinated. There are immuno-compromised people who can't have or can't respond to immunizations. We need to think about more than just ourselves.
8
I remember when polio vaccine was made universally available at public schools, clinics, drug stores, etc. in the United States in the 50s when I was about 5-7. We received both three shots and later 4 doses of oral vaccine. This was considered a wonderful blessing and polio was completely conquered in the US. How can we have not let resistance to science anti-vaccine myths and the like change this picture so drastically? In third world countries the universal availability of vaccines and medications has produced miracles. Do we want to become a third world country?
26
@Rebecca Hogan, 'Do we want to become a third world country?', you got an appropriate leader so you are on your way already.
5
@Bob Tonnor
Yes, we're already far down the path to tribalist theocracy. That's why Dear Leader dropped by the UN today for "religious freedom" instead of the science of climate crisis. The fact that most of us voted against him is just a crown of thorns on top.
Anti-vaxxers, Birthers, Creationists, Climate Deniers. Gilead. Soon we'll only have snake-handlers to turn to during our polio pandemics. We'll all be ravaged by the pox *and* autism, queued up for faith-healers to anoint us with crude oil.
I'm so fortunate to have been born after Salk's vaccine but before this horrific, terminally ignorant war on science, education, and reason. It's a crime that we're passing on a dying world to the next generation.
We're even failing to vaccinate them against diseases my generation (X) didn't have to suffer because our parents had the decency and intelligence to listen to the science rather than posturing as self-declared experts and crusaders against medicine.
1
I had a lady walk up to me in a store a few years ago, point to my then 8-9 year old daughter and tell me not to give her the HPV shot because apparently her straight-A daughter suddenly became a C student soon after taking the HPV shot.
My daughter had the second dose of the HPV vaccine last month. I trust my daughter's doctors more than I trust random people I talk to in the store and more than random articles I read on the internet.
72
Or, it could be that this lady's daughter became a teenager, and suddenly had other things on her mind. Or the poor girl could have been depressed, ill, or using drugs. Blaming vaccines gives her mother a convenient excuse to do nothing, sadly.
11
@SM some of the claims against the Gardisil shot involve increased risk of infertility... will be interesting to see how this young generation (being experimented on) fares when the time comes to conceive if they choose to do so.
3
@Ann
"Some people say..." Seriously? My 13-yo doesn't comment here, but she has a better grasp of logic and standards of evidence than that. More interesting will be how subsequent generations overcome the willful ignorance and scientific illiteracy which still plagues us, the alleged richest and most powerful nation on Earth.
7
The hesitancy for vaccines follows the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act which is legislation giving those big powerful drug companies immunity from civil suits...in effect, no fault. People who follow closely how vaccines are pushed through (and then loosely monitored AFTER they are licensed) - these people who then come to the conclusion that they need to "think again" are shamed and bullied. THIS has been the movement which has "decades in the making."
I love that statement in the article stating that pediatricians should be compensated for "educating" about vaccines. Of course they should be educating people and educating themselves. And they get monetary incentive to have their patients fully vaccinated - both federal and state moneys which invites bias. Not all pediatricians think all vaccines should be administered - and not on the intense schedule proposed.
27
@Laura Kett. Please explain what money doctors get from the state or federal government when they inoculate children.
7
@Laura Kett
"Not all pediatricians think all vaccines should be administered - and not on the intense schedule proposed."
You conveniently rig your claim by failing to note that this describes a fringe of doctors whose alleged misgivings are based more on custom and subjective personal experience, as opposed to EVIDENCE.
3
@Laura Kett
Physician here -- About the "education" spoken of: Discussion with patients -- whether the medical issue is controversial or not -- takes time, and the only way the powers that be let practitioners take that time is if they can be convinced it is valuable in terms they understand.
Oh, and neither I nor any other MD gets "monetary incentives" for vaccination.
Presenting actual evidence-based facts is not shaming and bullying.
4
What I found troubling in this article is that there was no mention of aluminum or mercury adjuvants that are routinely used in vaccines or why vaccines cannot be made without using these neurotoxins. Personally, I believe that is where the conversation should go.
13
@DB Where is the evidence for your position? Can you cite a peer-reviewed study that demonstrates any relationship between those substances in vaccines and harmful outcomes? If so, please share right here.
13
Dear DB
Unfortunately, you are spreading misinformation.
Stop.
9
@DB
Thimerosal, the mercury component in vaccines, has not been in childhood vaccines since 2001. It is not an adjuvant but a preservative. It is present in multi dose flu vials to prevent bacterial contamination but most flu vaccines is packaged in single does that do not contain it. Parents or patients that are concerned about it can request single does.
Aluminum is used as an adjuvants because it enhances the immune response and allows less of the antigen to be used. It results in a vaccine with fewer side effects. The amount used in vaccines is much less than children absorb from the environment food and water.
23
Next time you feel like being grateful thank Jenny McCarthy who's married to Donnie Wahlberg. I hope Donny is suitably embarrassed
7
Why did you choose a photo that makes getting vaccinated look like a torture chamber for that kid?
Folks, disregard the photo and vaccinate your kids. Trust me, you don’t want to see kids with the diseases the vaccinations guard against.
Thanks in advance.
93
@Alex B Sure Alex, don't show the truth.
3
@Alex B That photo illustrates standard practice for administering injections to infants, and is by far the best, and safest method. In the interest of patient safety the last thing nurses want is an unrestrained baby thrashing around.
3
@KarenAnne
The truth is that photo does NOT show how most of us administer a vaccination. I’m a family doctor, and I have mom or dad cuddle their child close when I give the vaccine. Some babies cry when the needle goes in, others don’t even flinch. In 25 years of being a doctor I have never seen a baby held down like that to give a vaccine. There’s no need.
5
But they are ignorant.
Selfish? No, irresponsible. Making your children vulnerable to disease, including some that are deadly, is irresponsible. But it's hard to see it as selfish.
11
@Jonathan Katz
Some are definitely selfish. They want to feel smart and not acknowledge they made a mistake and were fooled, so their kids pay the price. They want the ego boost of thinking they know better than people who spent their lives studying this one subject alone, better than hundreds of thousands of researchers and studies. They want to fit in with this elite group of the only smart people around.
3
Am I the only person who finds irony in anti-vax parents with tattoos?
162
@L Read the article. She is a proponent of vaccines.
1
@L One out of three Americans have tattoos. Let’s focus on the issue at hand.
3
We are complicating things much.
No vaccines = no health insurance
Problem solved
36
@Trumpette
So - don't be born to the wrong parents and you'll be OK?
5
@SusanStoHelit yes. That is exactly the point. I got one am getting tired of paying for other people’s mistakes over and over again. Darwinism is long overdue for the human race.
Meanwhile, we have current polio outbreaks in the Philippines: (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/world/asia/philippines-polio-outbreak-.html)
Polio outbreaks in Africa, Pakistan and Afghanistan. We have measles outbreaks in California, the state I live in. Measles in Washington State, because parents refuse to vaccinate their children.
Wait until polio strikes the U.S. again. We need better education and visual tools for parents from W.H.O, CDC, and pediatricians. PSA's on TV with videos of children suffering from polio and measles should be aired regularly.
It enrages me to think that my neighbors, family and some friends think they know better than science and scientists/virologists (think of Jonas Salk) who have spent their life's work to save humans from deadly diseases.
46
The people I have known to be anti-vaccine were liberals and the people I have known to be anti-climate science were conservatives. Strange how ignorance is not solely owned by one ideology.
67
There are plenty of ant-vax conservatives, typically among the homeschool fundamentalist crowd, but your point is well-taken. It's amazing how people will cherry-pick science to suit their beliefs.
12
Someone should tell the lady holding the poster that these are not mild illnesses. Polio causes paralysis, whooping cough causes immeasurable suffering to a baby as it struggles for breath while its lungs are being attacked, measles causes lifelong disabilities, .. the list goes on
85
The HPV vaccine stands to ERADICATE more than 90% of cervix cancer within three decades. Anybody lost a friend or relative to cervical cancer? I have.
All UK schoolchildren are offered Gardasil [1] from age 11 years onwards. I couldn't get my daughter her shot fast enough.
Yet, within a few weeks, the anti-vaxxers were rushing to every gullible newspaper peddling fake fears about Guillain-Barre syndrome - a serious, but vanishigly rare neurological disease. GBS is a complication of practically all forms of commonly used immunisation shots, not just Gardasil. Yet, read something like the Daily Mail and you'd be forgiven for believing you were actually murdering your child by signing the consent form.
[1] Gardasil is made and marketed by a US company. The alternative, Cervarix, - made by a British company - was not chosen for the UKs national immunisation program. I can't see that happening in America, frankly.
19
@nolongeradoc A shockingly large number of people believe that if you have sex outside of marriage, anything bad that happens is a sure sign that you are a terrible person. The answer is to simply never have extramarital sex. I have a feeling that these people would oppose government funding for an HIV vaccine.
3
@nolongeradoc, If you read the package insert for Gardasil is states that 2.3% of girls and women between 9-29 report a "systemic autoimmune disorder" during a post 6 month period. . The saline group 0%.
Risk benefit should you decide, or your legislature?
6
@proud parent, I saw your comment and was understandably alarmed - if there were a statistically meaningful risk of autoimmune disease with this vaccine then it would be important to counsel patients accordingly. So I read the Gardasil package insert (https://www.fda.gov/media/74350/download). In Table 9 they discuss women age 9-26 who report symptoms possibly indicative of a systemic autoimmune disorder during the trial. The results are summarized below:
Gardasil: 245/10,706 = 2.3%
AAHS Control or Saline Placebo: 218/9,412 = 2.3%
5
Vaccines are one of the greatest contributions to animalkind’s longevity and the anti-vaccine movement is just another sign of our apparent unrelenting return to the Dark Ages. But—-the photo chosen to accompany this article looks like a torture scene. Not surprising parents may be reluctant.
30
@Em Not a torture scene at all: If you look again, you’ll note one nurse holding the infant’s legs (absolutely necessary), one nurse giving the injection, and mom holding her baby’s arms. Just the way it’s done in thousands of health care settings thousands of times every single day. Could be a photo in a nursing textbook, and I can guarantee you that the experience will not emotionally scar the baby for life.
3
Hey NYT- Do a photo spread on the children who were affected by polio and german measles (rubella) before the vaccines were developed. Maybe seeing the real life outcomes would change peoples minds. The devastation caused by Rubella in-utero was a major reason Roe vs Wade came to be. Many children born in the 1960’s are still living, still blind, still deaf, still in wheelchairs...(referring to Rubella). National Geographic revisited this not long ago too. It is time to open the publics eye.
To not vaccinate is to not understand the grave and severe consequences of these diseases.
143
Heavily agree with this....I grew up seeing photos of children in iron lungs as a result of polio and thanked the fact that I didn't live in time without vaccines. I think people should see what could happen without them.
