<p>Somebody asked me this question today and I couldn’t decided what I thought.</p>
<p>On one hand, this is America and people should have the freedom to decide what is best for their children (how far should government control how you live?) and some have religious reasons for not doing it.</p>
<p>On the other hand, there’s no evidence that proves vaccines are bad and if kids go to public schools without being vaccinated, they could give diseases to children too young to be vaccinated.</p>
<p>Herd immunisation is absolutely necessary to protect the small percentage of the population who cannot, for medical or other non-negotiable reasons, receive vaccines. If less than 80%, maybe 70% of the population is vaccinated against a disease, chances of those without the vaccine catching the disease are significantly higher than if over 80% of the population is vaccinated.</p>
<p>Vaccinations should be required by law. Your responsibility to protect your child – as well as other children around them – from disease and possible death is overwhelmingly in the public interest and also an ethical imperative. Your right not to vaccinate because of religious objections or because you “think” vaccines don’t work (when they have been proven to do so) stops at the point when it endangers a child–your own or others. In my book, no exceptions.</p>
<p>When vaccines were aimed at truly deadly and debilitating diseases (polio, smallpox), you could argue the point.</p>
<p>These days though, vaccines seem to be all about the money. Their safety is inadequately tested (Gardasil for example), their efficacy unknown (flu vaccine, chicken pox vaccine), the public benefit highly questionable (look up the NNV’s for some vaccines), their long term effects discounted (chicken pox vaccine again). </p>
<p>The vaccine manufacturers have managed to get themselves legally absolved of all responsibility from potential harm from their vaccines, providing even less incentive to conduct adequate trials and safety testing, and creating incentive to come up with vaccines for diseases which are not that serious (from a societal standpoint). And they are heavily lobbying for their new vaccines to be required by law.</p>
<p>And regardless of whether you think vaccines cause autism, the number of vaccines recommended these days for babies with developing immune systems is much greater than when we were babies, and is increasing. At some point you have to wonder if they are doing harm.</p>
<p>There should be a formula that assesses the risk of certain diseases affecting the population at large and as a public safety measure vaccinations of those diseases should be required, in my opinion. What the formula should be and what the risk should be is subject for debate as I have no knowledge how they should be done. </p>
<p>My son’s good friend some years ago got whooping cough and it really brought him down though he was a strapping, healthly middle schooler at the time. To see first hand what this now nearly extinct disease can do would make anyone reassess not getting their little one vaccinated. It was chillingly clear that this is a killer. We have become far too insulated from seeing the deadliness of some of these diseases and can cavalierly dismiss them when they are not in front of our faces. A student we knew died from the swine flu. That these episodes are few is because of the vaccinations we have available. Sometimes I feel we need a good epidemic to get the attention of some of these fools that don’t want to vaccinate their kids. </p>
<p>Notrichenough, I know what you are saying and agree that there are some vaccines out there that are questionable, but chicken pox is not one of them. I lived in deadly fear of chicken pox when one my kids was diagnosed with cancer. Every year the oncology unit lost at least one child from complications with CP. I had some solace in that my child had had the disease so he was not likely to get a life threatening case of it, but chemo wipes out much of the protection of the immunizations. Cancer patients and others with immune system issues live in a fear of this disease. It is of huge help that the target group is immunized. You had better believe that my two youngest got CP vaccinations. If they were to ever get any immune system issues like their brother did, at least they would have some residual protection which unvaccinated kids do not have.</p>
<p>A quick google search shows the chicken pox vaccine seems to have reduced the annual number of deaths from chicken pox from 140-ish per year to 60-ish per year (<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/03/health/03vaccine.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/03/health/03vaccine.html</a>). It requires vaccinating on the order of 40,000 kids to prevent each death. And there is a lot of concern that vaccinating all the kids for chicken pox will lead to higher incidences of shingles in adults, which is a much more serious disease.</p>
<p>From a public health perspective, does this make sense? What even led a company to create this vaccine, given the miniscule (in relative terms) benefit? Answer - they gambled they could convince public officials to require it, and they won - cha-ching!</p>
<p>Here’s a very interesting article on flu vaccines:</p>
<p>nope, but if there is a reasonable case that an infection was caused by a non protected person, I hope that family who caused the infection be placed into penal servitude. And if a life is lost, then poverty for life. </p>
<p>A HS junior died from the flu this past weekend in Oregon. No 3, to die. Health department recommends a flu shot. Sad for that family but they took the risk of not having a flu shot vs a free shot at a health clinic or $30 at Walgreens.</p>
<p>If you ever had the shingles as an adult. You’d wish to had one.
