"Sometimes, people have to trip and fall to be reminded that it’s important to watch their step. "

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24492394.post-45856259094709411042008-07-15T13:45:00.003-05:002008-07-15T14:12:17.748-05:00"Sometimes, people have to trip and fall to be reminded that it’s important to watch their step. "So says Glenn in an excellent column about <a href="http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health_medicine/4273262.html">vaccines and the upkeep of public infrastructure</a>. <blockquote>...the percentage of parents vaccinating their children has fallen, perhaps because some parents see no point in warding off diseases they’ve never encountered. Religious or new-age beliefs may also factor into the decision: The San Diego outbreak spread in a school where nearly 10 percent of the students had been given personal-belief exemptions from the vaccination requirement. The East Bay outbreak started at a school that emphasizes nature-based therapy over mainstream medicine; fewer than half of the students were vaccinated. </blockquote>Emphasis mine. I bet that less than 1% of those 10% claiming a personal-belief exemption actually held personal beliefs precluding vaccines. Think that's pure conjecture on my part? I have proof in my email box that anti-vaccine people are falsely claiming religious exemptions. I belong to almost every moms' group in my area, so I'm on quite a few email lists. There's one list in particular with a great number of anti-vaccination subscribers. Every now and then there is an email along the lines of "Tommy is about to start school, and I'm afraid to have him vaccinated, what do I do?" Then comes the reply, "Get a religious exemption form. So-and-so-anti-vaccine woman will tell you what to put on it. Here is her contact info." Yikes. And Glenn is also correct in positing that most anti-vaccine positioning is driven by fear of autism. In these mom circles, that's the only argument I've ever heard against vaccination, and I hear it a lot. I wish more people were aware of this: <blockquote>And a simple glance at health statistics shows that autism cases continued to rise even after thimerosal, the mercury-based preservative widely blamed for the supposed autism link, was largely phased out of U.S. vaccines by 2001. </blockquote>And this: <blockquote>Nevertheless, these unsubstantiated fears have led some people to say that getting vaccinated should be a matter of individual choice: If you want to be protected, just get yourself and your children vaccinated. Only it’s not that easy. While the measles vaccine protects virtually everyone who is inoculated, not all vaccines have the same rate of success. But even if a vaccine is effective for only 70, 80 or 90 percent of those who take it, the other 30, 20 or 10 percent who don’t get the full benefit of the vaccine are usually still not at risk. That’s because most of the people around the partially protected are immune, so the disease can’t sustain transmission long enough to spread. But when people decide to forgo vaccination, they threaten the entire system. </blockquote>That is the main point that people do not seem to understand. These parents mean well, but many of them do not seem to realize that by foregoing vaccines, they threaten our modern, mostly disease free way of childhood. (That's not to say that all of them don't; I've heard at least one mother admit that she's a free rider on the system, and that she likes it when other kids get vaccinated.) If I quote out all the good parts, I'll be quoting out the entire column, so <a href="http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health_medicine/4273262.html">read the rest of it</a> over at Popular Mechanics. There is one point on which I hope Glenn is wrong but am afraid that he is probably right. I hope it doesn't take the tragedy of an outbreak to get everyone vaccinating again. Perhaps if we gave copies of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FVaccine-Book-Decision-Parenting-Library%2Fdp%2F0316017507%2F&tag=freemanhunt-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">this book</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=freemanhunt-20&l=ur2&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /> to every vaccination shy person in the United States, people would start talking about vaccinations rationally again. A girl can dream anyway.Freeman Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16202310075717963694noreply@blogger.com