The question is often whispered, the questioners sheepish. But increasingly, parents at the New York playground where Dr. Elizabeth A. Comen takes her young children have been asking her: "Do you vaccinate your kids?"Comen, an oncologist who has treated patients for cancers related to the human
The question is often whispered, the questioners sheepish. But increasingly, parents at the New York playground where Dr. Elizabeth A. Comen takes her young children have been asking her: “Do you vaccinate your kids?”
Though the situation may seem improbable to some, anti-vaccine sentiment has been building for decades, a byproduct of an internet humming with rumor and misinformation; the backlash against Big Pharma; an infatuation with celebrities that gives special credence to the anti-immunization statements from actors like Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey and Alicia Silverstone, rapper Kevin Gates and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.; and now, the Trump administration’s anti-science rhetoric.
Story continuesIt remains true that the overwhelming majority of American parents have their children vaccinated. Parent-driven groups like Voices for Vaccines, formed to counter anti-vaccination sentiment, have proliferated. Five states have eliminated exemptions for religious and philosophical reasons, permitting only medical opt-outs.
Public health experts say that patients and many doctors may not appreciate the severity of diseases that immunizations have thwarted, like polio, which can affect the spinal cord and brain — because they probably have not seen cases. The women intimidated her. They had advanced degrees; she had only a Bachelor of Science and a nursing background.
Then, in 1998, Andrew Wakefield, a British gastroenterologist, published a Lancet study , associating the MMR vaccine with autism. Relatively few people are absolutists about refusing all vaccines. “But if you’re uncertain about a decision, you’ll find those who confirm your bias and cement what you think,” said Rupali J. Limaye, a social scientist who studies vaccine behaviors at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The definition of a good parent was becoming fraught with the responsibility for overseeing every aspect of a child’s life. By 2014, studies showed that parental confidence in authorities like the CDC and in pediatricians was dropping, especially around vaccines. Mistrust of Big Pharma was even more pronounced.
In 2011, shortly after Emma Wagner had given birth in Savannah, Georgia, a pediatrician on the ward examined the baby. “He asked me if I was interested in the hepatitis B vaccine,” she said of an inoculation typically done at birth.He replied, “‘That’s fine, because your 2-day-old daughter isn’t a prostitute and isn’t using IV drugs, so hep B isn’t at the top of my worries.’”
With so many different but deeply held convictions, public health experts struggle to design vaccine-positive campaigns.
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