20
That’s why I keep telling people I lost my hearing from measles.
6
@Hiker One need only to search 19th century smallpox images. That should do it.
3
This article does not address the insane number of shots we now give babies. I am so glad I am not a new parent now. If the number of vaccines and shots were more realistic this would be less of an issue. Parents aren’t stupid. Common sense is eroding on all fronts- including medicine and public health.
37
@Ali Kress
What for you is ''insane" or "more realistic"?
I think you may have your very own definition of what constitutes 'common sense'.
The main take-away I have about this subject is that we are all in this together. You should be able to find someone with whom to have an intelligent exchange of views.
9
@Ali Kress
As vaccines are developed for more disease children get more injections. They are distressing for the child and foe the parents but in the vast majority of cases they are safe, much safer than getting the disease. We should celebrate the fact that children are protected instead of complaining about how it’s achieved.
14
Look at child mortality statistics from that time period you are referring to and compare them to those in the present-day. Now, tell me again your thoughts on these additional shots?
17
If it's too easy to label the anti-vaxxers as ignorant or selfish, what terms would the sociologist propose to describe those parents demonstrating against against protecting their and other children against diseases? If they don't know what herd immunity is, why can't they google the term? They seem to be quite capable of finding the scientific frauds on the net. Here's a description applicable to them: fools whose actions threaten the well being of others.
20
“To just say that these parents are ignorant or selfish is an easy trope,” - sometimes the truth is obvious and the "easy trope" is right on the mark.
25
So the paranoid parent who doesn’t vaccinate holds the key to keeping the newborn baby, or the immunocompromised, or the medically exempted person healthy. Scary.
15
In this golden age of information, ignorance is a choice. Unless your child has a documented diagnosis from an MD that precludes them from vaccines, there's zero reason to not have your child vaccinated.
39
@Philip K, How about Safety? Both epidemiologic and mechanistic research suggests that most individuals who experience an adverse reaction to vaccines have a pre-existing susceptibility. These predispositions can exist for a number of reasons -- genetic variations in human or microbiome DNA, environmental exposures, behaviors, intervening illness, or developmental stage, to name a few. These conditions are not actively studied. Much work remains to be done to elucidate and develop strategies to document the immunologic mechanisms that lead to adverse effects in individual patients
4
I have a lot of experience with people who believe that “you can create your own reality”, who worry about chem trails, and believe in homeopathy and healing crystals, and so on. They have an anti-authoritarian streak that causes them to reject “western medicine”. These same people will smoke cigarettes and snort an occasional line but then worry that things like vaccines and legitimate medications are “toxic”. I’ve seen some of them die of cancer because they did not believe in preventative medicine and/or tried to cure themselves using “natural medicine”. They won’t vaccinate their kids yet they themselves were vaccinated by their parents. They reject science and at the same time try to validate their own beliefs with bad science. They have no critical thinking skills. I place the blame for this pretty squarely on the New Age movement. It’s the kind of thinking that gets us not only measles, but Trump.
69
@Sam Francisco The new age movement gets us Trump? Hmmm.
2
Face book for parenting advice? We are doomed.
25
@Harry B
I couldn't agree more. People who turn to Facebook for parenting advice shouldn't be parents.
The anti-vaxxers' position with their signs would be even more shocking and sad were it not for the fact that we are living through a 45th president who heaps lies and manufactured realities on the people with fake social media on the rampage.
17
Measles can kill. And while that is a grim possibility, it makes this problem much easier to fix than it appears. If you're an anti-vaxxer and your kid gets measles, the local D.A. should file child endangerment charges, and Social Services should determine whether the child needs to pulled from the home. If you're an anti-vaxxer and your kid dies from measles, you face manslaughter charges, and any other minor children are pulled from the home. This is a middle-class and upper-middle class phenomenon, and the threat of incarceration and huge legal fees is the best way to scare them into the appropriate behavior.
67
“To just say that these parents are ignorant or selfish is an easy trope,"
No, to say those parents are ignorant is the truth. They're Ignorant of the science and the medicine, and all- too- willing to succumb to confirmation bias and believe actors or TV personalities over a doctor. They engage in groupthink and peer pressure, and are as self righteous about their "advanced degrees" as the media is when explaining how these people couldn't *possibly* be ignorant because they're so well educated.
If these anti-vaxxers want to place themselves at risk, fine. Let's contain them and let them die out. But as a public safety and child protection concern, if we have to force them to vaccinate their poor children the let's do so.
As a species we need to weed out the intellectually inferior who are active dangers to our population.
47
The article misses a major reason for the anti-vaccine movement: a growing distrust of Big Pharma. The same people who charge Americans exorbitant amounts of money for simple necessities like Epinephrine auto-injectors and Insulin; the same people who made themselves rich hooking a generation of people on opioid pain killers: are selling vaccines, and we’re supposed to trust them with those even if they’ve proven profoundly untrustworthy everywhere else.
.
Don’t get me wrong. I am a proponent of vaccination. The risks are still tiny compared to the risks of not vaccinating. But I fear the psycho babble mumbo-jumbo in this article is only going to hurt the cause. You want to get more people to vaccinate: make Big Pharma clean up its act!!
46
@ZAW “they’ve proven profoundly untrustworthy everywhere else.”
Everywhere else? I think you’re using hyperbole. It only weakens your argument.
The evidence is in on aspirin for fever, ibuprofen for pain, clopidogrel for heart disease, erlotinib for lung cancer, etc.
That some drug companies are corrupt about certain practices doesn’t indict drug companies in general.
Should we stop driving cars because Volkswagen faked results of pollution tests or Chevrolet would rather pay off people injured in one of its auto models rather than recall the cars?
Should we not trust pharmaceutical companies and not take a drug we need because some drugs are overpriced?
10
@Dave Wyman. OK you made your point. I talked in absolutes and I shouldn’t have.
.
You have to admit though, that it is profoundly unfair that Pharmaceutical Companies get away with charging so much more in the US than they do elsewhere. That by itself leaves a bad taste in peoples’ mouths. At least, those of us who aren’t rich.
3
I thought once we emerged from the Dark Ages we wouldn't go back.
That was quite a human conceit, wasn't it. Now we know how the so-called barbarians overcame the enlightened civilizations they defeated.
21
This occurs for the same reason isolationism, jingoistic attitudes, and fascism have come back in fashion. The collective short-term memory of society and a lack of any connection to real consequences of accepting such beliefs. We’ll never learn.
17
@Jason
Sadly, I must agree. I'm a history professor. Twenty years of teaching have left me despairing over our societal lack of memory, and the resurgence of the dark forces you named. I constantly witness the backlash against education, expertise, evidence, research, and reason that many here have noted. Current undergrads have been trained by their parents to believe that their personal opinions outweigh my doctoral training in research.
2
Whenever there is doubt, always look to celebrities for their wise council, because some of them have played doctors, nurses and scientists on TV and in movies. Next time I see my doctor, I'll ask him for pointers on playing Macbeth.
30
To anti-vaxxers: 400-500 children would die from measles in the U.S. each year, before the measles vaccine was introduced. Thousands of people died from, or were crippled by polio in the U.S. each year, like FDR, before the polio vaccine was introduced. And smallpox, which killed an estimate 300 million people worldwide in the 20th century, was eradicated from the world through vaccinations.
22
I am bemused by the repeated message in posters at the meetings that "America has the sickest children in all the developed world" and linking this to vaccines.
Do the people with these signs think that the those in the rest of the world don't vaccinate their children? If so, they're wrong. If not, what is the logic in this claim?
26
First of all, I was born in 1948, so I did go to school with some people in polio braces and crutches. Also (and this is addressed to all of the one-time children [mostly girls] who did reports on Helen Keller in elementary school) Helen Keller was born perfectly normal. She became blind and deaf as a toddler due to what is believed to be either scarlet fever (now treatable with antibiotics) or meningitis (vaccine preventable).
52
Wow, this article paints with an excessively broad brush. I don't listen to celebrities. I don't read crazy anti-vax message boards. I don't think vaccines cause autism.
Here is what I will say. A close blood relative suffered a seizure following the DPT vaccine (1980s) and was permanently disabled. In the years since then, I have been told by multiple people, including some doctors, that:
1) I shouldn't talk about it;
2) It couldn't have happened;
3) It couldn't have been a result of the vaccine (not that any of these people could possibly know that);
4) That, despite rather disturbing contraindications listed in the vaccine's product insert, my children have nothing to worry about.
This doesn't exactly breed confidence.
29
@Paul
To the extent that there were concerns about seizure risk with pertussis, this was with the whole cell pertussis vaccine, not the acellular Pertussis used in most of the developed world. And to the extent that there was any (slight) raise in seizure risk, it was in febrile seizures that are not associated with lifetime seizure risk or lasting after effects. ( https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa003077 ).
Considering the risks of the diseases vaccinated against (and, yes, pertussis has a death rate!), the risk of seizure or other bad outcomes is minute and vastly outweighed by these disease risks.
Oh, and look up post hoc ergo propter hoc.
15
@Paul, I am sorry anyone had a seizure- whatever the cause.
But your confidence should be in the WHO and the CDC and the science. The advocates for vaccination who are insensitive or lame in their arguments are NOT a reason to doubt the science.
7
@Paul. If you want 100% guarantee of safety, then medicine isn’t the place to look, and that also applies to everything else in life. Death, of course, is a 100% certainty.
But accepting calculated risks isn’t a bad plan, basing your decisions on the best information you can find (note: the plural of anecdote isn’t data).
9
I listened to Sheldon Solomon the other day commenting in a podcast on some of the compelling research behind Terror Management Theory. Put simply, the more proximate the apprehension of one's mortality, the more recklessly and impulsively one behaves in response. Rather than acknowledge risks and attempt to manage them, people tend to double-down on their irrational behaviors in order to dispel existential threats-ostensibly through the individual anecdote of having survived (never mind that those who do not survive have no anecdotes to share).
It is not too difficult to find examples of such "human" behavior throughout history. The failure to respond to climate change might be the most cataclysmic example yet.
8
"The W.H.O. has listed vaccination resistance as the highest threat to world health." I deeply disagree. People are the greatest threat to world health. Our on-going warfare throughout time has killed more people, children as well as adults, the on-going lies, rumors, misinformation, and hatred on the Internet are now taking a toll through mass shootings and sickness due to believing that vaccinations are dangerous. People, not diseases directly, are killing, maiming, and infecting people. We're killing the entire planet through pollution and climate change. Human beings are the greatest disease on Earth. All that being said, I had every variant of measles, the mumps, and a "mild" case of polio as a child. I survived. Polio left me unable to run without severe pain like other children. Now at 69, I am having as much trouble walking. I'm so glad my three healthy sons never had to endure the constant itching and fever of measles, the pain of swallowing even water associated with the mumps, or disablement caused by polio. Today's resisters never had to deal with any of those ailments because immunizations were mandatory. They never experienced the penalty of most easily transmitted diseases we used to think of as "childhood diseases." If they had, they probably wouldn't be resisters if they care at all for their children.
