The Ethics of Not Vaccinating

The anti-vaccine movement has been in the news a lot lately. Well-known anti-vaccination advocate Jenny McCarthy started on television’s The View this week, measles outbreaks struck Texas and Wales and children are headed back to school; prompting parents to question vaccine schedules.

During a Season 10 episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, the hypothetical scenario was a mother who decided not to vaccinate her child for measles based on rumors that the vaccine causes autism. The child contracts measles at age four and passes it on to a one-year old child at the daycare center who is too young for the vaccine. The baby dies in the episode with the title “Selfish.”

A paper in the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics explores whether people can be held legally accountable for damage they cause by not vaccinating their children. Bioethicist Arthur L. Caplan is a co-author on the paper and states: “One can make a legitimate, state-sanctioned choice not to vaccinate, but that does not protect the person making the choice against the consequences of that choice for others.” The paper argues that a parent who decides not to vaccinate and endangers another child is clearly at fault and could be charged with criminally negligent homicide or sued for damages.

“Parents who choose not to vaccinate their kids for reasons of personal belief pose a serious danger to the public,” stated Jed Lipinski of the Albuquerque Journal. “Take the San Diego measles outbreak of 2008. After unknowingly contracting the disease on a trip to Switzerland, an unvaccinated 7-year old boy infected 11 other unvaccinated kids, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).”

“The majority of the cases occurred in kids whose parents had requested personal belief exemptions through the state of California,” Lipinski continues. “But three of the infected were either too young or medically unable to be vaccinated. And overall, 48 children too young to be vaccinated were quarantined, at an average cost to the family of $775 per child. The CDC noted that all 11 cases were ‘linked epidemiologically’ to the 7-year old boy and the outbreak response cost the public sector $10,376 per case.”

Caplan, Lipinski and others all agree that the government’s interest in protecting children from getting measles should trump parents’ interest in making medical decisions for their kids. Lipinski believes extra measures need to be taken to ensure non-vaccinators understand the risk they pose to other people’s children.

Vaccine Watch urges parents to seek answers to vaccine questions from their child’s pediatrician. As Caplan and Lipinski point out – choosing not to vaccinate your child can have much greater consequences than most parents realize.

Voices for Vaccines

A group of parents has created an organization that advocates for vaccinating children. Voices for Vaccines provide information through a community of parents who are supportive of vaccination and discuss the benefits of on-time vaccination. Although the organization is parent driven, scientists, healthcare professionals and public health officials also support it.

One of the most compelling pages on the Voices for Vaccines website is the “Parents Who Vax” section, where parents explain why they chose to vaccinate their infants. Dr. Torre McGowan, MD is a practicing emergency physician in California and the mother of two little boys. She wrote an essay on the consequences of not vaccinating.  She states:

“I fully support parents’ rights to choose not to vaccinate, but there are consequences to that decision. I have had many conversations with parents in the middle of the night when their child has a fever and had to explain to them that because of their decision to not vaccinate, research indicates that their child is at a significantly increased risk for life-threatening diseases, and so will need invasive testing in the ER. It will take hours, and it will hurt their child. I tell them that the diseases we vaccinate against aren’t just nuisances; they kill and maim children every day, and they are almost completely preventable by vaccination.

I tell parents that I have worked in several developing countries, and I have seen children disfigured by diseases that we only read about in history books. I’ve seen babies die of diseases that in the U.S. we don’t even think about as a cause of illness because vaccination has nearly eliminated the illness. However, these illnesses are starting to make a comeback because of the anti-vaccine movement.

I also tell them that as a parent of two boys, I carefully research every vaccine and medicine that my children are given. I read the medical journals on the topic; examine the evidence for myself about all of the controversies about thimerosal and autism and invasive disease. Then I tell them that after many hours of studying the best research available, I am first in line to have my children vaccinated every time they are due.”

The parents at Voices for Vaccines aren’t alone. Nurses Who Vaccinate is a blog that advocates the safety and reliability of vaccines. Families Fighting Flu is a website that advocates for the flu shot to protect children from the flu.  Pfizer Australia created the smart phone app VaxiMate to help parents keep children’s immunization records organized and on time. The app is free and also includes the Australian immunization schedule and details on the diseases the child is being vaccinated against.

While there are numerous resources available on the Internet in favor and against vaccines, one of the best resources parents have is their child’s pediatrician. Vaccine Watch encourages parents to study all of the information, ask questions and make an informed decision for their child’s health and wellbeing.

Jenny McCarthy and The View

ABC News made headlines this week when they announced that anti-vaccine advocate Jenny McCarthy is joining the popular daytime show the View as a host in September. McCarthy has been linked to the anti-vaccine movement for over ten years, claiming a vaccine caused her son’s autism. 

McCarthy has been so outspoken on the topic that a website tracking the number of illnesses and deaths caused by the anti-vaccine movement has the domain name www.jennymccarthybodycount.com. With 1,170 preventable deaths between June 3, 2007 and June 22, 2013 and over 118,000 preventable illnesses, vaccine advocates are concerned about McCarthy’s new platform to spread her views.