If you ever had the shingles on the face, I hope that you/family get to pay the hospital/doctor’s bill.</p>
<p>The oughta be a requirement of the insurance company: no vaccination-no coverage if you get sick from the lack of that vaccination.</p>
Do you know for a fact the student died from the flu? Do you know for a fact that he wasn’t vaccinated? Did he have any complicating medical issues?</p>
<p>According to the article I linked to, possibly as few as 7 or 8% of people whose cause of death is listed as the flu, actually had the flu and not some other bug.</p>
<p>Us early Babyboomers remember when parents were afraid that their children or any child would get German Measles. (google if you need to know why)</p>
<p>I remember when a good third of the class would be out sick for a run of one of the childhood virus ( measles, chickenpox, mumps.) I guaranteed that you remember those illness, if you were over 6 yo at time of illness.</p>
<p>Most states have laws that require vaccinations before a child can be enrolled in school. The vaccinations covered by these laws are measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis, tetanus and several others. There are health and religious exemptions but likely the vast majority of our children are vaccinated.</p>
<p>But no matter how many Americans are vaccinated, in this age of air travel, one person from another country with a communicable disease puts at risk all those who cannot or have not been vaccinated. </p>
<p>And restaurants in LA and other large cities periodically have alerts for all patrons to be tested for hepatitis when a carrier (illegal restaurant worker?) has contaminated the food.</p>
<p>longprime: That would be fair, I think, if vaccines were covered by insurance-- and for adults they so often are not. Given that, that sort of a requirement seems a little counter-intuitive.</p>
<p>as of last nite, cause of death is listed as flu, pending definitive study. Not sure if this will take place - Oregon has a lot of noncomformists. Recommendation by county health is to get a flu shot. I suppose that someone could die from pneumonia, of heart failure, or kidney failure but getting the flu sure didn’t help the underlying health condition or could have caused the encouragement of opportunist diseases.</p>
<p>Remember, HIV-AIDS, is never the cause of death.</p>
Thanks to the vaccine, my chances of getting shingles may very well be higher.</p>
<p>Many doctors are recommending boosters for kids, and they will probably need them as adults too, because the immunity from the vaccine seems to wear off.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the immunity from the mild case I got when I was ten, and the re-exposure I got from when my kids got chicken pox, will be far more effective.</p>
<p>This vaccine might make sense if you reach adulthood without having ever had chicken pox. Almost everyone I know that is my age had chicken pox as a kid. Anyone remember chicken pox parties?</p>
<p>Prior infection with chicken pox doesn’t protect you from shingles. Having had the chicken pox actually puts you at risk for shingles later on in life.</p>
<p>I have four children and one has a medical exemption from vaccines. At 6 months, she had a severe reaction to a combined vaccine of Dpt, Hep B and Polio (Pediarix) and had the dreaded high pitched scream then followed by seizures. The seizures were off and on for another two years. At age 2 yrs. she was diagnosed with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis and was unable to walk --it effected both ankles and both knees. JRA is an auto-immune disorder and she has been on injections of Methotrexate (used in chemotherapy because it stops the production of cells within the body, and it works in the similar way for JRA -stops the productions of cells that cause the joints to swell and inflame). The Methotrexate suppresses the immune system and therefore our Ped. advises against the risk of vaccines into her body while on the immune suppressing medication. The Methotrexate has put her into what they term, “a medicated remission”, but polyarticular JRA is often lifelong (medications will be necessary most likley for her lifetime in other words).</p>
<p>I guess I just want others to know, is that I am glad that I can make decisions about my daughter’s health, along with my doctor, and not have the government decide for us. The CDC certainly didn’t hold my screaming infant when she was 6 mos., nor did they care when she had seizures for 2 years., nor did they carry her when she was unable to walk for a year and a half before the medications began to work (she had steroid injections into her knees every 4-6 mos.). They could care less about us. So, unless it’s your child that’s been injured by a vaccine, I guess no one can really understand why there should be exemptions.</p>
<p>^^I’m sorry about your little girl, jkiwmom. I also had a daughter who had a terrible reaction to the dpt vaccine at nine months - non-stop screaming for several hours, and was unable to walk or stand. Fortunately, in our case, it didn’t cause any lasting harm that we know of. The doctor took out the Pertussis part of the vaccine for the follow up shots, and she didn’t have any more reactions other than fever for the boosters. BTW, the doc was not surprised about the reaction. Not uncommon, apparently.
I agree that parents should have the final say regarding vaccines. I’m surprised so many here think that the government should be able to require that our kids be subjected to whatever the drug companies put out. Haven’t we learned anything over the years? Everyone is different and has different sensitivities. If your kid is in that high risk group, you shouldn’t need an act of congress or have to lie about religious beliefs in order to forgo a vaccine.
I’m not a “get government out of my life” type either, but when it comes to injections of compounds that can cause harm, I think the doc and the parent should be able to make that decision, not the government.</p>
<p>I am a school nurse and agree that vaccinations should be required by law for entry to school. We do have a handful of children in our school who have medical exemptions or religious exemptions. Sadly, a 25-year-old woman pregnant woman just died last week from H1N1 flu here in town. Her baby, born prematurely, is in critical condition. The woman had not had the flu vaccine which is recommended to everyone over the age of six months (except those allergic to eggs or those who have had an adverse reaction to the flu vaccine previously). Her stepfather said that she “just wasn’t informed enough to get the flu shot”. It’s very sad.</p>
<p>One of our after-school childcare workers recently had a case of the mumps. She is 53-years-old and was very ill for several weeks. She had never had an MMR and didn’t know where or how she had contracted the mumps.</p>
<p>I support vaccinations and think they should generally be required. Our kids will be getting every one of them.</p>
<p>Exemptions should be made for genuine religious reasons.</p>
<p>In our country, we have the right to practice the religion that we choose, or not to practice religion at all should we so choose. Our employers can generally not discriminate (i.e, fire employees) against people who practice a particular religion. Our government can’t choose to provide services to Christians and refuse to Muslims, or provide services to Jews and refuse to Buddahists, etc, etc. </p>
<p>In turn, if a person has a genuine religion objection to a vaccination, we can’t deny them a free public education, anymore than we could deny a free education to Islamic practicioners.</p>
<p>Personally, I’d probably reconsider being part of any religion that objected to immunizations. But that is just me.</p>