15
As do the many Americans who believe what Donald Trump tells them, the many Americans who are anti-vaccine demonstrate that in twenty-first century America we can no longer assume that the average citizen will make an intelligent, informed decision even with all of the relevant information being available. Unfortunately, the manipulators have the upper hand.
15
Safety data regarding many vaccines are not strong. you can see for yourself google" stanley polekin deposition". He is a significant developer or vaccines it is stunning to learn about the lack of solid placebo controlled safety data is available for common vaccines really when 4 big pharma companies make billions each year! There is so much resistance by cdc to do a retrospective large scale study to compare vaccined versus non vaccinated children to examine their overall health! The data at least partially is available on HMO data banks! My daughter was vaccine damaged, at 23 her life is so impacted and we rushed to have her vaccinated as a baby. We owe it too all families to build bridges over this issue not not indite family who simply question there doctors. One more thing there is no herd immunity, most adults are not current with their shots and many vaccines lose efficacy as we age, ain't it something when you really look into a subject .
5
@Jay Orchard
It's beyond ironic, isn't it? We can't make "intelligent, informed decisions" with a world of information at our fingertips. It seems that information technology has only brought us hubris.
Every medical intervention has risks and benefits. Doctors are supposed to explain both. Could it be that because doctors so often fail to perform this basic aspect of medical treatment, obtaining informed consent, that people don't trust doctors anymore? I recently had my 10-year Td booster and had muscle pain for months. I then remembered my arm had swelled up 10 years ago, but because it went away, I'd forgotten about it. I then realized the doctor and nurse this time hadn't asked me what my previous experience with the vaccination was. In other words, they did not obtain my medical history, which is a basic aspect of practicing medicine. They just wanted to give me my vaccine as fast as possible and get me in and out. This type of behavior, which is actually the norm and not the exception, has greatly reduced people's trust in medical professionals. They simply aren't doing their job, which entails explaining risks and benefits, obtaining medical history, and getting informed consent.
36
@Anne
I think you bring up an important observation: medical practitioners don't have time to do their job.
But regardless of whether true or not, how would that in any way lend to this debate on the efficacy of vaccinations, or detract from the overwhelming scientific evidence that supports their use?
Back to your point, I would bet that most practitioners and patients alike would agree with your observation.
Here is a question: do you think it is more to do with the forced economics of practice today, or the 15+ year trained medical practioners who just forget the science and benefit/risk of vaccinations?
Btw, isnt informed consent a two way transaction. Why didnt you share your medical history with the practioner?
Oh, thats right, you forgot.
1
Thank you for writing this article. It is very informative and offers context for the current vaccination debate. I especially appreciated the details on current efforts at messaging, and the changing trajectories of modern parenting from the 1950's to today.
6
It seems to me that one of the major reasons parents would tend to blame a vaccine for their child's autism is that it's a convenient scapegoat for anything but the parents' genetics, environmental factors, or other as yet undiscovered epi-genetic cause.
Perhaps they were absent during discussion of how the Law of Probability determines much of what happens to humans even in these enlightened times. Sometimes bad things happen to good people for no reason at all, and that's got to be hard for any parent to accept.
11
@JCTeller
That’s a good point. But if you look at current statistics you will see that autism was practically unknown fifty years ago, was seen just occasionally thirty years ago, but today tragically effects all neighborhoods and the numbers are alarming.
1
@Ivystone
My brother was diagnosed with autism 50 years ago. The standards are VERY different today than they were 50 years ago.
4
@Ivystone
Also a good point. Makes one wonder how much Autism there really was before we had a common word for it, or how much there really is, because now we do?
Kinda like childhood --> ADD disorders, learning --> Occupational Therapy needs, pain --> opiod management.
The hubris of our generation to shed the wisdom and collective learnings of the people who came before us never ceases to amaze me. Maybe the lost memory is human, I worry its institutional.
1
Regarding the photo of the elderly woman with the anti-flu shot tote bag.
This is the person who needs the flu shot the most, with the vast majority of flu deaths and hospitalizations affecting the 65 year old and up cohort.
Flu shots for the young and working age population prevents sickness from disrupting school and work, but most flu cases can be resolved with bed rest. As a father, no way do I want to be out for 1 week with the flu (most people confuse cold with flu, when you have the flu the symptoms are body ache and fatigue; not coughing or sneezing. But people get a cold after the flu shot and think "it didn't help."
The flu really knocks you out for a week, it causes intense body ache and a week of misery. No way do I want this for me or my kids. But it will kill the elderly by the tens of thousands.
And yes, occasionally the flu is very severe and can kill people of all ages. But even in then, the elderly will be the largest group hit.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2017-2018.htm
16
You can have a cough with the flu.
@James
I got the flu once when I was in my twenties. It was so awful that I got a flu shot every year ever since.
For an elderly woman to resist is foolhardy. I was young and strong at the time. I can only imagine how someone at her age would cope and not succumb.
Pure foolishness.
5
My hyper-competitive friends who didn’t vaccinate their children explained it this way: we will rely upon herr immunity. Let other parents and their children assume the risk while our children receive the benefits.
The look on the faces of all of us in the room: stunned silence.
50
I think that long ago the county would quarantine you if the doctor diagnosed you with some of these diseases.
6
@HMJ
If there's a polio outbreak in the Philippines, the chances are good that we will see polio cases in the US. Your hyper-competitive friends (if you haven't distanced yourself from them yet) may be in for a hard lesson. Pity their children.
8
I wonder where all of the "anti=vaxxers" were back when polio or smallpox were common? Perhaps ... polio didn't seem all that much fun?
It would be a lot easier to be a pro-diseaser today.
There isn't a kid down the street in an iron lung, as I full well remember.
24
Parents lived in abject fear of polio. When I was a kid, polio was a constant danger. I can clearly remember going for my vaccination at a small library in Menlo Park, CA. The sense of relief was palpable and even a child like me could sense it. We all lined up with no complaint whatsoever. These parents who are “hesitant” are a menace to my grandchildren and should be treated that way.
55
@Bob Carlson, thank you.
I remember walking home with friends after school in the 1950's, one kid had the leg braces on.
We were all friends so it was just a thing, no big deal, he was our friend.
Next year, we never saw him again.
Now, six+ decades later, it's hard to hold back my contempt for the human dregs who want today's kids to live thru that again.
john128
6
I wonder if these parents who are against vaccines also push their kids to excel in math and science at school. How ironic that would be. So one day they will ignore what their kids tell them.
10
I saw the 1982 DPT documentary, and when my first child was born a decade later, I was hesitant to vaccinate. Discussing it with my mom, she got my attention in a way the pediatrician had not: “You young people don’t remember what it was like years ago. Children got terrible diseases that damaged their vision, hearing, could leave them crippled— my generation welcomed the miracle of vaccines. For heavens sake, get your kids vaccinated.”. I did.
125
How Anti-Vaccine Sentiment. Took Hold in the United States -- a) The commercialization of the Internet as a grand uncensored venue for discussion generally devoid of knowledge and therefore insight. b)People devoid of University education in Biological Science and sub-domains such as Immunology, Genetics, Public Health, and etcetera. "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." Isaac Asimov, late Professor of Biochemistry, Boston University -- Biologist, graduate of the University of California
33
Things like mercury added to the vaccines are what make them so dangerous! I’m a hardcore liberal... Oddly this article and the comments push a narrative that a concern over this is a political position... it’s not. Shouldn’t we all embrace debate, especially where big profits for pharma are involved? I am amazed that it’s actually my fellow liberals who have “drunk the Koolaid” and fall right in line with the pharma position. It’s one topic that really disappoints me in my fellow liberals. Why are we freely allowing for injections containing mercury into our children? And is anyone aware that President Reagan signed a law banning lawsuits against pharma for botched vaccinations gone wrong? Right after that the number of required vaccines skyrocketed.
17
@Alex,
I feel as though you may have missed the part of the article that mentions vaccines are often loss leaders for a company. Vaccines are not a huge money maker.
There's nothing to debate when we have decades of data and proof that vaccines do work and that they are safe. I don't think most people are fans of big pharma but I'm absolutely a fan of not dying from polio, measles, etc.
35
@Alex There hasnt been mercury in vaccines for over a decade. Also, there is no evidence that the trace amounts were ever dangerous. This is the discredited Wakefield/autism theory. But anyway: the mercury is gone. So go vaccinate, for heaven's sake.
47
@Alex, mercury was taken out in 2001. From the CDC.
Measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccines do not and never did contain thimerosal. Varicella (chickenpox), inactivated polio (IPV), and pneumococcal conjugate vaccines have also never contained thimerosal.
Influenza (flu) vaccines are currently available in both thimerosal-containing (for multi-dose vaccine vials) and thimerosal-free versions.
37
As good science and good engineering reduce risks to a negligible level, people naturally conclude that their own virtuous behavior is the real cause of their safety, and they cast suspicion on the nerdy and awkward scientists and engineers.
That process is utterly human. The fascinating part is that science and engineering ever became successful among emotional and self-centered humans in the first place.
Most likely we are destined for ongoing cycles of enlightment followed by dark age.
39
I’m surprised the insurance companies don’t refuse to cover the children who do not have their vaccines. (The ones mandated for kindergarten). They are the ones who will be paying for the cost to care for the children who become ill because of entirely preventable diseases.
I’d imagine the rate of vaccination would rise immediately when parents realize they will be getting the full bill.
54
@Caro Unfortunately, society at large will not allow this. For example, in the past (and possibly now) some health insurance policies would not cover the health care costs incurred if a person was injured while driving drunk. I cannot recall the details exactly, but a health plan refused to pay for the injuries of a minor severely injured in an accident in which the minor was severely intoxicated. The minor was left a quadriplegic and the family was facing staggering expenses. The plan was perfectly within its contractual rights to not pay. However, the pressure brought to bear by the family, employer who had bought the group policy, the public, and political community forced some sort of significant settlement. Society will not tolerate a situation in which an un-vaccinated young child who becomes severely disabled from one of these diseases is left on their own and bankrupts the family. There is a sentiment in society, often articulated until an event like this, that says a person should not have their life destroyed because of a bad decision. Right, wrong, or indifferent this is the way it is.
We're talking about education a lot here, or moreover lack of it, but do you really think people on average are less educated about science than they were in the 50s etc? My father was vaccinated and his parents were only high school graduates, my grandfather was a immigrant and English was his second language. They just trusted doctors more and there was more of a collective will to end disease.
