SFGate: We need to uproot fear of immunizations

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More BS, in case anyone wants to send comments,...

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The original article can be found on SFGate.com here:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2010/04/21/ED0M1D11DB.DTL

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Wednesday, April 21, 2010 (SF Chronicle)

We need to uproot fear of immunizations

Liza Gross,Sharon R. Kaufman

On April 7, hearings began to decide whether Wakefield, the British

physician whose speculative theories triggered a global vaccine scare, is

guilty of serious professional misconduct. Wakefield's research practices

were recently denounced by Britain's General Medical Council, prompting

The Lancet - which published his 1998 study linking the measles, mumps,

rubella vaccine with autism - to issue a full retraction.

Overwhelming scientific evidence refutes a connection between autism and

the MMR vaccine or mercury-based preservatives or anything else in

vaccines - leading the federal court charged with hearing thousands of

claims pinning autism on vaccines to reject test cases proposing two

different causal theories.

Scientists and doctors think any one of these rebukes should have

reassured parents. Yet, even now, 1 in 4 parents thinks vaccines cause

autism. Assuming parents don't understand the science, health officials

usually just restate the evidence for vaccine safety. But in doing so,

they misjudge how parents think about risk, experts and their

responsibility to their children.

Today's parents are keenly aware of environmental risks, from lead in toys

to toxic chemicals in baby bottles. And many are angry that government

officials failed to ward off such hazards. Why should they believe

experts' assurances about vaccines and autism?

It doesn't help that science can't explain the apparent explosion of

autism cases, now an average of 1 in 110 children, which just happened to

coincide with an expanded childhood vaccine schedule. And now, filled with

vaccine doubts, many parents no longer view childhood immunization as

their civic responsibility but as a personal responsibility - and

potential risk - to their children. So they try to learn as much about

vaccines as possible from as many sources as possible. And they inevitably

encounter the profusion of commentary blaming vaccines for autism. Their

research doesn't dispel doubt, but raises more questions. As a result,

more parents are choosing pediatricians who will delay or skip

vaccinations, break the MMR vaccinations into separate shots, or even give

no vaccinations at all.

This trend explains why more than half of parents surveyed in a recent

C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll shunned the H1N1 vaccine,

which experts warn is far deadlier to children than seasonal flu - and why

1 in 8 has refused at least one recommended vaccine.

Unvaccinated children face a higher risk of contracting measles, flu and

other preventable diseases - and can infect others. Where pockets of

vaccine refusal occur, clusters of outbreaks follow. Restoring skeptical

parents' trust in vaccines won't be easy. Attempts to do so by recounting

the facts haven't worked so far.

It's easier to dismiss the risks of a disease when you haven't seen its

victims. Most parents of young children don't remember how deadly measles

can be - or how fast it can spread. But they see kids with autism nearly

every day. Health experts know all too well what it's like to watch a

child die from a vaccine-preventable disease. They need to make the

prospect of a measles infection as real as that of living with autism.

Parents who refuse vaccination do so thinking the risk of infection is

low. Some bet that vaccinated kids will protect their own. But as more

people make that choice, chances are they'll lose that bet. Let's hope it

doesn't take an epidemic to show them.

Liza Gross is a science writer. Sharon R. Kaufman is a professor of

medical anthropology at UCSF.

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