As you travel south toward Orange County, California, the homes you see become larger and more expensive. Unsurprisingly, these homeowners are wealthier than their northern counterparts. Look through the medical records of the wealthiest families’ children and another trend becomes apparent, a more dangerous one that might endanger children far beyond this enclave.
As Matt Zahn, medical director of Epidemiology and Assessment for the Orange County Health Care Agency told The Guardian, “The rate of immunization falls as you go north to south. It tracks the socioeconomic statistics in the country.” For example, at the Capistrano Unified school district, the Guardian reports that 9.5 percent of children are not fully vaccinated because of their parent’s beliefs, as opposed to 0.2 percent of kindergartners at the nearby and poorer Santa Ana Unified district.
In another article about the relationship between wealth and non-vaccination rates, The Atlantic published that in some schools, up to 60 to 70 percent of parents have filled “personal belief exemptions,” which rivals a vaccination rate as low as Chad or South Sudan.
However, those parents who choose to exempt their children from receiving vaccines are doing more than asserting their “personal beliefs.” The article in The Atlantic emphasizes that, “Vaccines work through herd immunity. A community can only be protected when 92 percent or more of a population is immunized…” As can be easily seen in Wikipedia infographic, when a critical portion of a population is vaccinated, it prevents the spread of illnesses, which is especially important for individuals too young to be inoculated, or with medical conditions that “make vaccination risky, as well as the few who receive the vaccine but don’t derive immunity from it.”
This information proves essential in light of the ongoing measles outbreak that started at Disneyland, with 51 confirmed cases; all of the infected individuals had not been vaccinated for the disease. Already, the nation has seen a 350 percent increase in the measles caseload, which according to U-T San Diego has intensified the controversy surrounding those parents who exempt their children from vaccination.
When the nation began routinely inoculating children with the measles, rubella and mumps vaccine, measles was no longer considered a public health role. However, a 1998 publication (later discredited and retracted — it’s clear vaccines are safe) stating that the ingredients of vaccines are linked to autism, sparked hysteria among some parents, and activated the anti-vaccination movement. As the number of autism cases also began to rise, some parents, most notably former porn star Jenny McCarthy, began to speak out (very loudly) against vaccination, which she blamed for her son’s own case of autism. Though that 1998 paper has since been retracted and discredited, the anti-vaccination movement is thriving and the number of non-vaccinated children continues to increase, especially in California and Oregon.
Barbara Loe Fisher, director of the National Vaccine Information Center, an anti-vaccination organization, told U-T San Diego that she distrusts healthcare practitioners’ claims about the importance of vaccination. She told the publication, “We do not truly understand the scope of vaccine injury…We need to give respect to parents who are trying to do the best for their children.”
But health care providers and scientists disagree with her perspective and consider it even dangerous. As discussed in an L.A. Times editorial, the Disneyland outbreak (which is already spreading beyond Orange County) serves as an important reminder of what we stand to lose if even a few individuals behave irresponsibly.
(Photo courtesy of davebloggs007)
The truly sad part of all this anti-vaccination rhetoric is that children will needlessly end up dying.
I’m of the opinion that parents who don’t vaccinate their children should be prosecuted for child abuse. If their child dies, for murder.
Everyone has the right to protect their child. Everyone also has the right to protect their children from the possible harmful or fatal beliefs of others.
Parents who expose innocent people to infection because their beliefs complel them not to vaccinate their kids should be held responsible for the damage this causes.
I think if you don’t vaccinate your child, your health insurance company should be allowed to raise your rates to help cover the illnesses that you’re causing.
Nor should their children be allowed to attend public school, or play with other children. They should not be allowed to go to stores (deliveries only), public events or participate in politics. They should, however, be allowed to attend church.
Noel – I find your notion that people who vaccinate their children see it as a silver bullet that will protect them from “everything” is ludicrous. Pediatric care professionals, who are the primary contacts for parents, don’t make this weird claim during the vaccination discussions. After almost 40 years in this field, I have never once heard this spoken or inferred at any of the hundreds of clinics where I have gladly offered my time and expertise.
I grew up in South Orange County and attended Capo Valley public schools from first thru 12th grade. In the 70s, when I was a kid, we all used to compare chicken pox scars on the playground. I was the luckiest one, with only one small scar. Everyone else had worse scars than me, even though I had chicken pox twice. We also all knew of stories of some poor child at school who had had to be hospitalized with complications associated with chicken pox. And, of course, our grandparents all had stories about the suffering associated with measles, mumps, diphtheria, and polio.
Why have these stories been forgotten in this part of California? Is everyone a patient in Bob Sears practice and just takes his word for it that these diseases are no big deal and vaccines are worse? He is lying to you all! I wish everyone who questions vaccines would read Paul Offit’s books. He does an amazing job of presenting the science in a readable way and all the profits from his book sales go to the Autism Science Foundation. You will learn why vaccines have far greater benefits than risks.
Noel, that is the first time a vaccinated patient has ever given measles to others. Not an argument not to vaccinate.
Thanks for speaking up Noel! It’s alarming how quickly people are willing to turn on other intelligent Americans who choose not to vaccinate. We are increasing the categories of people it’s okay to hate: Christians, Jews, and those who don’t vaccinate.
I just snorted I laughed so hard at this silly comment.
You don’t want to go into argument, then instantly say the bit about “false understanding.”
Maybe you legitimately don’t know how vaccines work, and that’s ok. Vaccines by design can not work 100% of the time. It’s just how our bodies work.
Imagine 50 zebras with all of their dizzying stripes. Now imagine 40 zebras with stripes, and 10 zebras that think stripes make your teeth fall out and don’t get them. 20% of the heard is now making the rest of the heard vulnerable to attack by the lion looking on. If the lion isn’t as confused as she goes in for the kill (because of the 20% reduction in stripes), she’ll have an easier time picking off ANY one lion. You have to have as much of the heard protected in order to limit the damage from the bad guys.