16
@kazolar
I’m old enough to respond. Fifty years ago we were not allowed in school unless our vaccines were up to date. Every summer a letter would arrive from the school nurse detailing which shots we had to have before the first day of school. Also, fifty years ago we never even heard of autism. Something else is going on.
4
In my opinion, parents should (and do) have the right to refuse to vaccinate their kids. But, schools should (and do) have the right to refuse admission to students whose lack of vaccination poses a health risk to other students and to the population at large.
23
@Robert
Why should parents be allowed to endanger their children? Serious question.
8
And of course you would agree that the parents on non-vaxxed children should be held liable if other children catch something from thier children who get sick and spread the disease.
8
@Robert
What about the health risks to the elderly and to people with compromised immune systems? I'm one of those people. If you're not going to vaccinate your kids, please keep them away from me in the grocery store and the waiting room in my doctor's office. Vaccinate them or keep them at home. I have friends who contracted polio in other countries - maybe requiring refusnik parents to spend time with people who have survived smallpox or polio would dispel the clouds of ignorance swirling around.
7
As the baby boomer generation starts to die there are fewer people who have contracted and/or witnessed the effects of these communicable diseases. I was struck by a sign in the lead photograph of the article which refers to these diseases as a mild illness. It's such a naive statement. I had a friend in grade school who died from complications of one of these mild illnesses and I remember having them myself. Society has such a short memory that it makes truly eradicating contagious diseases almost impossible. As humans we never seem to learn from the mistakes of others, we almost always have to learn the lesson ourselves. I just wish children weren't the victims of our inability to learn this time.
38
My children’s great grandfather had a right arm paralyzed from childhood polio. Today, my daughter got her polio vaccine. I am so thankful that preventative measures for terrible diseases exist, and that isn’t kids have access to them. If people had more first hand experience with disease, death and dying this conversation wouldn’t be happening. We are victims of our own privilege here.
27
This article is great. It begins to elucidate the biases influencing an epidemic in poor critical decision making that extends beyond vaccines.
With the internet we have unlimited immediate access to information. In the hands of those with poor critical decision capacity, conspiracy theories are born.
When they find same thoughts from a neighbor, a passionate talk show, and on webpages; they easily believe misinformation.
5
It's not the vaccines that are bad, it is the adjuvants added to the shots that are totally objectionable. Metals such as aluminum and mercury; preservatives; sugar/gelatin; cell culture material (i.e. eggs); formaldehyde; antibiotics such as neomycin.
See for yourself: https://www.vaccines.gov/basics/vaccine_ingredients
21
@Vicki I absolutely agree! Things like mercury added to the vaccines are what make them so dangerous! I’m a hardcore liberal... Oddly this article and the comments push a narrative that a concern over this is a political position... it’s not. Shouldn’t we all embrace debate, especially where big profits for pharma are involved? I am amazed that it’s actually my fellow liberals who have “drunk the Koolaid” and fall right in line with the pharma position. It’s one topic that really disappoints me in my fellow liberals. Why are we freely allowing for injections containing mercury into our children? And is anyone aware that President Reagan signed a law banning lawsuits against pharma for botched vaccinations gone wrong? Right after that the number of required vaccines skyrocketed.
2
There are many many science research studies showing vaccines to be safe. Mercury is not used in vaccines. I am adamant about children getting their vaccinations. Measles caused me to lose my hearing. I have friends who still suffer from the effects of polio.
19
@Vicki
Except in rare cases of allergy, the adjuvants are not harmful or "objectionable". They are there for good reason.
14
The trouble with the enormous load of mandated vaccines is that the policy eschews any nuance to accommodate individual health realities. Most kids can endure the onslaught of the “proper” vaccination schedule without mishaps. But some children are genetically or otherwise predisposed to have bad reactions up to and including death. I tell my patients that if they have older children with bad reactions to vaccines to be very cautious about future vaccines. Never vaccinate a child who is already immunocompromised or ill. Don’t inject 3 pathogens together before their immune system is developed at about age 28 months. For those who are concerned about unvaccinated children harming them or their children please employ some logic. If you are nervous about getting measles then get the measles vaccine or a booster. How does an unvaccinated child pose a risk to a vaccinated child or adult? Engage the remedy you think appropriate for yourself. Don’t be fooled by the bogus concept of herd immunity. Preventive health is so much more than vaccination! For starters it means eating fresh vegetables daily and minimizing ingestion of packaged food. Health requires movement, fresh air, drinking mostly only clean water, good sleep and a sense of purpose.
31
This is incorrect on many levels.
112
vaccines are, by nature, preventative. Few diseases and their disastrous impact on health are mitigated by vaccination after you've been infected.
32
@Emily Kane "For starters it means eating fresh vegetables daily and minimizing ingestion of packaged food."
Did anyone eat microwaved packaged dinners in the year 1700? People ate nothing but fresh food then and for the eternity before that. And yet communicable diseases were everywhere. In the old days when everyone ate fresh, natural food, perfectly healthy people could be knock down in a heartbeat by smallpox, polio, and so forth.
545
You should know what is any vaccine before you receive it. A number of these vaccines contain metals including toxic lead which contaminate virtually all aluminum adjuvants, a widely-used ingredient of human and animal vaccines, according to a study published in the leading journal of the vaccine industry. Approximately 85 samples of injectable biological products regulated by the Center for Drugs and Biologics of the United States Food and Drug Administration were surveyed for the presence of 11 elements, namely aluminum, arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, selenium, thallium and zinc. The metal levels varied from manufacturer to manufacturer, product and lot-to-lot of the same manufacturer's products. Vaccination should be a personal choice rather than blindly believing some clown with a medical degree. Many doctors do not know their ear from their elbow about much in the medical field. It seems that meteorologists are more accurate in their forecasts than doctors are in their diagnoses.
12
This is precisely the sort of comment that shows the depths to which our society has sunk.
150
@Strongbow2009 Your post is a prime example of confirmation bias based not on real science but on whatever is on the internet.
88
@Strongbow2009
It’s a personal decision until you reach the door of your home. The moment you step over the threshold, your communicable disease becomes everyone’s problem. My dad had all the childhood diseases in the 1930’s and the NYC health authority posted a quarantine notice on the door of the family apartment, even his siblings were not permitted to stay in the home until he was medically cleared.
29
I retired from the practice of medicine two decades ago, but this story brings back a theme that we often discussed at staff meetings: the greatest threat to children's health is stupid parents.
1238
@John I imagine that attitude goes over well with your clients.
16
@John
That's a pretty great threat, then. and doubly-so, considering those parents also voted for DJ Trump.
29
@Paul It doesn't make him wrong.
84
What took hold is an anti-science and anti-reason sentiment.
270
Is there anything that the US isn’t moving backwards on?
674
@Michael Giuseffi
Increasing pollution and decreasing civil liberties are two areas that we are not moving back on.
33
@Michael Giuseffi: Culinary innovation, for example, the donut bacon double cheeseburger.
20
@Tom
Not to mention increasing opioid dependence and obesity.
9
The absolute ignorance surrounding this is beyond belief.
How stupid must one be to deny that polio cases dropped from 15,000 per year in the U.S. to virtually zero after vaccines were developed to stop this disease?
This is what happens when public schools do not make mandatory classes in chemistry and general science.
And it is not just science one learns in these disciplines, it is an understanding of how the world works and how critical thinking works.
282
@joel strayer
According to Gallup, 40% of Americans believe the Earth was created some time in the last 10,000 with all the species in place; another 33% believe it was God-directed evolution. A bare 22% believe in evolution. One doesn't find this degree of religiosity anywhere else in the developed world. Regarding anti-science sentiment in the US, it's difficult to challenge evolution as creationists do without impugning scientific method altogether. How else can one explain the extraordinary ability of these folks to disregard overwhelming evidence? It's faith-based ignorance.
25
@CJ
Read the article. The anti-vaccine movement isn’t tied to religious belief.
3
@joel strayer, Also, maybe even more important, teach elementary statistics and behavioral science in high school. Not the fanciest stuff but start with countering some of the reasoning falicies cited in this article.
1
My grandfather died of a tick fever, leaving 2 children under the age of 8, in 1926. I had a great uncle who had mumps at age 2 and was made deaf by the disease. Friends of the family lost people to the Spanish flu in 1915 and 1916. Don’t these anti-facets have any family memory?
97
@Meredith Russell
No, they don't. My aunt contracted polio in Brooklyn, NY, in 1929 at age 5. It left her with shriveled paralyzed legs. Long before the ADA, architectural access to buildings and adapted bathrooms and kitchens, and long before "special education."
My family always had to have a car with a large enough trunk to fit Aunt Sylvia's wheelchair so that we could transport her, and once a month we'd pick her up from her ground floor apartment and take her out to dinner at one of two restaurants she could get her wheelchair into. The manager would graciously seat us [her] at the back of the dining room so that other patrons wouldn't see her and children would be frightened.
No, Americans who are of childbearing age now never knew or saw anyone like my Aunt Sylvia. There's a reason why Americans don't contract polio anymore. Jonas Salk is rolling in his grave.
26
@Meredith Russell
1918--1919 for Spanish flu.
My husband never got to meet his father’s two brothers and one sister. They died of strep throat as children.
12
We got here because for decades we have been pushing individual rights through the court system to the detriment of society's rights. This is one of the natural consequences of that.
59
I'm less afraid of what I will get from a vaccination, than of what I'll get from someone who doesn't wash his/her hands. And, as I am without health insurance, even contracting a mild, uncomplicated case of flu could be financially devastating.
50
It is a shame that more people do not remember the 50s, with the great fear of polio. Parents rushed to get their kids vaccinated when the Salk vaccine came out, and later the Sabin vaccine. Within months, public schools began vaccinating all students.
We all challenge risks everyday of our lives. The Scientific evidence is that today's vaccines are all safe, and impact reactions are infinitesimal.
75
@with age comes wisdom
These entitled people have all the time in the world to read fake internet science. No real idea of what real fear of disease is like.
5
I remember
5
What an unfortunate choice of photo to accompany the article. As a pediatrician, I can tell you that there are other ways to hold a child during vaccinations. Experienced nurses and doctors would never restrain a baby this way for routine vaccines.
429
@Mik, I totally agree. That photo - in a nutshell - explains parents reluctance to vaccinate, absent a rock-solid reason to. As a family doctor who sees a great number of "vaccine-reluctant" parents, I can assure you all babies are vaccinated in a parents arms, and are comforted immediately after the shot.
35
@Mik Kudos to someone at the Times for showing the truth.
1
@KarenAnne
When my son was vaccinated as a baby he was in my lap and didn't even cry. That picture is absolutely not our experience, but of course it will become fodder for the anti-vax, conspiracy theorist, paranoid parents. It's mind-boggling and frightening how you can trust social media over reason and truth.
