It’s no secret that early vaccination is one of the cheapest and most effective ways to prevent many serious childhood diseases such as polio, measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis, and influenza. Many vaccines are widely available to children for little to no cost, and have been proven to prevent diseases which can cause serious complications. For example, complications from measles include pneumonia, inflammation of the brain, blindness and even death. Nearly 450 people die of measles every day, and more than 90% are children under 5. Even in otherwise healthy people in developed countries, the fatality rate from measles 3 deaths per thousand cases, or 0.3%.
Moreover, the public health costs can be staggering of non-vaccination can be staggering. A single unvaccinated child exposed to the measles virus while abroad resulted in the San Diego measles outbreak of 2008 which included exposures of nearly 850 people to the measles virus, 11 actual cases (all unvaccinated children) and the hospitalization of one infant too young to be vaccinated. Total cost to the public: more than $175,000, enough to cover vaccinations for nearly 180,000 children.
So we thought the Los Angeles Times article by pediatric resident Pamela Nguyen this week was particularly interesting. In the article, Dr. Nguyen describes the an encounter with a mother who despite understanding the dangers of measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases still knowingly chooses not to vaccinate her child:
And yet, many parents continue not to vaccinate their children. I see such children frequently. Last fall, when I entered an examination room, a 5-year-old patient loudly yelled “Get out!” Her mother apologized, then explained. “Sorry, she’s never gotten S-H-O-T-S before.”
Confused, I looked down at the chart to confirm that the patient was in for H1N1 and seasonal flu vaccines. Seeing that she was, I seized the opportunity to offer her catch-up vaccines as well, but her mother declined. She explained matter-of-factly that it was because the flu was “going around” whereas the other vaccine-preventable diseases, she said, were no longer a threat.
She went on to tell me that she was a lawyer who had grown up in a country where measles is still endemic. Since moving to the U.S., she had never known anyone to suffer from measles, but she did know several children who had autism. So, while she understood that vaccinations had not been definitively shown to cause autism, she felt that, here in America, the risk of autism was a bigger threat than that of vaccine-preventable diseases.
So we thought today we would ask you all if you vaccinate your children, and if not, why not?
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