Stupid Is as Stupid Does, Part Deux

The continued decision by many parents in North America not to vaccinate their children continues to put the public at risk, and unnecessarily burdens the Health system, both resource-wise and financially. As I have waxed on the subject previously, I will try not to repeat myself too much, but I do maintain that the decision to vaccinate – or not – MUST be based on information that can be objectively verifiable as accurate, current, and reliable.

And the arguments against vaccinating do not measure up to any standard – scientific, logic, credibility, common sense, etc. to name a few.

The below-noted article, in part, excellently articulates the future we have in store. I wonder how long it will be before the liability of the parental decision not to vaccinate will be held to proper scrutiny. I have no doubt that it will take more outbreaks – and more deaths – before we see that day.

I am not promoting mandatory vaccinations; I am promoting common sense. I am all for making a good decision using critical thinking skills.

I am against pseudo science, logical fallacies, quackery, and the financial gain made by folks using these methods to promote their anti-vaccination stance.

I hope the parents who are making the decision not to vaccinate – based on emotion, fear, and unscientific, anecdotal “evidence” – stop putting us all at risk. They are putting our valuable medical professionals at risk, as well as our families and friends.

Denogean: Not getting measles shots is a choice hard to justify

(From Anne T. Denogean at the Tucson Citizen, in part, emphasis mine):

The toddler was brought into the hospital with fever-related seizures.

He developed ear infections and a telltale red rash, stopped eating and spent 10 days in April at University Medical Center.

He’s one of the 13 cases of measles confirmed in Pima County since a Swiss tourist brought the disease here in February.

“It’s frustrating that in this particular developed country, where we have so much access to preventive medicine, people are choosing not to do that and are putting themselves and the community at risk,” said Dr. Sean Elliott, a UMC pediatric infectious disease specialist.

I know I’m inviting the anti-vaccination crowd to fill my e-mail in-basket. But I agree with Elliott that vaccination is as much a responsibility to society as a personal choice.

This outbreak, which public health officials say isn’t over yet, illustrates the impact the few unvaccinated can have on an entire community.

The Swiss woman exposed an estimated 1,700 people to disease. By the time Elliott’s patient was confirmed as a measles case, some 500 people at UMC had been exposed.

“He did not develop the rash until he had been in the hospital four days, meaning he had exposed an entire floor of babies and, when he was in the emergency room, an entire room full of emergency department patients,” Elliott said.

Further, UMC’s air-handling system, as at many hospitals, covers several floors, meaning more patients were exposed.

As a result of the exposures, Pima County has had to contact 3,000 people, said Patti Woodcock, a spokeswoman for the Pima County Health Department.

The outbreak has been a huge stress on the medical system, she said.

While national childhood immunization rates have climbed to 77 percent, many parents still neglect to get their children immunized (as was the case of the UMC patient) or make the conscious decision not to do so based on unproven links between autism and thimerosal-containing vaccines.

To some degree, vaccines are a victim of their own success. We’ve forgotten that the diseases they prevent can be worse than just a nuisance. “People have not seen infants dying from encephalitis, from measles or crippled with polio,” McDonald said.

At the same time, she said, people have access to a ton of information through the Internet but little guidance in evaluating the information.

McDonald said part of her is disappointed. “I would hope that people would think a little bit about the balance between their own and their children’s safety and society’s,” she said.

Is refusing vaccination for yourself and your kids a “selfish” choice?

“That’s a pretty charged word,” McDonald said. “This is driven out of concern for their kids, and that’s pretty primal. But I think there has been a shift in that ethic.”

I don’t know the right word, either.

But parents who decide against or neglect immunization for their families put the onus for their safety from vaccine-preventable diseases on families who do vaccinate.

The herd effect – the high numbers of vaccinated people in the United States – has kept these diseases at bay and kept the unvaccinated safe.

But as the infected Swiss miss proved, global travel can change that in an instant.

And From the Canadian Front..

Ton-of-Science vs. “Mommy Instinct”

(In Part, emphasis mine, from SomeCanadianSkeptic)

So far, just over 4900 individuals have joined into a group-claim, claiming that the MMR vaccine caused their children to become autistic. So far, no one has recieved any funds for this claim because the science simply opposes their viewpoint. Autism is one of the medical buzz-words these days, and thanks to reputable scientists like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Jenna McCarthy (the one who made herself famous by eating her boogers on MTV) have helped to increase this public perception that doctors simply don’t listen the mothers, don’t care about mothers, and purporting the scientific value of the “mommy instinct”.
In the words of Dr. Steven Novella, “I’m sorry, but your mommy instinct doesn’t trump ton-of-science”.

I can only hope that true science will continue to penetrate, and that feel-good science of the “mommy-instinct” stays out of the realm of medical research.