16
Anti-vaxxers lack critical reasoning skills, certainly when it comes to using scientific and truthful information about the world. Fine. But they cannot be allowed to hurt those who understand what science says and do the right thing. That's bad for the species.
79
@A Goldstein I believe people have the right to make their own medical decisions. I have two degrees from MIT, so I am pretty sure I have critical reasoning skills.
3
Except when it negatively affects other people. So stay away from babies, elderly and immunocompromised. Can't tell who is in that last category? Stay home.
4
It's only fair that the government mandate that those parents who don't want to vaccinate their kids keep them out of schools where they can easily infect others. That way the risk from their inaction is reduced significantly.
26
I had tetanus in 1947 before vaccination was wide spread. Luckily it was a light case but it included a trip to the Mayo clinic to be diagnosed and cured. People seem to refuse to recognize the danger of the diseases vaccinations prevent.
I get my cats protected better than some peoples kids. That is criminal. Personally if my child, say too young for vaccination, got ill, due to exposure to an un-vaccinated child I would at the very lest sue them if not report them to police, child welfare, the papers and anyone else I could think of for endangering the life of my child. Spreading disease should be a criminal offense.
91
@Riverwoman
I'm old enough to have received the original Salk polio vaccine. Thank God for Dr Jonas Salk and all other vaccine scientists around the world who rid us of the fear of diseases like poliomyelitis.
The ingratitude, the entitlement, the negativity of patients entirely lacking an appropriate sense of wonder at the medical miracles they were so casually denigrating, used to really grate. I had to avoid screaming sometimes.
21
How many deaths from measles in the recent epidemic?
How many cases of encephalitis, with resultant brain damage, in the recent epidemic?
Keep non-immunized children out of school.
Make non-vaccinating parents financially responsible for the medical costs of their non-vaccination in their own children and those whom they expose.
That way, the parents can make their own decisions, but bear the consequences of those decisions.
66
@turbot Actually, I believe that the number of deaths and/or encephalitis from the recent epidemics was zero. They don't bother reporting that widely in the paper though.
7
@S Sanford, MD
Actually, according to the CDC, out of the 1,241 confirmed cases as of September 19, 2019, “131 of the people who got measles this year were hospitalized, and 65 reported having complications, including pneumonia and encephalitis.” (https://www.cdc.gov/measles/cases-outbreaks.html)
So, no deaths here, but considerable suffering.
It’s been worse in Europe, where the WHO reports 74 measles-related deaths (out of 83, 540 cases) in 2018 and 42 such deaths (out of 25,869 cases) in 2017.
(https://www.who.int/csr/don/06-may-2019-measles-euro/en/)
8
Hate is a strong word but it belongs to those who refuse to protect their children and society. We have a friend who is refusing to vaccinate her new child and we’ll have nothing to do with her now.
52
@38-year-old guy. Bravo.
6
Eh .. we already lost our status as a democracy and our status as nation of laws, and while the anti-science crowd crowd is disturbing, it's not our most immediate concern.
4
Not one mention of all of the vaccine injured children and adults. Absolutely beyond belief. Four billion dollars already awarded. Has the reporter spoken to the parents of vaccine injured children? Children who have had seizures and fevers and never recovered their faculties and speech? There has to be a balance here and the bottom line is that vaccines are not totally safe. Babies one day old do NOT need to be vaccinated against Hep B. Let's bring some common sense to this discussion and not pretend that there are many families who have suffered and are now cautious about further vaccinating their children.
26
@Lisanne. Yes, Let's bring some common sense to this discussion: Nothing is 100% safe. However, a .0016% (16 in 1,000,000) adverse reaction rate on vaccines is pretty darn close to zero and is an insufficient reason to withhold vaccinating your children! Unfortunately, there is the rare child whose medical issues won't support vaccines, but this can be easily verified in advance by a pediatrician. Unless your child is one of the very, very few children certified to be intolerant to vaccines, you will better protect them and your community by ensuring s/he is vaccinated. No non-medically certified child should ever be allowed to attend public schools and put fellow-students in danger.
27
@Lisanne. The article states very clearly that no vaccine is 100% safe. The incidence of reactions to vaccines, however, is much less prevalent than life altering effects from childhood diseases -Diseases that we can immunize against.
15
Children who have post vaccination seizures have an underlying genetic condition that predisposes them to brain damage and seizures. The mild fever induced by vaccination merely uncovers the pre-existing condition. The number of patients injured by vaccination is minuscule compared to the millions protected by vaccination.
20
Anti-vaxxers, religious mythologists, Trump supporters, climate-change deniers, the world is approaching eco-catastrophe and much of humanity is unable/unwilling to participate in its redemption.
47
Ironically, it's likely that some of the same people who criticize climate science deniers, deny vaccine science.
16
@Steve
It involves the same muscles.
2
If the anti-vaxers have no fear of the diseases and think they don't need vaccines, I thought of another option. Immunize them by infecting them with the viruses in a controlled environment. Afterwards (if they survive), they would be immunized. Simple!
12
@NYT this issue re vaccines is, literally, life and death. In the pages of this paper I have read vague references to long-term Russian disinformation campaigns regarding the harm vaccines cause--a disinformation campaign to harm the US.
If there is something to these vague statements, can you please investigate? If this proves true, perhaps it can help squash this harmful misinformation about vaccines being harmful.
25
I can't speak about the US, but here in Australia anti vaccine groups profit from spreading their lies. They charge people to attend meetings on "The Truth on vaccinations" in which they lie. They sell books which are collections of photocopied articles opposing vaccination which are decades out of date, discredited or deliberately mendacious.
8
Too many Americans lack even a rudimentary understanding of basic science. Without this foundation, they fall prey to all kinds of pseudo-science that doesn’t require them to think or reason, only to believe. They “believe” that vaccines are dangerous, that pediatricians the world over have been involved in a decades long plot to poison children and that they alone know the truth. They rely on anecdotal evidence and outdated debunked science and cannot even understand the difference between correlation and causation. I’m not sure how you reach someone that uninformed and delusional, but you certainly can’t reason with them.
25
It just ridiculous. The most beneficial advance in medicine is rejected because it is no 100% perfect. Right, it is "ONLY" 99.9999% perfect.
Mulit-valent vaccines load is miniscule compaared to the daily exposure to thousands of bacteria and viral species that your immune system deals with.. A few, however, are extremely pathogenic and kill very quickly. And the kicker is there is NO WAY for ANYONE to know if they are susceptible to any given agent. You only find out once infected.
I had a mother tell me her teenage son "has a very strong immune system so does not need vaccines." Guess what? the people who died from the 1918 flu epidemic were primarily young, healthy people. You have no idea what your son's immune system can handle until the day he is infected. Period. No second chances for some of these agents.
Ignoring a near sure avoidance treatment is just nuts. If you don't want it fine, but your child does not have say in your poor decision-making. So, your job is not to make poor decisions.
47
I believe much of this resistance is due to “working mother syndrome “. Mothers today won’t even admit they feel guilt, but their actions show they do. The obsess over everything. They hover, they fear, they want to control and protect.
In the end, they like to show that while they may work outside the home, their children have the benefit of their superior intelligence and education. They “research” everything, yet even many of the most educated never were taught in school how to evaluate a research source. But they are superior parents due to their “research”. And away goes all that guilt.
What they don’t realize is in the days before vaccines for childhood illnesses, they could never have held a job. Their absentee rate would have been unacceptable to any employer. And no nanny of daycare center is going to care for a child with mumps, chicken pox, whooping cough, or measles. Add to this that these are not like a cold and are over in a few days. Multiply the weeks by multiple children, and some one is always sick. And they are sick - truly and miserably sick. One “suffers” during what the anti-vaxxers decscribe as “mild” diseases.
When one was a child during the polio epidemics of the past, and saw healthy classmates disappear for months, returning with their twisted bodies on crutches and with braces, or saw the rows of “iron lungs” in the halls of hospitals, it is simply something one will never forget.
55
@India
Where I live it’s a purity cult. Parents are overwhelmed by the complexity of the contemporary world and believe that it is unnatural and corrupt. They believe anything having to do with nature is beneficial (or at least benign) and so as long as they eschew anything created by people their child will remain pure, healthy, safe and happy.
11
The unvaccinated must keep their children home and away from other children in order to prevent the spread of disease.
139
It would only take one real outbreak for people to change their tune. Please see flu outbreak of 1918.
104
@Christian Oh my God! . The ignorance on this thread of responses is scary. Seriously scary. I’m a medically trained professional who is way more educated then most of you (regarding science and medicine) and I don’t vaccinate. I came to this based on true medical science and morals and values. It’s actually against my deepest religious beliefs as an orthodox Christian to inject aborted fetal cell lines and random human and animal DNA into my children. I’m sorry- but there is not 1, (yes that’s right all you pseudo scientists) NOT ONE study that has been done on the injection of human DNA with animal DNA into a human body. Not to mention the moral dilemma (if there are any humans with morals left).
For those of you who are concerned about the Diseases that killed millions in 1918-maybe you need a lesson. We didn’t Promote hand washing. There were literally NO universal precautions. Let that sink in. We also didn’t have antibiotics or any other modern medical treatments. So in 1918, with one doctor for thousands of people and minimal timely transportation and no antibiotics 😳yes...people perished. That’s not an issue in 2019 in the USA. Fear based logic is detrimental to the united states in far greater numbers then non vaccinated children.
3
@Freethinker So, part of your argument against vaccinations is that people now wash their hands? And there are more doctors?
As a 'medically trained professional' (I know people who have taken a first aid course and would classify themselves as such) you would probably know that antibiotics don't do a whole lot for viral infections.
14
@Freethinker All the antibiotics in the world will not cure your influenza infection. Influenza is caused by virus infections, antibiotics treat bacterial infections only. Like putting a cast on your leg to treat your headache.
Hand washing will decrease the risk of influenza a bit but will never stop it from spreading.
17
Channeling an inlaw on a trip last week to Odessa, Ukraine, I contrived a scene: pretending that one of my multiple personalities (a hippy dippy woman like one sibling) was about to give birth, I whined repeatedly that I needed a wiccan doula. Problematic with my sibling, she would not allow her precious only daughter to get vaccines and we think, but are not certain, that she bribed the state health authority, since she is a person of some means. Of course, the child didn't stop breast-feeding until the age of 4 1/2 either...
5
Uh, I nursed mine until 4 1/4, & fully vaccinated them. (They have no recollection of nursing by the way. 4 years old at full weaning not uncommon outside of US.)
9
@SY
I nursed mine until 3 and fully vaccinated. I easily weaned the youngest because I was in law school and he was asleep when I got home. And we continued co-sleeping for years.
2
If Ebola were in the US, what would anti-vaxxers do?
17
Ebola: 2 out of 3 people that get it die. Vaccinate.
Vaping: People are dying. Make it illegal.
