Some parents say they’re concerned not enough children are getting vaccinated, and that is putting infants and other children at risk.
Three-year-old Tyler Grimm of Waverly laughs now, but recently he came down with the chicken pox.
“I had to keep him home from day care, his mother Lilah said. To watch the story, click here.
Chicken pox was an inconvenience but more so a surprise to mother Lilah, because Tyler had been vaccinated against chicken pox, which made her concerned that not enough parents are immunizing their children.
“Because he was vaccinated, his case was very mild.”
Dr. Brian Sims said, “When we start having a large number of children not being vaccinated, you’re going to see a resurgence in diseases we’re trying to prevent.”
Sims at Covenant Medical Center in Waterloo says unfounded fears of a link between vaccines and autism have led fewer parents to immunize their children from deadly diseases.
“In Japan we have one in four children not getting vaccinated for anything. Specifically the measles, and so I’m aware the measles rates in japan are skyrocketing. Even deaths.”
Sims says cases of measles have emerged in recent years in Iowa, and the rate of whooping cough increased 66 percent last year.
But co-founder of the National Vaccine Information Center Barbara Loe-Fisher said parents still have the right to decide whether to vaccinate or not.
“We feel it’s very important for parents to get all the information they can about the risks and complications of infectious diseases, the risks and complications of vaccines. And then sit down with their doctor, ask questions,” she said.
Grimm says she does respect parents’ rights, but she also wants to make them aware their child could transmit a dangerous disease.
“For a long time all these children’s diseases were eradicated: mumps, measles, whooping cough, we all got our shots,” she said. “It’s just important to get your kids vaccinated.”
Even though chicken pox is generally considered mild compared to other diseases, Dr. Sims said before the vaccine, 200 children would die each year in the U.S. from chicken pox-related infections.
Now after the vaccine, that number has gone down to 20 deaths. Doctors say vaccination risks are increasingly small. Possible reactions include a fever or swelling near the vaccination site.
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This post was written by qni_it on August 17, 2011
Here’s what I don’t get, and I’d love it if someone explained it for me. Why would a parent whose child is fully vaccinated be concerned about un-vaccinated children being in contact with their child? If vaccine theory is correct, their child should be fully protected. Also, why did little Tyler get chicken pox if the vaccine worked? His case was mild, but an un-vaccinated person’s case could also be mild; you don’t know if it was from the vaccine or not.
Thanks for your comments. The main concern among doctors and some parents is the loss of “herd immunity” – meaning as fewer children get vaccinated, more children can carry and pass diseases.
Then several diseases that once only existed in the far corners of the earth are in our collective backyard. This does affect the general population in that infants are susceptible to deadly diseases such as whooping cough before they even have the opportunity to get vaccinated.
I personally know of one mother who lost her infant son to whooping cough two years ago – he was too young to be immunized. Many adults unwitingly pass on pertussis (whooping cough) to vulnerable populations like infants.
As for chicken pox, I understand where you are coming from. I personally did not vaccinate my child against chicken pox.
But the doctor I interviewed said several hundred children used to die each year from secondary infections from bacteria getting into wounds associated with chicken pox.
These infections still claim some lives, but far fewer than in the past.
Thank you again for your comments. Have you personally decided against vaccinating your children?
Sunny,
Thanks for your comment! That does make sense about infants catching diseases from unvaccinated people. Of course newborns get their first full round of vaccines at two months, and most people with newborns don’t go out that much anyway, so just staying home will protect most little ones. I still don’t get parents of school age children being upset about unvaccinated kids, though. The theory of vaccines is that if a vaccinated person comes in contact with an unvaccinated person carrying a disease, they should not get the disease, right?
We have actually chosen to not vaccinate for a couple different reasons. As Loe-Fisher said, there are risks and complications from diseases and from vaccines. We figure that if the vaccine won’t actually protect our kids from a disease if they come in contact with it, why give it to them? And while there can be serious, even deadly, complications from childhood diseases, the vast majority of kids who contract them end up healthy and with a stronger immune system when they recover.
The government, CDC, and FDA try very hard to obscure that fact that vaccines do have serious side effects. There was actually a fund set up in 1988 to compensate people who were injured by vaccines. (http://hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/index.html) So the government knows that there will be kids and adults who are injured by vaccines. Of course they think that the benefit to the population as a whole is worth those few causalities. But as a parent, if my child were to be injured or killed from a vaccine, it would be little comfort to know that at least I was contributing to herd immunity.
While this may sound a little ridiculous, the theory of vaccines is still being debated. We have just accepted that they “work” without thinking through our immune response. This article does a great job explaining immunity and why vaccines don’t actually do what they are intended to do: http://www.alignlifenutrition.com/articles/immunity/challenging_the_theory_of_artificial_immunity.html
Vaccines create antibodies to specific diseases, but the number of antibodies that a person has for a certain disease has not been shown to affect whether or not that person will contract that disease.
Also, as that article points out, there have been no long term studies on the safety of vaccines. Is it just a coincidence that as the number of vaccines increases, so do chronic diseases? We have cancer in our society in almost epidemic proportions. Also auto immune diseases are on the rise, as is autism, which was relatively unheard of until the mid to late 1900′s. It is proven that polio vaccines that were widely administered in the 1950′s were contaminated with a cancer causing simian virus called SV-40. One study found SV-40 present in 58% of people with mesothelioma. And unfortunately SV-40 is found to pass from mother to child. Another study found that children of mothers who received the contaminated vaccine were 13 times more likely to develop a brain tumor.
Ten, twenty years from now, what are they going to find in our current day vaccines that was not supposed to be there? They had tested the polio vaccine for all known diseases; SV-40 just wasn’t discovered yet.
So we’ve decided to not vaccinate because of the risks of complications from the vaccine and because vaccines don’t actually protect you from getting the disease. Improved diet and hygiene have also played a role in eradicating some of these childhood diseases.
And I personally know someone who died from a vaccine, so no one can convince me that they are perfectly safe!
Well, this comment got a lot longer than I planned! I’m just passionate about people making informed medical decision.
Sunny, thanks for the great piece on c-sections. After having a traumatic c-section, ICAN has been a great help to me and my family! I’m so glad we can get the word out about this great organization!
Thank you for your comments Sarah. You clearly have strong views and have done a lot of research. I am so sorry you lost someone. I am very curious to hear how that happenned.
Happy to do the piece on ICAN. I am always looking for story ideas, so please pass those on if you have any!