Over the past few years, the voices speaking out against vaccinations against diseases has been over amplified by social media, with the voices of doctors and researchers warning against the "anti-vaxxers" at times drowned out. There've been numerous examples of children succumbing to communicable diseases because their ill-informed and frightened parents couldn't, or wouldn't, weigh the almost infinitesimal risks of vaccination versus the much higher risks of exposing their and other children to diseases.
The New York Times reports on just one example of what happens when parents refuse to vaccinate their children. It's about a 2017 case that was reported this past week in the Center for Disease Control's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. A six year-old boy in Oregon whose parents had declined to have him innoculated against tetanus (and diptheria and pertussis, since it's a combined vaccination -- DPT) came down with tetanus and spent almost 2 months in the hospital at a cost of roughly $800,000.
Oregon seems to be a hot spot for anti-vaxxers, with 7.5% of pre-kindergarden children not being vaccinated. A measles outbreak in the Pacific Northwest in the past few months has finally awakened some parents to vaccinate their children. Health officials in Oregon are cautiously optimistic that the spread of measles there may have convinced parents to vaccinate:
"Refusal or resistance to vaccination — which health experts say can raise the chances of an outbreak by putting at risk people who cannot be immunized for medical reasons — may be connected to a broader anti-vaccination movement, including concerns that vaccines lead to autism, an idea that has been widely debunked. But fears incited by the outbreak could trump those concerns, experts say.Social media companies may also be finally stepping up to their responsibility for the dissemination of false and misleading claims against vaccination. This past Thursday, Facebook announced its intent to control anti-vaxxer propaganda by making its content more difficult to find. YouTube and Pinterest have also announced similar stances.
'I’m an optimist,' said Dr. Jennifer Vines, the deputy health officer for the Multnomah County Health Department. 'But it’s hard to predict long-term,' she added."
We'll see if their actions work, or if they just represent an ineffective, pro-forma response. It's not unreasonable to ask, too, if irresponsible anti-vaxxer organizations can't be held to account in some way for spreading debunked information that results in outbreaks of the kind we've been seeing.
BONUS: It should surprise exactly no one who's the Anti- Vaxxer- in- Chief.
(photo: Before Dr. Jonas Salk developed a vaccine for polio in 1955, the "iron lung" was needed for victims of the disease in order to breathe.)