Measles is not the monster it's made out to be, in my generation, everyone got it.
Measles is a pharmaceutical Trojan horse to have us believe there's a shot for everything. The industry has no credibility.
5
@Norm Vinson
Die. Quickly.
14
@JS
My father had measles, mumps, scarlet fever, which left him with severely impaired vision and heart damage. His brother recovered from polio but developed post-polio syndrome. A cousin was unable to father children.
My grandmother, a youngest child, received a name similar to that of the brother who predeceased her in an oxygen tent. He was under 5.
10
Please think about the photo you chose to accompany this article. This photo could alarm (even if it's silly to be alarmed) anti-vaxxers or those on the fence. I have three now-adult children. None of them had to be held down in such a way in order to be vaccinated. Obviously, some must, but, please choose a photo that is not likely to trigger worries (unfounded as they may be).
228
@Martha. Agreed! They might as well have gone all the way and had a crying child.
19
@Martha Thank you for the comment. I forwarded feedback from you and other readers to the editors of this piece. The photo was used to illustrate a common reaction by children to getting shots and therefore we feel comfortable with it. Thank you again for sharing your feedback and thank you for reading.
8
Honest to God, I'm wondering how it is that we keep repeating the same right-wing, ignorant All-American weirdness in each generation, specifically from when I was a child in the 1960's, when flouride in the water was a Communist plot, vaccinations were a Communist plot, the Reds are under your bed and want to take your guns away, etc. It was the John Birch Society then. Now it's Trumpsters. Talk about a virus that just keeps coming back....
87
@JTS
"Talk about a virus that just keeps coming back...."
Too bad there is no vaccine for that virus.
10
Hmmm. Are these parents going to forgo polio vaccines as well? As a physical therapist who treated a patient in an iron lung, I hope they rethink their decision.
81
The greater the compulsion, the more people will doubt the science. The more they will become convinced of a conspiracy.
Sunlight is probably the best cure. Show people the science and the statistics. How many are needed to treat to avoid the disease? how many are needed to treat to reduce the adverse consequences? What are the side effect rates?
Presumably, once people (at least some people) understand this, they will support the requirements.
7
@Justin
All the info is available. I question authority— but then I also pay attention to the answer.
2
Decades in the making....well it takes time to dumb down society. Mission accomplished it seems. The growing Flat Earth movement shows you how far we've fallen.
It also doesn't help that ones pushing the anti-vax stance aren't old enough to remember or even know people were impacted by these no preventable diseases (either ill themselves or lost loved ones). We had an older family member left disabled from polio. My parents didn't mess around with us kids in the 60's We got everything. I lost a friend in her 40s to the flu. I don't mess around either.
78
Todays Times has a headline titled "Exploring a possible link between C-sections and Autism." This is the exact same kind of headline I was reading in Natural Parenting Magazines of the late 90's, early 00's, except the Autism target was vaccination. This reading was also before my access to the internet, and it was easy to find a pediatrician who would would affirm a no vaccine decision. These magazines challenged mercury, and other additives to vaccines and recommended limited vaccinations. Since then the preservatives have changed and the anti research was shown to be from one very narrow flawed study. These magazines also offered many other very valuable parenting strategies, further complicating the pro-anti debate. Now, I wonder if their editors regret being part of the Anti-campaign, and having played such big part informing the Natural parenting community of the time. My children have since then been completely and retroactively vaccinated.
16
I have Rheumatoid Arthritis and the medications I take (a biologic and methotrexate) suppress my immune system leaving me vulnerable to communicable diseases. Yes, I’ve had measles, mumps and chicken pox and I lived at a time when polio put many of my childhood friends in iron lungs and in braces and crutches if they were fortunate to live. I remember darkened rooms and high fevers with measles, scars from scratched chicken pox (covering hands with mittens or socks didn’t always help),
wicked sore throats from mumps. Luckily, no one in my family got polio and we were able to be part of the first Salk vaccines.
I get especially annoyed when people of my generation refuse
the flu vaccine—and since I am a volunteer driver with the Office of the Aging, I will have to regretfully refuse to drive anyone who hasn’t been vaccinated against the flu. I’ve already told very close friends that I will not socialize with them if they refuse to get a flu shot.
Vaccines work. That is the bottom line. Vaccines are loss leaders for “Big Pharma”. When did we stop worrying about the Common Good and Social Responsibility?
You don’t want to vaccinate then keep away from me—self quarantine. My LIFE depends on you doing the right thing.
431
@Rachele E Levy We must be about the same age as I have the same memories!
I have a chronic pulmonary disease, so flu could be a life-ender for me. I attend a local pulmonary rehab program at a local hospital. A few years ago, I discovered that a few of the respirtory therapists working there, had refused to get a flu shot (free, and at work - no excuses!). Their "excuse"? With their "medical background" (it's a 2 yr course, no college required), they "knew" things the general public did not know.
We were all furious! One of these women was notorious for coming to work with a cold ("just don't come near me - sorry I have a cold") and would probably show up with flu as well. For us, flu often means pneumonia. And pneumonia means a hospital stay, often hooked up to a ventilator. Then there is the weaning off the ventilator, which sometimes never happens. It's catastrophic for us!
I was the rabble-rouser that went to the program director and told her that we would not come to rehab unless all the people working there had had their flu shot, and that I would personally call the local newspaper to report this.
The fear of adverse publicity and loss of revenue resulted in a requirement now for ALL working in pulmonary rehab to have received their shot, at the hospital, with documentation.
Sometimes it takes an "iron fist" to combat utter and willful ignorance.
70
@Rachele E Levy
I am in the same boat. I am about to start on a biologic for severe Psoriatic Arthritis, also an Autoimmune Disease and am aware of how careful I must be about exposing myself to unvaccinated others. It is truly scary out there!
I was born the same year Polio vaccines were available and remember kids a grade behind me who had polio....at least the ones who survived. I had Measles, Mumps, Influenza and was sicker than a dog but I lived. My kids were vaccinated on schedule and I started getting flu shots every year after a prolonged case of Pneumonia in 1990.
Like I said, its scary out there and I will not be seeing family and friends who do not vaccinate from now on.
18
@Rachele E Levy it is not true that vaccines are lost leaders. The HPV vaccine is quite profitable.
As a survivor of cervical cancer I think I was first in line to vaccinate my children, male and female, against HPV. I'm so lucky I was able to conceive and deliver them, after several surgeries, and the confidence the vaccine provides that they will never have to face potentially life-threatening cancer from this virus is worth whatever very, very small risk associated with vaccination. I feel the same about Hep B vaccine, MMR, polio, DpT, flu, and other vaccines. And should anthrax or Ebola become risks, I'll get those, too.
My small grandchildren attend school and daycare with several mainstreamed ill children who cannot be vaccinated. Fortunately, my daughter also believes in the science, and miracle, of vaccines. She vaccinates her children on the recommended schedule, and, anecdotally, they have never had a serious reaction.
75
What did you expect to happen when the "American Education" is practically reduced to bad reading, worst writing, a few "math" just to know how to count money and reading graphs as "Science" so the can do their jobs at the factory ?
Don't believe me ? Just check the latest SAT or ACT and compare them to their equivalent in Europe, or even worst, Asia.
Add to this cocktail, facebook and twitter.
I am not surprised. Actually, I am surprised we are not dropping like flies.
17
@Ernesto Do their jobs at the factory? What factory jobs? American manufacturing has been outsourced overseas. Or didn’t you notice? Other than that, I agree with you.
1
@Kevin
You are right, the "jobs" at the factory are just wishful thinking.
Don't call them anti-vaxers, call them pro diseasers. The primary reason that childhood diseases don't kill so many children these days is that by and large they don't get them. Anything that results in their return will kill lots of children. Not a good outcome. Not a smart outcome.
552
Any parent who gets his/her medical information from Jenny McCarthy or Jim Carrey is an unfit parent endangering the life of a child, and deserves that their child be taken from them by family courts and placed in foster care. Neglect of a child is a crime. The parents can believe whatever they like. They have no right to endanger their children’s health and even lives from their ignorance and stupidity.
63
I think that a huge and largely undiscussed driver of the antivax movement—and of many internet-based conspiracy theories—is the inaccessibility of scientific data. Many conspiracy theorists are avid researchers. They feel justified in their positions because of the many hours of digging they’ve done on the internet. The information they find and believe is often not peer-reviewed, and the citations they find often link to other unscientific analyses, resulting in long Works Cited pages that look authoritative but are not.
Real scholarship is hidden behind expensive paywalls, rarely accessible to anyone without a university or lab affiliation. But what if this data were actually available to the public? What if worried moms doing late night Googling could access actual science, rather than being automatically linked to Wakefield and McCarthy drivel? I believe that most conspiracists really are trying to access truthful information—I don’t think they’re just stupid or paranoid—but a lack of understanding of the scientific method, peer-review practices, and access to real data hampers even well-intentioned efforts to sift fact from fiction.
109
@Alice "Real scholarship is hidden behind expensive paywalls, rarely accessible to anyone without a university or lab affiliation." Not really. anyone can go to the CDC website and get all the information necessary for free. the real problem is the advent of right wing entertainers gaining access to the weak minded people who won't do their own critical thinking and just take the entertainers word as truth, when in fact they are lying every day.
54
@Alice The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has plenty of information and data available on its website. Pediatricians have data available to their patients, as do local public health departments. People choose not to learn, and some also choose to distrust government institutions of all kinds, physicians, scientists, in preference for unvetted information from a variety of celebrities. (I am not against celebrities taking public stands on issues, but the reader/listener still has to do some homework of their own.) It's maddening and so, so sad.
27
@Alice I think you're giving anti-vaxxers way too much credit. I think they know the science but ignore it for reasons I stated in my own post.
9
My great aunt died of measles at two. Do we need to return to this time to “make America great again”??
121
"Labeling resisters with one dismissive stereotype would be wrongheaded. To just say that these parents are ignorant or selfish is an easy trope..."
OK, so how about if I add, "gullible, self-righteous, egotistical ("I know more than they do"), needy ("I need a group to belong to"), uneducated (on this subject) and unreasonable.
330
Trump and Co.; corruption in law enforcement, climate change, willful ignorance of science will be the downfall of this country,
27
People who get their news from Facebook seem to be a part of so many problems. It amazes me that people can be such sheep.
261
Bring on the meteors.
8
For those old enough to have seen people affected with polio or TB, it is unimaginable that anyone would reject a sure way to prevent these diseases. It has been my experience as a parent, to ensure my children were vaccinated prior to enrolling in school. Do the laws now allow children to enter school without the required vaccinations? For public schools to forego this requirement puts the population at risk. Sanity please.
