They dreamed about hospitals! Weird, fantastical future buildings full of clean white sheets and doctors with needles full of magic liquid that made the pain not happen ever.
- Patton Oswalt
Over the past few days, I’ve come into conflict with members of my own family over the anti-vaccine movement. While I respect their right to their views, I believe they’re wrong. Dangerously wrong. They’re not going to like what I have to say, but this is my sandbox and so we get to play by my rules. This isn’t intended as a personal criticism in any sense; it’s my two cents on this increasingly important issue.
I’m frankly gobsmacked by the number of intelligent, educated people who are absolutely, unwaveringly, and unalterably opposed to vaccinating children. Despite there being no- zero, zip, none, nada- scientifically demonstrable connection between vaccines and autism, anti-vaxxers refuse to accept the science. They KNOW they’re not being told the truth, and they cling to that conviction as if their life depended on it. Theirs may not, but the life of a child they don’t even know might. No matter what evidence is presented to them, they’re ready with a defense, usually with an article or a study written by someone who thinks as they do. They can’t use impartial, scientifically-based arguments…because they’re aren’t any. They interpret information that comes to them from sources that fit their preconceived notions as incontrovertibly backing them. The result is that we may well be facing a (preventable) public health crisis. Children may die due to ignorance and denial.
When I was in school, if you refused to vaccinate your child, they weren’t allowed to go to school. Period. This is the single biggest reason that measles was declared virtually eradicated in 2000. Now, because of the anti-vaccine movement, the fight against deadly (and preventable) childhood diseases has taken a huge step backwards. Say hello to the triumph of ignorance, fear, and science denial.
Here’s the reality: We’re all in this together, so your refusal to vaccinate your children has greater ramifications than just your narrow self-interest and magical thinking. The truth is that vaccination ISN’T a personal decision; it’s a social obligation. Your refusal to meet your obligation to preserving the public health is irresponsible, and arguably borderline criminal.
I suppose this is what happens when a country collectively believes demonstrably false things and cherry-picks the science that fits their prejudices.
HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. — Their children have been sent home from school. Their families are barred from birthday parties and neighborhood play dates. Online, people call them negligent and criminal. And as officials in 14 states grapple to contain a spreading measles outbreak that began near here at Disneyland, the parents at the heart of America’s anti-vaccine movement are being blamed for incubating an otherwise preventable public-health crisis.
Measles anxiety rippled thousands of miles beyond its center on Friday as officials scrambled to try to contain a wider spread of the highly contagious disease — which America declared vanquished 15 years ago, before a statistically significant number of parents started refusing to vaccinate their children.
The sad thing about this scenario is that it’s completely preventable. There’s a reason my generation saw the virtual eradication of measles and other childhood diseases. It’s because we were vaccinated. You couldn’t go to school if you weren’t vaccinated, because school administrators understood the havoc communicable childhood diseases could wreak if children weren’t protected…and protection was easy, readily available, and relatively painless.
We can and should hold Jenny McCarthy accountable for the hysteria that’s led many parent to refuse to vaccinate their children, thus exposing society as a whole to greater health risks. Far too many educated, intelligent, otherwise lucid parents have declined to vaccinate their children- fearing, among other things, the long-since discredited risk that vaccines could cause autism.
As the insane anti-vaccination movement gets more media coverage, and the CDC starts addressing it, it will become a right wing cause.
— Charles Johnson (@Green_Footballs) February 1, 2015
With what’s happening now, many anti-vaxxers are becoming extremely defensive. It’s difficult to admit that something you’ve clung to so tightly is wrong. Like any zealot, anti-vaxxers are so thoroughly wedded to their false belief that they refuse to consider the (scientifically demonstrated) truth. They’re quick with articles and studies that in their mind call the safety and efficacy of vaccines into question, but they’re more often than not cherry-picked from sources that feed into the anti-vaccine fantasy.
I watched a Daily Show interview a few months back in which a woman with an advanced degree declared that she knows what the science says about vaccines…she just refuses to believe it.
I watched that with my jaw agape- a very highly educated woman refusing to believe what has been scientifically proven because it doesn’t mesh with her prejudice and magical thinking. The tragedy is that there are many more like her. Then you have parents with high school educations deciding that they’re more qualified than the scientific community to determine what is safe and what isn’t (The “I, and I alone get to decide what’s best for my child” argument). It’s insane, really; parents knowingly taking the risk that their child might contract an eminently preventable (and often deadly) childhood disease because they believe vaccinations are unsafe. I’ve heard parents talking about how measles isn’t really all that bad; it’s all about “managing” the disease. WTF?? How do you manage a disease that your child could die from?
[I]n California, anti-vaccine parents whose children have endured bouts of whooping cough and chickenpox largely defended their choice to raise their children on natural foods, essential oils and no vaccinations.
“There is absolutely no reason to get the shot,” said Crystal McDonald, whose 16-year-old daughter was one of 66 students sent home from Palm Desert High School for the next two weeks because they did not have full measles immunizations.
After researching the issue and reading information from a national anti-vaccine group, Ms. McDonald said she and her husband, a chiropractor, decided to raise their four children without vaccines. She said they ate well and had never been to the doctor, and she insisted that her daughter was healthier than many classmates. But when the school sent her home with a letter, Ms. McDonald’s daughter was so concerned about missing two weeks of Advanced Placement classes that she suggested simply getting a measles inoculation.
“I said, ‘No, absolutely not,’ ” Ms. McDonald said. “I said, ‘I’d rather you miss an entire semester than you get the shot.’ “
If it was about irresponsible parents risking the health and safety of their own children, that would be one thing…but it’s not. Their irresponsibility and selfishness place the public health at greater risk. Outbreaks like what happened at Disneyland will only become more frequent as society’s herd immunity decreases- this from a disease that was declared virtually eradicated in 2000.
Thankfully, increasing numbers of doctors are refusing to see children who aren’t vaccinated. It’s going to take health care professionals drawing a line in the sand refusing to accept non-vaccination as the norm, and it’s going to take schools cracking down on allowable vaccine exemptions. Time was when a child couldn’t go to school if they weren’t vaccinated- period. We’re going to have to return to that expectation if we want to eradicate measles and other childhood diseases.
Because it’s not like anti-vaccine parents are going to do the right thing on their own.
