By: Jennifer Carter, Web Editor
Within the past ten years, an old movement gained new momentum on social media sites and blogs urging parents to refrain from vaccinating their young children. Parents appeared to lead the movement, with many spreading the debunked rumor that vaccines cause autism, spearheaded by celebrity Jenny McCarthy.[1] This year, the World Health Organization (“WHO”) listed the anti-vaccination movement as one of the top ten threats to global health.[2] Yet, “Anti-Vaxxers” are prevalent today and the effects of this movement are revealing themselves as children lacking vaccination age.
There was a time when vaccinations for diseases like polio and smallpox were seen as miracles. To understand the hesitancy to vaccinate, the history of vaccines themselves must be briefly examined. Vaccines have been around in their earliest forms since the 18th century.[3] Following the creation of the vaccine in 1798, smallpox disappeared from the planet; the last case of smallpox was reported in October of 1977.[4] Generally, however, diseases are not eradicated, but cases are reduced exponentially, especially in the United States where schools require vaccination of children.[5]
In the United States, there is no federal requirement for children entering schools to obtain vaccination, but each state requires specific vaccines by law, with exceptions of course.[6] The Supreme Court ruled in 1905 in Jacobson v. Massachusetts that a mandatory smallpox vaccination was constitutional intrusion on a person’s liberty because it had a real and substantial relationship to public health and safety.[7] The CDC echoes this sentiment, espousing that the spread of disease is contained only when most people are vaccinated against it.[8]
The result of this trend to avoid vaccinations lead to measles outbreaks in the United States from 2013-2015.[9] In fact, 2018 saw the highest rates of measles infection in Europe in twenty years.[10] The anti-vaccination movement gained enough foothold in Europe for the WHO to publish a 2016 document entitled “How to respond to vocal vaccine deniers in public.”[11] In order to avoid further outbreaks of all but eradicated diseases, most children need to be vaccinated. This sentiment is evidenced by U.S. states’ requirements for children to have up-to-date shots before entering school, where disease has a perfect opportunity to flourish.
As children that were not vaccinated age into adults, some have opted to get vaccinated, and have taken to social media to broadcast the need for frank discussions with medical professionals regarding vaccinations.[12] There are many resources popping up as children find out they lack vaccination and want to get immunized over their parents’ wishes.[13]
While there is no doubt that some children should not be vaccinated for medical or religious reasons, states are well within their rights to police immunization of children in order to prevent outbreaks of deadly diseases in their schools and communities. As with any other medical question, doctors and researchers should be the forum that parents seek out for medical care of their children, and as always, social media sources should be fact checked before being mistaken as fact.
Sources:
[1] http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0804/02/lkl.01.html, last visited January 19, 2019.
[2] https://www.who.int/emergencies/ten-threats-to-global-health-in-2019, last visited January 19, 2019.
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_controversies#Variolation, last visited January 19, 2019.
[4] https://www.cdc.gov/MMWR/preview/mmwrhtml/00049694.htm, last visited January 19, 2019.
[5] https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/whatifstop.htm, January 19, 2019.
[6] https://vaccines.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=003597, last visited January 19, 2019.
[7] Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 25 S. Ct. 358 (1905).
[8] https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/whatifstop.htm, last visited January 19, 2019.
[9] https://measlesrubellainitiative.org/anti-vaccination-movement/, last visited January 19, 2019.
[10] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/21/measles-cases-at-highest-for-20-years-in-europe-as-anti-vaccine-movement-grows, last visited January 19, 2019.
[11] http://measlesrubellainitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Best-Practice-Guidance-Respond-Vocal-Vaccine-Deniers.pdf, last visited January 19, 2019.
[12] https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/allthemoms/2019/01/06/woman-rejects-parents-anti-vaccination-belief-got-all-her-vaccinations-viral-reddit-post/2496193002/, last visited January 19, 2019.
[13] https://vaxopedia.org/2018/09/25/how-can-i-get-vaccinated-if-my-parents-are-anti-vaccine/, last visited January 19, 2019.