26
Anti-vaxers are playing with fire. I'd like to suggest, being a physician of an age sufficiently advanced as to remember headlines from the 1950s, that these folks do an internet search for "polio epidemic 1952", "influenza pandemic 1918", "iron lung", "tetanus", "diphtheria" and "smallpox" for starters.
Adequate nutrition, decent sanitation and vaccination are the three factors that are responsible for the greatest increase in human longevity on record. That's incontrovertible, and these gullible short sighted folks need to either be convinced of the truth of that or else need to lose the option to keep any medically-eligible children of theirs from being vaccinated.
175
Absolutely! Many years ago I read the book, “Patenting the Sun” about the race to find the polio vaccine. The photos of rooms of little children in iron lungs from the 1950’s haunt me to this day.
13
I don't rely on information from "actors like Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey and Alicia Silverstone, the rapper Kevin Gates and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.", nor from the Trump administration.
I prefer reliable sources of information.
22
Interesting article! The views of both sides are examined here. It will be extremely interesting to see voter turnout results in the 2020 election, both in the presidential election and state and local elections. With the rise of HB 3063 during the 2019 Legislative Session here in Oregon, came a mass rise in Republican voter registration (consisting mostly of Old Russian Believers and supporters of small government). The big question is: Will these new registered voters show up to the ballot box when it comes time to put their newly-found political identity to use?
These anti-vaccine parents are a danger to us all, if they don’t comply they need to be jailed AND their children removed from their care.
14
I wish the authors had chosen a different picture of the baby receiving an MMR vaccine. When my baby got her MMR vaccine, she was sitting in my lap while I was chatting with our wonderful pediatric nurse as the vaccine was prepared and probably 1-2 seconds after the shot was administered she was happily nursing (if you are fast enough, there isn't even any crying!) and that was that.
544
@Val. Agreed! When I saw the photo accompanying the article, I thought it was to illustrate the misery of an unfortunate unvaccinated child who had contracted a preventable disease. My children had a similar experience as yours did: sitting on my lap, unhappy for about 5 seconds. They were completely fine afterwards, and most important, did not have to suffer the childhood diseases I did as the only way, then, to develop immunity.
47
@Val. I agree the accompanying photo is ill chosen. It does not reflect the standard restraint practice where the child sits on the parent's lap.
25
It seems that in the internet age the right to free speech has effectively become the right to spread misinformation. How can someone put more stock in their Facebook feed than they do in their pediatrician or the CDC? There are rigorous requirements to publish scientific discoveries and medical findings, but anyone with an internet connection can post their version of the "facts" online. The lack of oversight on the internet has created and/or intensified a variety of issues. When will it be time for regulation, or at the very least, repercussions?
29
We need a public service announcement campaign like the anti-smoking one. If we could have PSAs to educate people about littering in the 60’s, we should definitely be able to muster the collective will to promote vaccines to save the lives of children —and the immune compromised.
11
Let us not forget Donald Trump's contribution to illness and death. He made non evidenced based, ill informed comments during the Republican Presidential primaries stating a connection between vaccinations and autism. But, as we have come to expect, his comments are rarely fact based , a product of critical thinking or show any judgment to avoid harm to people. Shame on him. Hold him accountable and the GOP that enables him to cause this kind of harm.
16
@BB So did Obama. Not the best article to turn into a political rant, especially when the article states that Trump supported vaccination.
4
Anti-vaxxers might turn their attention to pollutants and pesticides that hurt children's brains. Chlorpyrifos has been banned in California due to evidence that it harms babies' brains. Sadly, most ocean fish now contain mercury.
8
I was glad to see a comment about the Flu in this report. Since 10-100 times more children die of the Flu than of measles I think that we should be seeing more articles stressing the importance of getting the Flu vaccine.
21
A major anti-science influence not mentioned his conservative religion. Science can't be trusted, so they say, because it teaches evolution not creationism, the Big Bang rather than the Genesis narrative, the impossibility of Noah's worldwide flood.
Truth is what you believe to be. If it sounds compelling to you, it must be true.
7
I think it's time to let these people experience the financial impact of letting preventable diseases reign. Allow insurance companies to deny coverage for treatment of measles, chicken pox, influenza, hepatitis B, etc. If you're one of the small percentage of people who get sick despite being vaccinated, then you're covered. But with no vaccination the parents are responsible for the cost..Maybe that will get their attention.
31
I am interested in what changed Ms. Wagner's mind. I think we missed some of the story.
23
I have no patience for those who would put newborns and cancer patients at risk for death.
Proof of Vaccination or a CDC-approved exemption should be required to enter any school, hospital, public building, airport, restaurant, movie theater...
Otherwise charge with attempted murder. There is no valid reason for this nonsense.
17
Pediatricians, in the interest of all children’s health, need to make a strong case for vaccines. And then, to protect the rest of us, bar unvaccinated children from their practice.
There is such a thing as positive peer pressure. Let’s use it!!!
12
Regardless of the reporting, which is responsible, one of the photos will have an unfortunate effect on many readers. Looking at the baby held down while the gloved practitioner prepares to jab in the needle, any viewer would feel sorry for the baby and leery of the needle. This is the photo that comes up as the thumbnail image for the whole article on my version of the front page, to boot. In this way, you're endorsing and promoting an anti-scientific approach to vaccination, the very kind of approach the the article supposedly critiques. Far better to show the readers what it looks like when innocent babies,children, or immunocompromised adults are sickened by measles or other vaccine-preventable diseases and their complications, because too many people have, without medical reasons, opted out of our common responsibility to support "community immunity."
11
@mkenhan Understanding that what may be unpleasant for the baby in the moment is critical to his or her wellbeing in the long run is exactly why parents are parents, and in the position to take such incredibly important actions.
If we want to talk about painful, unnecessary medical procedures, why does no one question male babies being circumcised, as the majority in this country are?
3
@NYCLady
Circumcision can help prevent STD infection. It is also common in many cultures.
2
@NYCLady Parents are parents because they produced a baby. That doesn't make them any smarter about medical issues or treatment, which is why we have medical professionals to help parents make those decisions.
4
My problem with those who believe that vaccines are bad is that their misguided beliefs allowed me to contract whooping cough from unimmunized high-school students. Because no vaccine is 100% effective, it is herd immunity that minimizes the risk to vaccinated healthy adults, and especially to more vulnerable groups. Rather than re-state how dumb and socially irresponsible their actions are, let me just say that I resent them every time I cough.
27
@Jack
Not accusing you of anything, but why are you not vaccinated, or if you are, how did you contract it?
2
So, anti-vaxxers do not want medical experts to make decisions.
If that is their standard, then why bring do they bring their unvaccinated children to the pediatrician when they are sick?
If, after a bit of internet research, any individual is an expert...why not do your own surgery??!!
892
@IamCurious
The antigen load of ALL the routine vaccinations put together is less than one tenth of what it was in 1980. Heck, it's less than it was when smallpox was the only vaccine we had. The idea that we are in any way whatsoever overwhelming the immune response or capabilities of children is ignorant nonsense.
Oh, and here's a reference. Check out Table 2 for the upshot: https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/109/1/124.full
Oh, and outside of the discredited charlatan Wakefield, there is no serious evidence of a vaccine-autism link, there are multiple more likely explanations for the link (starting with recency bias) and, by the way, most adjuvants exist to raise the effectiveness of the vaccine with a smaller antigen load, so curious why you'd be so into getting rid of them.
40
@IamCurious
you repeat a false trope when you say the incidents of autism were lower. What those numbers ignore are the frequently attendant problems that autistic births had.
you also ignore that back then, a deformed child was often "let go" at birth to avoid shame on the family and other insane reasons.
could the schedule of vaccines be spread out? sure it could. The problem comes in in getting parents to go to doctors offices multiple times a year to get a shot. Not to mention the cost of the Office visit but the loss of time and income.
Now if our government did "school shot day" where the kids records were on file and Dr's and Nurses came into each 3 or 4 times a year to give those shots. That would be great...but would still not deal with the early childhood (pre-school) shot visits necessary.
17
@IamCurious The criteria for autism didn't develop until the "childhood schizophrenia" diagnosis with its separate criteria was split off.
Also, many kids who'd now be considered to have autism were diagnosed instead with the catchall term of "mental retardation."
Before autism per se became a "thing," national statistics didn't reflect its prevalence, which is likely larger than we assume.
If the number of kids with autism has indeed been rising, are the corporations massively polluting our air, soil, and water eagerly pushing anti-vax buttons to deflect attention from their role in this disorder?
21
In the land of "every individual is an expert on everything", none of these things should be a surprise anymore!
27
I have cancer, which puts me at risk for some diseases that your kid can be vaccinated against. If I am babysitting my vaccinated grandchildren at a park and get exposed to a kid who has measles, I can get a serious case. Please vaccinate your kids. Others can be hurt very badly if you don't.
673
Sadly, they really dont care about you or anyone other than themselves and their own children until it hits home.
78
@Anon It's your responsibility to stay out of the park. You don't have the right to force other people to abide by your decisions.
1
@KarenAnne no, the public belongs to everyone (or would you prefer something separate but equal?) Someone with a weakened immune system is allowed to leave their house without fear of catching an eradicated illness.
76
Of course those who question the safety of vaccines have been years in the making. Insisting on having the right to choose what's best for their kids is nothing new! Many know to ask questions like the following: Can we trust the CDC? What about major media outlets? If you know what’s motivating the information, you can filter good information from bad.
Pharmaceutical advertising makes up the bulk of most major media revenue, and if companies like Merck and Eli Lilly are paying the bills, you can be sure networks will choose their content carefully. Even elected officials are subject to this influence. Elijah Cummings, has been battling the pharmaceutical industry the entire time he’s been in public service. But after committing to an investigation into the claims of whistleblower and former senior scientist at the CDC Dr. William Thompson, he suddenly backpedaled, afraid that his involvement could cost him his career.
Mandatory inoculation would result in a guaranteed customer base of millions each year for manufacturers. When you hear the call for mandatory vaccinations, ask “Is the pharmaceutical industry influencing these people in any way?” Leaders in our regulatory bodies often have a background in Big Pharma. Your family’s safety and your freedom to choose what goes into your body are too important to let mega corporations write the narrative.
6
@free range Vaccinations a major money-maker for big pharma? I don't think so. They could make much MORE money by selling meds to large numbers of unvaccinated kids who are sick or develop chronic problems from preventable diseases.
55
@free range
Illogical. Your entire comment is supposition and conjecture...the stuff of which conspiracy theories are made. You have not cited a single legit study or expert.
You have the right commit suicide. You do not have the right to kill your children. If you feel that diminishes your freedom, deal with it.
