When does public health supersede personal choice? The vaccination debate [Most commented]

[bemildred]

Opposition to vaccinations for children is shortsighted and detrimental to public health, The Times’ editorial board wrote Tuesday. In recent years, more parents have been opting out of inoculations for their kids due to personal beliefs and unfounded fears. With the incidence of diseases such as whooping cough and measles rising, children who go un-vaccinated are putting others at risk. There are legitimate reasons for some children not to be vaccinated -– medical concerns, some people simply don't respond to vaccines, some infants are too young for inoculation -– but it should not be so easy to opt out of vaccines, the board wrote.

All of these children are endangered by the unfounded fears of a small minority of parents. Public health depends on "herd immunity" — the inoculation of enough people to keep a disease from the larger community.

Although children are supposed to receive most vaccinations before starting kindergarten, almost all states rightly allow exemptions for religious reasons or when a child has medical problems that make vaccination impossible. But 21 states, including California, also allow exemptions when parents declare that vaccination is contrary to their personal beliefs. According to the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, more exemptions for nonmedical reasons are granted in states that make allowances for personal beliefs or where the exemption process is particularly lax. States, including California, should be reexamining the personal belief exemption and tightening procedures. It should not be so easy for relatively few people to jeopardize the health of many others.

The editorial sparked a heated debate between readers on the discussion board for and against vaccinations for children.

http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2011/08/when-does-public-health-supercede-personal-choice-the-vaccination-debate-most-commented.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpinionLa+%28L.A.+Times+-+Opinion+Blog%29

[bemildred]

1. The anti-vaccination peril

Contrary to what baby boomers might assume, the term "conscientious objector" didn't originate with the Vietnam War. It was first used in the late 19th century to describe opponents of England's mandatory smallpox vaccinations, who received special exemption from the inoculations.

Their opposition to the vaccine was as shortsighted, and as unfounded in science, as the objections of parents today who refuse to recognize the importance of inoculation not just to their children but to public health. As it happens, the popular embrace of the smallpox vaccine eradicated the deadly disease worldwide by the late 1970s. Shortly afterward, polio was eliminated in the United States after a decades-long immunization campaign.

Yet several other diseases — not as deadly as smallpox and polio but still capable of killing — have been making comebacks in recent years as increasing numbers of parents decide that vaccination is dangerous. It started with the now-discredited claims of a British doctor who published a faulty study purportedly showing a link between vaccines and autism.

As The Times has reported, there were nearly 9,500 cases of whooping cough last year in California alone, the most in 65 years. Cases of other diseases — measles and Hib — are rising, though in far smaller numbers. Many measles cases are "imported" from countries where the disease is more prevalent, often by unvaccinated U.S. residents who return from foreign travel.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-vaccine-20110816,0,1729275.story

[stevenelijah]

2. question

This may be an ignorant question...

How does a person's decision to go unvaccinated affect those who are vaccinated and thereby protected from the disease?

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. Babies are not innoculated for everything right away, so they are susceptible to

diseases, especially if they aren't nursing from a mother who can share her own antibodies.

[bemildred]

4. That's a very messy question.

It depends on the disease and how it is vectored and the quality of the vaccine and population densities etc. etc. etc.

[HuckleB]

5. Why Worry About the Unvaccinated?

http://shotofprevention.com/2011/04/12/why-worry-about-the-unvaccinated/

Mixing unvaccinated children with vaccinated children: Whose rights prevail?
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/08/mixing_unvaccinated_children_with_unvacc.php

[GreenPartyVoter]

7. Wow! Those are some comments, eh?

[HuckleB]

8. Uh, ok.

:shrug:

[GreenPartyVoter]

9. The comments on the links you posted. Some major arguments between

the pro and anti vaccine folks there, and it gets pretty mean.

[bemildred]

10. Yep. nt

[HuckleB]

11. Yeah, that does tend to be the norm.

:(

[LeftishBrit]

6. Firstly...

vaccination offers high protection, but rarely 100%.

Secondly and more crucially, there are some people who can't be vaccinated for either of two reasons: they are too young, or they have health problems that make vaccination unsafe or ineffective or both: notably those who have certain severe allergies, or who have immune disorders, or are taking chemo or immunosuppressants. Since young babies and already-sick people are also generally in greater if they catch the diseases, it is best to minimize their exposure.

[sense]

12. Here's an interesting article on vaccines

and I think that we all really need to be paying more attention (as usual) to what actually happens, instead of what we're being told.....

http://healthimpactnews.com/2011/the-united-nations-invites-mark-geier-md-to-lead-the-charge-against-the-vaccine-industry/

[HuckleB]

13. When will you heed your own advice?

Thanks for the bizarre, dishonest anti-vax propaganda link.

[sense]

14. Dishonest?

Look in the mirror.

[HuckleB]

17. That's your response?

:rofl:

[mzteris]

15. two words

Typhoid Mary.

[bemildred]

16. Indeed.

I think we have forgotten where we came from when it comes to "Public Health".

[Joe Chi Minh]

18. Scientist and Stem Cell Expert Says Don't Be So Quick to Believe Vaccines Are Safe

This is the link to the article in Aletia:

http://www.aleteia.org/en/health/article/scientist-and-stem-cell-expert-says-dont-be-so-quick-to-believe-vaccines-are-safe-5321336255676416?page=3