Why States Should Get Tough with Vaccinations

Science Chic wrote: www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fear-and-consequences
Fear and Its Consequences: Why States Should Get Tough with Vaccinations
With preventable diseases on the rise, the states should get strict on vaccines
By The Editors | February 10, 2011

California is now in the middle of the worst outbreak of pertussis in half a century. The risk of unprotected exposure to vaccine-preventable diseases is far higher: for example, more than 90 percent of unvaccinated people exposed to measles will become infected.

Vaccine anxiety has been around for as long as there have been vaccines, but the fear of autism originated with a paper published in the Lancet journal in 1998. On the basis of a study of 12 children, author and British medical doctor Andrew Wakefield claimed to have found a link between the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and an autismlike disorder. In February 2010 the Lancet retracted Wakefield’s infamous paper. That leaves no scientific evidence to support the assertion that vaccines cause autism or other chronic diseases.

The success of any given vaccine depends on so-called herd immunity, in which a high rate of immunization in a population helps to protect those individuals who are not immune. Herd immunity requires high immunization rates—around 95 percent for highly contagious infections like pertussis and measles. When immunization rates drop below the critical level, disease can strike not only unvaccinated individuals but also vaccinated ones, because all vaccines fail to confer immunity in a certain percentage of people. Parents who opt out are endangering not only their own kids but everybody else’s, too—including those who cannot be vaccinated because they are too young or immunocompromised, as well as youngsters who have received their shots.

Each state has its own immunization requirements for schoolchildren. Yet in 48 states parents may exempt their kids on the basis of religious or philosophical beliefs (only Mississippi and West Virginia disallow exemptions). The right to decide what is best for oneself and one’s children ends where science has so clearly documented a threat to public welfare. It’s time for the other 48 states to eliminate these exemptions and adopt strict enforcement policies to ensure that kids get their jabs. In the interim, doctors need to be patient but firm with fearful parents, explain why vaccines are essential and help restore the public’s faith in science.