My husband has argued that the community has the right to require vaccination of all children, because leaving some children unvaccinated increases the risk of any child, vaccinated or unvaccinated, acquiring a vaccine-preventable disease. I disagree.
Don’t get me wrong – I think that every child should be vaccinated. When parents make the choice not to vaccinate or to vaccinate on an alternate schedule which spaces out the vaccines, the data clearly demonstrate that their choice puts their child at significant increased risk for illness and for death due to diseases which can be prevented by vaccinating (http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/284/24/3145). Their choice also puts the community at increased risk for outbreaks of disease.
However, to require vaccination, to enforce mandatory vaccination, goes too far because of the deeply held fears that some parents have about vaccines. I have had the conversation over and over again in my office with well-meaning parents. These are parents who are usually well-educated, excellent advocates for their children, and doing a great job parenting. The decision not to vaccinate or to delay certain vaccines is not an easy one for them, but they have been so swayed by the misinformation about vaccine risks and dangers that in good conscience they cannot expose their children to the perceived risk. To force these parents by law to vaccinate would be like forcing them to put their child in harm’s way.
This is not a battle to be won by legislation. It will be won slowly and with great time and effort, day in and day out, in those conversations in my office, and in other pediatrician’s offices across the country. Over and over again I will explain the risks of remaining unvaccinated, discuss the fact that delaying vaccines is a dangerous choice, talk about meningitis and measles and lockjaw and whooping cough. There will be more outbreaks of diseases like measles which frighten parents and remind them of the dangers.
If communities force the issue and force parents to allow their children to be given a vaccine that they see as dangerous and harmful, there will be a greater backlash against vaccination. Misinformation will proliferate. In the end we may have done more harm than good.
[You can see my husband's take on this issue here.]
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Anna Hankins is a Wisconsin pediatrician who had three children during med school and spent a year as a stay-at-home mom with her first. When we discovered that Anna and her husband, Jeremy, have differing strongly-considered views on the intersection of parenting and medicine we invited them to a he-said/she-said style debate on our blog. |
