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This year is on track to be the worst for measles in more than a decade, according to new numbers released Thursday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And people who refuse to vaccinate their children are behind the increasing number of outbreaks, health officials say.
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<p>U.S</a>. measles cases in 2013 may be most in 17 years - CNN.com</p>
<p>ABSOLUTELY vaccinate your kids.</p>
<p>This is a tough one. Although I respect people’s right to do what they think is best for their own families, in this case their choices can have negative effects for countless others.</p>
<p>We, as a culture, do NOT respect people’s right to do what they think is best for their own families if it puts innocent people in danger- which not vaccinating does. We have rules on the road to decrease chance of someone killing another person. We have laws about whether or not people can knowingly expose others to HIV/AIDs. </p>
<p>For the life of me, I don’t understand why this is any different.</p>
<p>My D worked for a group pediatrics practice that has just plain started telling parents who won’t follow the minimum CDC-recommended vaccination schedule that they won’t see children from those families anymore. It’s the most basic of medical advice; if you won’t follow it, why are you even wasting the doctor’s time?</p>
<p>I’m sympathetic to the pediatricians. Although I don’t like the idea of denying medical care to kids, I’d hate to be the pediatrician whose immune-compromised cancer patient, or whose premie too-young-to-vaccinate patient, caught measles or whooping cough from some perfectly healthy child whose lala parents didn’t want their special snowflake to get basic vaccinations. The death rate for whooping cough for kids too young to vaccinate is horrifying high.</p>
<p>It was not that long ago that I cared for a child who died from varicella (chicken pox)
These diseases are not trivial, they can be deadly</p>
<p>romani, you are right. I was thinking about personal parenting decisions I may disagree with, like what people feed their kids or whether they indoctrinate them into a certain religion.</p>
<p>NJSue, I think your D’s pediatrics practice has it right. Not only is it harder to treat measles than prevent it, every time a non-immunized person comes into the clinic others are put at risk.</p>
<p>Unless there is a specific medical reason not to (eg, allergy to eggs for flu shot, although they solved that one this year), I consider anyone who does not vaccinate to be a freeloader. They freeload on the backs of everyone who does vaccinate, counting on herd immunity from the rest of us who do vaccinate to keep their kids from being exposed. There is a tiny legitimate risk from some vaccines (not the stupid long-since repudiated study on autism, retracted several years ago but still in the head of some nutcases who can’t read or prefer pseudo-science to legitimate science). Those who don’t vaccinate are freeloading in that respect as well when the rest of us take that legitimate miniscule risk and vaccinate. I have no use for parents who won’t vaccinate. They are risking their kids lives and those of others (people who can’t vaccinate for legitimate medical reasons like babies who are too young for the measles vaccine or people with true specific allergies to vaccine components). I think they are dumber than rocks and selfish.</p>
<p>I agree with you intparent and those same people can give you a dozen reasons why they are right and every reliable medical source of truth is wrong. The national news the other night was talking about a whooping cough outbreak in Texas (I believe it was Texas). Whopping cough…something that can or theoretically should be effectively eradicated.</p>
<p>Some people need to be revaccinated.
[Doctor:</a> Some adults should be re-vaccinated for measles | Healthworks | Seattle News, Weather, Sports, Breaking News | KOMO News](<a href=“http://www.komonews.com/news/health/Doctor-Some-adults-should-be-re-vaccinated-for-measles--221665631.html]Doctor:”>http://www.komonews.com/news/health/Doctor-Some-adults-should-be-re-vaccinated-for-measles--221665631.html)
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<p>5% will not be immunized, even with the shot.
For comparision, consider that fewer of 1% of college students need medical care for overdoing the party.</p>
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<p>Freeloader may be too kind a description. Disease vector is probably a more accurate one; they increase the risk for people who medically cannot be vaccinated, or whose immune systems do not seroconvert to immunity after vaccination.</p>
<p>I’m very interested in the responses to this. I’ve got 4 children that range in age from 17 years to 9 months old. During this time the vaccination conversation has gone from vaccinate your kids, to look out vaccines cause Autism so don’t vaccinate, but if you do spread them way out, to now with my 9 month old I’ve seen a fever pitch debate. Some of these diseases are coming back. Nonvaccinators point to data that the cases of these returning diseases are mainly found in people who were vaccinated. If that’s the case, what gives.
All of my kids are vaccinated and one indeed does have high functioning Autism (and no I certainly don’t think it was caused by vaccinations). Parents are more confused than ever with this issue. I read through pages and pages of debates on this issue, where both sides site studies, peer reviewed articles, and statistics that strongly back up their position. I just talked to my neighbor, who is a preschool teacher. She said she’s never seen so many “religion” waivers for exemption from the immunization requirement from parents. I believe the Dr Wakefield case will never be removed from parents minds. Once it was asserted that Autism was caused by vaccinations, many parents haven’t moved past that.</p>
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<p>I had the pertussis vaccine as a child, but contracted whooping cough a few years ago as an adult. Trust me, you do not want to get this disease. I can understand how people with weaker systems than mine can die from it. Apparently, it has recently been learned (probably from cases like mine) that a booster is needed after so many years.</p>
<p>Egg allergy is no longer a contraindication to vaccination against influenza. Only allergy to flu vaccine is</p>
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<p>Anti-science, Anti-intellectual nutjobs works too :)</p>
<p>This nonsense will persist until it’s stopped by positions like the one taken by the pediatric practice mentioned above–which should be the position of every pediatrician–and the refusal of public schools to admit unvaccinated kids. Those who cite objections based on genuine religious beliefs rather than crackpot anti-vax theories (and it seems like that is a small number) would have to send their kids to a conforming religious school or homeschool. You can’t have everything.</p>
<p>TVenee, while “the vaccination conversation has gone from vaccinate your kids, to look out vaccines cause Autism so don’t vaccinate”, the medical community never wavered from advocating vaccination. We can’t make health decisions based on the latest pop culture fad.</p>
<p>Before the pertussis vaccine, a whole lot of babies coughed themselves to death with whooping cough. The death rate for babies under six months of age is 1 in 200, which is horrifyingly high for an epidemic disease, which pertussis will be again if enough stupid people decide not to vaccinate their children.</p>
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<p>Not everyone who receives the vaccine seroconverts to immunity. Also immunity can wane, which is why boosters are recommended for some vaccines.</p>
<p>In the pre-vaccine era, a disease came through, kill some people (and/or give some people permanent disability), make some people sick for a while, and “vaccinate” others with a mild sub-clinical infection; those not killed became immune. Repeated visits by the disease would function as “boosters” for those who previously had it.</p>
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<p>Yes, these people were mostly all members of a church in north Texas. Ex-members of that church are now reporting that it was made very clear from church leadership (aka - the pastors) that to vaccinate, you are calling into doubt God’s ability to heal. So if you did vaccinate, it was considered a sin because you were doubting God’s presence to heal. The initial cases of whooping cough were transmitted from a couple of people (I believe they were visitors) who had been overseas, I think in China. But put those people in an environment where a substantial majority of people were not immunized, and an outbreak is what happens. </p>
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<p>There’s just so much wrong with that. If they want to refuse to get the immunizations, then they should start their own preschool just for children who are not immunized if they have such faith that nothing bad is going to happen.</p>