Local doctors are worried. School nurses are worried. Cancer patients are terrified. The number of parents opting out of vaccinating their children has now reached a critical mass, putting at risk not only their own children, but the entire community. Particularly at risk are young and old alike taking anti-cancer medications, those with autoimmune diseases, infants, and the elderly. The metaphoric “herd immunity” is now in grave peril.
Yet the science is unequivocal. Vaccines
are safe. Period.
Given the geometric spike in cases of
autism several years ago, people began casting about for an explanation of the
cause. A theory was hatched that the vaccines themselves, or the binding agent
that enabled several vaccines to be administered in one dose, was a possible
cause. Some celebrities — not scientists, celebrities — latched on to the
theory and used their celebrity megaphone to spread that disinformation.
Concerned scientists launched studies to prove or disprove the theory. The
early studies, with a few hundred data points, were clear: there was no causal
link. Subsequent studies have now provided hundreds of thousands of data
points, nearly a million, with the same conclusion: No causal link whatsoever.
But the misinformation persists.
There are two major contributing factors.
The first, ironically, is a function of
the success of efforts to eradicate these diseases. For a while, they were
gone. Young parents, concerned about their children’s safety, simply have no
vision and no memory of the scourge of these childhood diseases when they were
rampant. Parents were terrified. Polio, measles, mumps, and whooping cough
caused agony and worse among generations of children. One moment a parent would
have a happy healthy child, and the next, polio would cause the child to be
lame, maimed, or need an iron lung to breathe. And those were the survivors.
Measles, mumps, and whooping cough made children unbearably miserable, and
sometimes caused lifelong side effects.
One local grandfather recalls that as a young child he thought the
actual formal name for public drinking fountains was “whooping cough” because
whenever he ran to drink from one his mother would shriek, “NO! Whooping cough!”
It’s hard now to imagine the terror parents lived with at the time.
When the causes and cures for these
diseases were finally discovered, parents rushed to get their children
protected. They considered vaccines a godsend. No longer would their children
face the horror of these awful diseases. In time, the vaccines were so
successful that these diseases was virtually wiped off the earth, or confined
to small remote civilizations.
Sufficient numbers of the community were vaccinated so that even if one
or two cases somehow emerged, the community as a whole was safe.
Scientists estimate that safety number
for “herd immunity” is 95 percent. Hence the campaign, “Strive for 95.”
In several communities we have now fallen
below that number. This places at grave risk all those whose immune systems are
compromised: cancer patients, those taking cancer-suppressing drugs, those with
autoimmune diseases, infants too young to be vaccinated, and the elderly.
There is another group at risk, which is
the second major contributing factor to the problem we face. Though the
vaccines have been proven to be absolutely safe, a small number of those
receiving them do not have successful outcomes, and are not entirely protected.
Boosters are essential, and help with this issue. But for some young people the
vaccines are not entirely effective. These young people can contract the
disease if exposed. This factor also leads some parents to decide against
vaccinating, placing their children at far greater risk.
At root, the decision to opt out of
vaccinating has proven selfish. Parents always make the best decisions they can
regarding their own children’s well-being, and the decision to opt out is no
doubt motivated by noble impulses, but it is based on misinformation and it can
be proven deadly to others and to the community at large.
We have already seen evidence of this
selfishness through the outbreak of measles in Disneyland. Children most at
risk — those suffering from cancer or terminal illnesses, or those with
compromised immune systems — often “make a wish” to go to Disneyland. They can
no longer go there in safety, and those visits have been stopped. How sad that
these children’s one joy has been taken away by those who profess to care about
children.
It is said that in recent years we have
lost the community spirit that used to be this country’s glue, binding us all
together. At every level we see fewer and fewer acts done for “the good of the
order,” and more done for purely self-serving purposes. This is not who we are
as a nation or as a community. If we don’t act properly because it’s the right
thing to do, we should at least realize that in the case of vaccines, it is in
our own best self-interest.
Vaccines are safe. The community’s health
depends upon the greatest possible number of people having immunity. Be smart.
Be safe. Be wise. Make sure your own children are immunized, and every young
person you know. This is one case where the future really does depend on us.
