Who are the Anti-Vaccine People?

A recent article in the Chicago-Sun Times with the title, “Why do rich people hate vaccines?” brought the anti-vaccination movement back to the forefront of media discussion. The author noted that anti-vaccination was picking up steam in many of the country’s wealthier, educated enclaves where parents are interested in living “natural” lifestyles.

For instance, a public elementary school in Malibu reported that only 58 percent of their students are immunized, which is well below the recommended 90 percent. Even worse, at some of Los Angeles’ private schools, only 20 percent of kids are vaccinated.

“Yes, that’s right,” Nina Shapiro, a professor at UCLA medical school and mother of two states. “Parents are willingly paying up to $25,000 a year to schools at which fewer than 1 in 5 kindergartners has been immunized against the pathogens causing such life-threatening illnesses as measles, polio, meningitis and pertussis (whooping cough).”

The situation is not unique to California. In Boulder, Colorado close to 30 percent of children are exempted from at least one vaccine. Ashland, Oregon has some schools where two-thirds of students have exemptions. Michigan, Vermont, Idaho and Oregon all now have more than 5 percent of people choosing not to get vaccines. Illinois is close with 4.8 percent. The national median is 1.8 percent.

Paul Offit is a pediatrician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and notes that a high education level can enhance anti-vax beliefs. “They’re people who believe that they can know anything and know as much as their doctor – if not more – by simply studying it, reading about it,” he said.

This is a well-known problem in Australia. “These are parents who have good information available and yet they are not vaccinating their children,” states Steve Hambleton, president of the Austalian Medical Association. “People have forgotten about the devastating effects of diseases like mumps and measles. That’s probably one reason they are willing to take chances.”

Vaccine Watch encourages people to look for more sources of information about vaccines than information available on the Internet. Doctors and pediatricians have years of education and first-hand knowledge of the dangers of disease and safety and benefits of vaccines. Parents should consult their pediatrician when making vaccine choices for their children.

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.