The View caters to mothers and the credibility of host Barbara Walters and others influences the decisions many people make.  Over twenty studies have proven that there is no link between vaccines and autism. On the contrary, vaccines are the most effective instruments of public health. However, talented speakers like McCarthy can spread their scientific illiteracy through media quickly; McCarthy already has a book and will now regularly have television as another venue.

Michael Specter of The New Yorker states, “It is understandable that people would suspect vaccines are a cause of autism; parents often first notice developmental problems when their children are about eighteen months old, the same time they often receive several vaccinations. Causation and correlation are often confused, however as many studies have demonstrated. (Assuming that events that happen at the same time are connected can lead to serious misconceptions: over the last decade, for example the rise in the sales of organic food in the United States has mirrored the growth in autism rates almost exactly. No sane person would suggest that those facts are related.)”

“By preaching her (McCarthy’s) message of scientific illiteracy from one end of this country to the other, she has helped make it possible for people to turn away from rational thought. And that is deadly,” Specter concludes.

The anti-vaccine movement has been blamed for recent outbreaks of measles and whooping cough. Communities across the world are working to increase education and vaccination rates. Wendy Sue Swanson is a pediatrician in Seattle and believes it will take decades to recover from the anti-vaccine movement. “In the medical community, we’ll work to undo myths around vaccine safety for the rest of our lives, in part because of Ms. McCarthy,” she states.

Vaccine Watch encourages parents to make their decisions about vaccines with the help of pediatricians and sound science, not Hollywood.

New Study: Autism and Vaccines Not Linked

Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a new study in March that proves there is no connection between the number of vaccines a child received and his or her risk of autism spectrum disorder. The study also showed that even though more vaccines are administered, today’s vaccines contain fewer substances that provoke an immune response.

Frank DeStefano is the director of the Immunization Safety Office of the CDC and led the study. The CDC researchers compared the vaccine histories of 250 children who had autism spectrum disorder with those of 750 typical kids, looking at antigens. Antigens are substances in vaccines (also naturally found in bacteria or viruses) that cause the body to produce antibodies, proteins that help fight off infections.

DeStefano noted that the antigens from vaccines received during the first two years of life weren’t related to the development of autism spectrum disorder. It was also proved that there are fewer antigens in today’s vaccines. In the late-1990s there were several thousand antigens in vaccines, but today’s vaccine schedule only contains 315, because vaccines have become much more precise.

“The sad part is, by focusing on whether vaccines cause autism spectrum disorders, they’re missing the opportunity to look at what the real causes [of autism] are. It’s not vaccines,” states Ellen Wright Clayton, a pediatrics professor at Vanderbilt University who works with the Institute of Medicine.

Geraldine Dawson, the top scientist for Autism Speaks, an advocacy and research group, noted that the study results should clear the way for research on other potential causes of autism. Other causes of autism may include: nutrition (which can affect a baby’s brain development in the womb), medications and infections during pregnancy, or an infant’s exposure to pesticides or pollution.

Dawson concludes: “As we hone in on what is causing autism, I think we are going to have fewer and fewer questions about some of these things that don’t appear to be causing autism.”

Vaccine Watch encourages parents to carefully review the CDC study and consult with their child’s pediatrician to make informed choices.

Review of Vaccines and Autism

In February, the Liberty Beacon posted about a scientific review on the theoretical causes of abortion. Citing the 2011 article in the Journal of Immunotoxicology entitled “Theoretical aspects of autism: Causes—A review” written by Helen Ratajczak, the post claims that vaccines and autism are related.

Ratajczak is a retired senior scientist from a pharmaceutical firm who reviewed the body of published science since autism was first described in 1943. She states that autism is the result of genetic defects and/or inflammation of the brain, and discusses vaccine-related culprits. One culprit, she claims, is that the immune system is tricked into associating harmful viruses with human DNA.

“Because it’s human DNA and recipients are humans, there’s homologous recombinaltion tiniker. That DNA is incorporated into the host DNA. Now it’s changed, altered self and body kills it. Where is this most expressed? The neurons of the brain. Now you have body killing the brain cells and it’s an ongoing inflammation. It doesn’t stop, it continues through the life of that individual,” Ratajczak states.

The article in the Journal of Immunotoxicology continues that 92% of children have been given vaccines made using aborted fetal cell lines. According to Liberty Beacon, the polio, measles, mumps and rubella, chickenpox, hepatitis A and rabies vaccines all contain aborted fetal tissue.

Dr. Jay L. Wile counters this argument: “…it is impossible for vaccines (or any other injected medicine) to contain human tissue. The reason is simple: if you are injected with anything containing tissue from another person, your body will immediately recognize it as an invader and begin attacking it. The immune response is often quite radical and can easily lead to death! That is why blood from a donor to a recipient must be carefully matched before the recipient can receive it. Thus, there is no human tissue of any kind in vaccines.”

Dr. Wile continues to point out that the vaccines listed above are grown in human cells and the anti-vaccine movement has latched onto that and created a lie. The cells used to grow the vaccines have been used for 35 years, as they are continually reproducing and creating more cells.

“This (the article in the Journal of Immunotoxicology) is a review of theories. Science is based on facts. To draw conclusions on effects of an exposure on people, you need data on people. The data on people do not support that there is a relationship. As such, any speculation about an explanation for a (non-existing) relationship is irrelevant,” states Dr. Brian Strom of the University of Pennsylvania.