I love Oregon, but one of the things I find truly disturbing about living here is that the Beaver State has the highest rate of unvaccinated children in the country. Yes, despite the fact that we’ve been vaccinating children against communicable diseases for a century, and despite the fact that (until recently) some of these diseases had been considered virtually eradicate, some parents aren’t convinced. They’re worry about the dangers of vaccines (yet they’re oddly sanguine about the risks of the diseases vaccines are designed to help prevet). They worry about thimerosal, a preserving containing mercury no longer even used in vaccines. They worry about “informed consent” and “freedom of speech.” In short, they worry about many things that should have no impact on the protection of their children’s health.
There’s currently a bill working its way through the Oregon Legislature that would roll back the parental right to decline vaccinating a child due to personal belief exemptions (PBE). The idea is that since vaccines work on the concept of “herd immunity,” reducing the numbers of vaccinated children can be deleterious to public health. Under that theory, the more children that are vaccinated, the safer the general public will be from communicable diseases. Some parents are incensed that government would think they have the right to take the decision to vaccinate (or not) out of their hands. There’s much talk about “informed consent” and “personal freedom” and “free speech”…but not so much about society’s right to protect itself from preventable diseases. I’m not a parent, so I can’t speak to a parent’s basic desire to to do the right thing by their children, but I can speak to an individual’s responsibility to the collective…and this is where parents claiming PBEs have gotten WAY out of control.
Anti-vaxxers are very quick to claim their “rights”- the right to determine what’s best for the children chief among them. The problem is that far too many parents in Oregon are making stupid decisions for stupid reasons and in so doing putting the public health at risk. As arrogant as that may sound, it’s true. We’ve been vaccinating children for the past century, successfully enough that until recently many communicable childhood diseases had been considered virtually eradicated. Now, because of former a Playboy centerfold and a discredited study employing manipulated data, many parents are deciding that they know more than doctors and are declining to get their children vaccinated.
This is the point where society needs to step in and make it painfully clear that there’s no right to willful ignorance that can be claimed by a parent. As harsh as that may sound, there’s no sense in sugar-coating the denial of a century of medical science and experience.
Even Mississippi does a better job of requiring vaccinations. Here in Oregon, legislators listened to a parade of anti-vaxxers demanding their “right” to decide whether or not to vaccinate their child…and they caved. In so doing, they’ve done public health a grave disservice, and we’re seeing the results of that willful ignorance being manifested in increased incidences of communicable- and eminently preventable- diseases.
The anti-vaxxers are very good at screaming loud and long about their “rights”…but they conveniently neglect that with rights come responsibilities. In this case, society has the right to protect itself from communicable diseases. That right makes each member of society responsible for doing their part. In this case, parents should be required to vaccinate their children before they’re allowed in public schools. There’s no right to expose children to communicable diseases because you believe your “right” to decide is more important. Sometimes the rights of the collective really should be held to be superior to those of an individual. This is most definitely one of those times.
The question I’d ask of anti-vaxxers is why they hold their “right” to decide if their child should be vaccinated to be superior to my right to expect the health of my child to be protected? I’d argue that your perceived right ends when it reaches a point where it could potentially adversely impact the health of others. Or, to put it another way: If you want your child to be allowed to go to a public school, you need to vaccinate your child. You can absolutely have the right to choose, but if you decline to meet your obligation to help protect public health, you have no right to expect that your child be allowed in ANY public setting where children are present. The price of admission for a parent wanting to send their child to a public school should be vaccination. Period. No exception save for medical fragility.
When it comes to something that has the potential to adversely impact society as a whole, there can be no right- whether real or perceived- to make stupid decisions for stupid reasons. You have a responsibility to do your part to protect public health; vaccinating children is part and parcel of that responsibility. Since many parents refuse to accept and meet this responsibility, it’s time for the Oregon Legislature to do the right thing and take the choice out of their hands by eliminating most non-medical exemptions.
Oregon, however, allows parents to opt their children out of vaccinations for religious or philosophical reasons and now leads the country for kindergartners lacking at least one immunization for non-medical reasons.
It’s time to reverse that trend. Oregon Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, D-Beaverton, has turned up the heat on anti-vaccinators, with a proposal to end exemptions for non-medical reasons. Those who do not want to abide by the state’s immunization schedule would be barred from sending their kids to public or private schools or day cares.
The push by Steiner Hayward, a family physician, is a significant and necessary change that would promote public health in a cost-efficient, safe and effective manner. Policy questions rarely have such solidly researched solutions as vaccines. Legislators should make the science-based decision for the good of the public and embrace this bill.
There’s a sound, solid consensus and a significant aggregation of medical research establishing that vaccines are effective in preventing communicable childhood diseases. Parents shouldn’t have the leeway to simply ignore what has proven long ago because they think they know more than doctors. Society has the absolute right to set vaccination as the price of admission to public schools. Parents who refuse to pay this price have no right to expect their child be granted access to those public schools…or any other public event involve large concentrations of children.
When I was a child, the rule was simple: no vaccination, no school. Period. No question. End of story. If you didn’t have your certificate of vaccination, you weren’t allowed past a school’s front door. This policy, something anti-vaxxers find overly harsh, was effective in preventing outbreaks of communicable disease. This reality is as true today as it was during my schoolboy days…and society has every right to hold fast to the expectation that children be vaccinated.
No matter how loud and long one may argue otherwise, there’s no right to make stupid, ill-informed decisions when it comes to something that could potentially have an adverse impact on public health. There should be no compassion for ignorance, and screaming about one’s “right” to make a dangerous, ignorant, and ill-advised decision should not result in being granted that “right.”
Vaccines work. Do the right thing and vaccinate your child…or homeschool them until they’re 18. Your right to “protect” your child does not supersede your responsibility to protect public health, and if you can’t see your way clear to meeting that responsibility, you can’t reasonably expect that your child will be allowed access to public schools.
Pay the price for admitting your children to public schools…or keep them home.