32
@free range I’m guessing you’re too young to have had relatives or friends who contracted polio in an outbreak. I have known people who were crippled by it before a vaccine became available. Myself, I’ll trust science any day of the week over the yammering of someone with no scientific background who can string words together convincingly while being completely wrong on the facts. I consider myself lucky to live in a country where I can actually protect my health and that of those I care about by getting vaccines. This year alone I was fortunate to get a tetanus booster, the Shingrix vaccine (which is in short supply because so many folks want it), and next up will be a flu shot. You are reneging on your portion of the social contract that binds all of us by not considering others around you who CAN’T get vaccines.
22
You can raise your concerns and ask for clarification but in the end a consensus based on valid and reliable research rules the day when it comes to public policy.
Those that insist otherwise are left with the self-serving argument - "I" know better and "I" am in charge.
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Is hard to blame people for distrusting vaccines when 80% of all ingredients in medications sold in the USA are made in China or India, where there are no safety and quality controls. The FDA is not allowed to conduct safety controls over these imported ingredients. Two weeks ago, it was announced that Zantac (ranitidine) and all of its generic versions are contaminated with a carcinogen. Although in low levels, this is of no consolation to people who have been taking these drugs for years to treat acid reflux. The carcinogen has been accumulating in the liver for an unknown period of time. When it comes to safety and protection, It is hard to trust biopharma, the FDA and all government representatives
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@Thinker26
Is there a single case of a tainted vaccine from China harming an American?
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@Thinker26 Did you buy salmonella-tinted lettuce? Want to take any Zantac? No? Well, then apparently you DO trust the FDA. It is thanks to the vigilance of the FDA that there were no thalidomide babies (do your research) born in the USA.
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You’re sorely mistaken that there are no rules for the manufacturers that make drugs in China, India, or any other countries for that matter. I work for one of them! We’re constantly inspected by the Chinese authorities, audited by our Western clients, and run a clean shop. GMP outfits everywhere are audited and inspected by the FDA every two years, and by the pharmas that contract them. Even under uncle Trump, the FDA is actually carrying out its mandate of making sure that drugs and vaccines are safe and effective. It is the reason why the previously overlooked carcinogen found in Zantac was even found in the first place! That’s one of the things the FDA does, even if it was found by the company that made the batches and not the FDA itself.
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We're getting dumber by the day. Vaccinations cause adults not autism.
Las time I checked Bobby Kennedy JR., and Jenny McCarthy aren't Drs. or scientists.
I'm 59 and I'm concerned our IQ is really regressing.
I'm thankful I don't have children because I don't see the future being to bright as critical thinking becomes a thing of the past. I'm not one to believe what I'm told but there is one thing I know is true. Science doesn't lie. There are people who try to manipulate it and that's where critical thinking and research come in. Do your research from reliable sources don't chase likes and don't let others pressure you. Make educated choices.
Good Luck to all I hope we don't have an epidemic soon
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"In their view, parents who permitted vaccination were gullible toadies of status quo medicine."
Except that it was "status quo medicine" that so effectively reduced threats from diseases like mumps and measles that they were able to indulge in this anti-science quackery. But those diseases are still out there and they don't care about your personal beliefs.
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If she really cares about the topic, the author will also interview Dr. Paul Thomas of Portland, Oregon. Ask him about the outsider-generated statistics for his pediatric population comprised of no vaccines, some vaccines and the full vaccine schedule. Author of the Vaccine Friendly Plan. A compromise is possible.
I look forward to a more optimistic re-appraisal!
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@a href=
Is his study peer-reviewed? Is his data a statistically-valid sample? What have other researcher found when examining his study?
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@a href=
No- there's a reason that Doc lost Medicaid funding.
See NYT op-ed on 22nd by pediatric infectious disease physician Dr. Jennifer Lighter.
Delayed and "personal" vaccine schedules are the bigger contributor to outbreaks; not the small number of absolutists.
If vaccines are "okay" to get on a personal schedule, how is it they somehow aren't on the proven/ effective schedule?
The idea that delayed schedule is a "compromise" is a logical fallacy; it might assuage a specific adult's anxiety but varying from the proven schedule creates disease risk- period-- and is less protective (of both child & society)
Vaccines have been continual perfected, lowering the threshold amount of material needed to develop an immune response & combining regiments for efficacy.
The miniscule amount of material introduced is epically dwarfed by the continual flood inundating our bodies at every moment. It'd be like becoming fixated on a single molecule of water in huge flowing river.
Anxiety is understandable; it doesn't deserve denigration for existing-- however, that sympathy cannot extend to being an enabler of those feelings by going along with accepting a personal schedule as scientific & safe. Catering to an anxiety by twisting facts towards it is *never* the right response to such feelings.
And while this conversation about schedules focuses on those hovering around choosing; the very real & pressing problem of delayed schedule based on access and poverty is obscured.
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I read the book. It boils down to a delayed schedule (and makes the tired argument about cervical cancers being highly treatable to scare readers about the HPV vaccine) which is not only not supported by evidence but has been debunked. Oh, and make sure the kids get plenty of sleep, vegetables, and exercise, because that’s what really prevents the diseases. I haven’t rolled my eyes so hard since I left Facebook three years ago.
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A few years' worth of children killed or permanently injured by completely preventable diseases will clear this anti-vaxxer infection right up.
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@Richard Schumacher, unfortunately, it might not.
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@Richard Schumacher Followed by lawsuits against the government for not forcing those protections on them.
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We have a national problem. Despite the most information-rich environment that the world has ever known; and despite alleged near-universal education and literacy in the United States, we have a substantial population of people with very poor critical intelligence skills--possibly as many as a third of the nation. It is not so much that they are just stupid; mostly, it is that they are intellectually lazy and ill-informed, with no curiosity for research. They do not appear to read very much, possibly because the infinite, virtually free reading choices available to us are so over-whelming and because it is too easy just to watch television instead.
Hence, the growth of the anti-vaccine movement, among other conspiracy cults. There are a lot of easily-found studies out there, from reputable sources, indicating that the anti-vaccine position is nonsense, a conspiracy theory without historical or current empirical validation. Our own empirical observations and personal experience probably confirm those findings. And yet the myth persists, possibly because being part of the movement gives some people a sense of personal significance and validation. But, in this case, that is at the price of a public health problem.
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@Hugh, this describes Donald Trump quite well: "It is not so much that they are just stupid; mostly, it is that they are intellectually lazy and ill-informed, with no curiosity for research. They do not appear to read very much, possibly because the infinite, virtually free reading choices available to us are so over-whelming and because it is too easy just to watch television instead."
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@Hugh
The American educational system is not only responsible for our know-nothing president, but for the growth of this anti-vaccination movement. This is due to our first line educators who are not properly trained, and the politicians who (not all) are woefully ignorant. It is a situation which almost surely will end with a complete collapse of America.
5
The problem is that we, as a society, are losing our collective memory about how tragically bad measles, mumps, rubella, polio, tetanus, pertussis, meningitis and influenza (incomplete list) truly were.
The other problem is that we, as a society, find the need to place blame at some doorstep.
It doesn’t help when our “leaders” intentionally sow the seeds of doubt in order to cynically gain expeditious favor with a block of voters.
“Science doesn’t care about your opinion”
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As my grandfather said, and I've heard it again and again, we didn't have vaccines when I was growing up, children just died.
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@Stephen Indeed, vaccines, municipal water systems and public sanitation were the main reasons why life expectancy (at birth) increased from 46 years in men and 48 years in women in 1900 to over 76 years for men and 81 years for women. In the 19th century half of children died before age 5.
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@Stephen,
My grandmother (born almost 100 years ago) was told by her mother not to get attached to her children until they turned five. My great-grandmother had 13 children and was *lucky* enough to see only five of them die before adulthood.
My grandmother was the oldest of the 13 and watched five siblings die. She was adamant about vaccinating her children as vaccines became available and she could afford them. Yes, she vaccinated before they were free.
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My daughter had whooping cough as an infant. Wanna chat?
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@eyeski
I have been the pediatrician taking care of infants with whooping cough, cases that progressed to pneumonia, seizures and brain hemorrhages. I have such respect for that germ. I hope your daughter is healthy and happy today. 🙏🏼
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@eyeski
Years ago I lived in Idaho and one of my quirks was to visit ghost towns in some of the old mining areas. I'd walk around taking pictures and imagining what life may have been like back in the day.
I always visited the cemetery and paid attention to grave markers. The dates give an indication of when the town had a population and it wasn't unusual to find multiple graves of children who had died within a month or two of each other.
Yellow Fever, Scarlet Fever, Whooping Cough... Any number of diseases could have been responsible. You'll see this in almost any 19th century cemetery but not so much in more modern resting places.
Let's keep it that way.
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My daughter too had whooping cough at about age 10. It lasted for months. She would cough so hard she would throw up. Not pretty. Her children are vaccinated.
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“To just say that these parents are ignorant or selfish is an easy trope,” said Jennifer Reich, a sociologist at the University of Colorado Denver, who studies vaccine-resistant families.
Then, please, offer me a third choice that makes some sense. Because, so far, it comes down to those two.
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Gullible, too, not that that's any less egregious than the ones already listed.
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@BKLYNJ
I have had some discussions with anti-vaccine parents in an attempt to really understand what is going on here - and originally I was thinking that it was mostly just a lack of understanding of science/immunology but what I think it comes down to is an incorrect risk vs. benefit analysis. In their minds (as far as I understand), the risks of their child having a reaction to a vaccine outweigh the risks of getting the actual disease/infection. Even if someone believes they are using "data" to do a risk/benefit analysis, they usually are using the VAERS system but anyone can self-report a "vaccine injury" so who knows if that is at all accurate (probably isn't). And then many people are very bad at understanding relative risk and spend time worrying about these vaccine side effects that come up in 1 in tens of millions - instead of worrying about the much larger risk of driving their children around in cars. Not to mention that this viewpoint also requires a complete lack of concern for others (those in society that can't be vaccinated, babies, etc.)
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@Val I had a vaccine side effect. I guess I'm one of those 30 persons in the US, lol.
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There's only one thing for it: tighten up vaccination requirements.
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@Will
NO, more parents need to educate themselves about the complexities of the human immune system and how it really works, not the ignorant tyranny of the vaccine dictocrats like Paul Offit.
Jenner's superficial method was vastly different from the hypodermic-needle deep penetration bypassing the epidermis and dermis. Learn human anatomy, physiology, and epidemiology. Multi-valent vaxes are not "settled science" they're merely the "latest science"
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@Will
Exactly correct. This is one area where people should not be entitled to their own beliefs.
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@Sane Human "Multi-valent vaxes are not "settled science" they're merely the "latest science"" You neglect to mention it is also very well established from hundreds of studies as the best available and proven to work and as close to "settled" as we will ever get. Unlike the unknowns of possibly getting infected. A rational person would take the near 100% avoidance when vaccinated every time. Your position is completely illogical in the extreme.
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This plague of "subjective truth" causes both anti-vaxxers and Trumpists. I hope the patient (the Republic) will survive.
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