To vaccinate or not to vaccinate our children has become a very controversial topic in recent years and in my opinion I think it is very important to vaccinate and protect our children. Children are helpless and vulnerable creatures and it is our duty to protect them as much as possible. I know with my children I will be vaccinating them with the suggested vaccination to ensure protection.
An article I came across looked into outbreaks of diseases, specifically measles and pertussis, to determine whether or not vaccinated people got the disease in comparison to non-vaccinated people. What they found was mostly significant with regards to measles. They found that in 1416 cases of measles more than half (56.8%) of the unvaccinated population for measles contracted this disease. Many of these cases were eligible for vaccination, but were intentionally unvaccinated (Phadke et. al., 2016).
Another study focused on influenza and the effects it would have on total illness rates in the US if our children are vaccinated for influenza. They found that if only 20% of our children are vaccinated that it would decrease the total contraction rate by 46% and if it was 80% coverage for influenza it would decrease by 91% (Weycker et. al., 2005). These data are very significant and are important to notice. If we can just vaccinate our children, we wouldn't only be protecting them, but we would also be protecting millions of other Americans.
References:
Phadke VK, Bednarczyk RA, Salmon DA, Omer SB. Association Between Vaccine Refusal and Vaccine-Preventable Diseases in the United States: A Review of Measles and Pertussis. JAMA. 2016 Mar 15;315(11):1149-58. doi: 10.1001/jama.2016.1353. Erratum in: JAMA. 2016 May 17;315(19):2125. Erratum in: JAMA. 2016 May 17;315 (19):2125. PMID: 26978210; PMCID: PMC5007135.
Weycker D, Edelsberg J, Halloran ME, Longini IM Jr, Nizam A, Ciuryla V, Oster G. Population-wide benefits of routine vaccination of children against influenza. Vaccine. 2005 Jan 26;23(10):1284-93. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2004.08.044. PMID: 15652671.
Hi Whitney,
ReplyDeleteThat is some profound data you found in those studies. Over the last several years, we have heard of many people opting their children out of vaccinations for various reasons. Maybe because they believe vaccines cause other disorders such as autism, or they are not 'natural' and contain harmful substances such as mercury, and therefore should not be injection into humans.
As someone who plans to vaccinate her children, I hope that fellow parents will choose to do the same not only for the good of their own children, but for mine as well. What we choose as individuals impacts those around us.
So, as medical providers, what ought they do to respect the autonomy of the parent, but do good for the community? How should they navigate the conversations with a resistant parent? What, if any, regulations should be in place to keep our community safe?
For example, in order to participate in high school sports, I needed to be up-to-date on all of my vaccinations. Should we allow children who are unvaccinated to put other children at risk? Or should we only allow exceptions for individuals who are immunocompromised and cannot receive certain vaccines?
There does not seem to be a clear answer, but as a future PA I plan to provide my patients with proper education and facts so they may use their autonomy to make a decision for themselves and their families.
We discussed the antivax crisis in depth in my RCC class taught by Dr. Betjemann my sophomore year. I think that vaccinating children is important, especially after seeing the effects the current pandemic has on our society. For children who are unable to get vaccinated the ones who do get vaccinated are able to protect those children who can't via herd immunity. If more people chose to not vaccinate their children even ones who do get vaccinated are at risk for getting the disease. Therefore, scientists and researchers need to come up with better ways to assure the public of vaccine safety to ensure that more people vaccinate their children.
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