Writing on The ScentificParent blog, a chagrined Canadian mom announced that she is leaving the anti-vaxx movement after all of her seven children — four of them completely unvaccinated — have come down with whooping cough. Writing from quarantine, and surrounded by sick kids, Tara Hills wrote she is “emotionally, a bit raw. Mentally a bit taxed. Physically I’m fine,” before admitting that not only are her own kids sick, but they may have exposed her five-month-old niece who is too young to be fully vaccinated.
On the surface I understand the trepidation of parents opposed to vaccinating their children…in the same way I understand that pizza and beer cause brain tumors. No matter how I try to wrap my head around their “logic,” if it can even be called that, there’s no way to make sense out of denying something that’s been in use, effectively so, for over a century. How so many well-educated people can deny scientific reality and insist they know more about the efficacy and dangers of vaccines than doctors and scientists is something that defies rational understanding. I’ve listened to interviews in which well-educated people, some with advanced degrees, have said variations of “I know what the science says; I just don’t believe it.” Evidently, Ph.D. doesn’t always serve as a reliable indication of native intelligence.
Welcome to today’s “WTF???” moment, eh?
To think that this sort of willful ignorance wouldn’t have real-world consequences is the height of arrogance and stupidity. This debate has taken place within my own family, with good, intelligent, caring, well-meaning parents declining to vaccinate their children because they think they can “manage” a communicable childhood disease. Some may read this and be upset with me…but sometimes the truth is what it is, and you have to put it out there. If people choose to be angry because I’ve spoken that truth, that says more about them than it ever could about me.
The bottom line is simple and straightforward: vaccines work. No matter what you may believe, there is no- zero, zip, none, nada, bupkis- evidence to support the contention that vaccines are more dangerous to the health of children than the diseases themselves. The mere fact of believing something to be true doesn’t necessarily make it so, and in some cases that belief can be downright dangerous. Vaccines work. Are they perfectly, 100% safe? Of course not; what in this world is? Are we to let the perfect be the enemy of the good? “Oh, it’s not perfect, so we shouldn’t use it” is an absurd argument that if tightly hewed to would have prevented a number of significant advances (Hell, probably ALL of them).
Ms. Hills’ experience is undoubtedly not an outlier, and I suspect they’re far more common than we might know. It’s not the sort of thing anti-vaccine parents are likely to own up to…because it might leave their parental fitness open to question. Not surprisingly, people are loathe to admit their own stupidity and irresponsibility or, if I was to be kinder about it, mistaken assumptions.
Some might consider me to be inflexible and intolerant on this issue- a charge I will freely admit to. The science (and the history) is clear, and the risk posed to children by refusing to vaccinate them is indisputable. Parents who refuse to vaccinate their children have no business raising a child. Sometimes loving a child isn’t enough. Sometimes a parent needs to step up and recognize that not only do they owe it to their children to protect them, they also have a responsibility to help protect the public health. If you can’t do that, you shouldn’t be raising children. Period.
Do the right thing. Vaccinate your children. Perhaps then we can move on to talking about things where the scientific evidence isn’t so overwhelmingly clear.
