To Vaccinate: That Is The Question
Are parents of young children worried about vaccines?
Yes, writes Liza Featherstone in Shot Down: Why so many parents won’t vaccinate—-and what it means to our kids on Babble. And on the top of the list of why they are worried is……..autism.
Featherstone’s article opens with a description of a group of parents and their infants at a playgroup in a baby-proofed apartment with “a lovely view of the Hudson River” and plenty of organic applesauce. The parents are talking about pediatricians and the discussion soon turns to what the doctors’ “stance” on vaccines is:
After an uncomfortable silence, the hostess revealed that her sister had “a lot of education” about vaccines, and she herself was not planning to inject her child with any of that poison. “What about when she goes to school?” we asked, trying not to sound judgmental. Our hostess was unruffled. By that time, she asserted, so many people will be refusing vaccines, that the state laws — which currently require children attending public school or licensed daycare to have up-to-date shots — will have to be changed. “People,” she explained, “are beginning to wake up.”
I am no young parent; my son is fast outgrowing the fleece sweatshirt that fits me fine. Featherstone’s article provides an apt portrayal of the kinds of the “vaccine fear” I have noted in many parents I have known over the years. To explain why she had not had her baby—who was yet again sick—-get the flu vaccine, one of my son’s therapists said she was worrying about “those vaccines” (and that her pediatrician was not happy about it). The special ed parent group in my town sends around regular emails about anti-vaccine legislation. Writes Featherston:
Among well-educated, comfortably off parents, the ranks of vaccine-resistors are increasing. (Of course, plenty of parents fail to vaccinate their kids not by choice, but because they’re poor and lack access to decent healthcare.) Some states with a large number of skeptical, alternative-minded people — Massachusetts, Oregon, Washington, New York — have seen, in the past six years, a declining percentage of children vaccinated against polio, diptheria, measles, mumps and rubella. Of the school requirements, my playgroup hostess may not be far off the mark: it is becoming easier in many states to opt out of vaccinations. ……….
Though parents who don’t vaccinate have usually done mountains of research, and are fluent in the language of evidence and science, they’ll often admit that their decision isn’t ultimately about the facts. Says Lorena, “my gut tells me. I just know that I will not vaccinate my child.” A pediatrician in the Northeast who blogs anonymously on these issues — and accepts non-vaccinators in his practice — tells me that worried inquiries from parents about the autism link have increased, probably because of media coverage. Some people do have bad reactions to vaccines, this doctor acknowledges, “but hysteria is never a good thing. And we’re at near-hysteria right now.” [my emphasis]
It is parents’ “gut” feelings, not :the facts,” that is, Featherstone notes, behind their decisions not to have a child vaccinated. It is not so only the “autism link” that makes parents worried about vaccines, but “media coverage” about a connection. It is not so much science, not “the facts,” not the statistic from government agencies from the Center for Diseases and Control that is behind parents’ decision, but their emotions and that feeling inside that they have to do right by the lovely child in their arms.
Perhaps if we wish to dispel the theory of a vaccine-autism link, we need to answer parents’ concerns with something more and other than facts and figures; with something that speaks not so much to their heads as straight to the heart.
20 opinions for To Vaccinate: That Is The Question
Club 166
Mar 27, 2007 at 12:41 pm
It is somewhat ironic that you have two opposite trends going on simultaneously.
In medicine, doctors are encouraged more and more to pay attention to what’s good for society as a whole, and less on what’s good for individual patients.
Meanwhile, you have parents paying much more attention to what’s good for their individual child, while ignoring any societal benefits.
Parents are playing the odds a bit, and betting that they’ll get away with their wager. They’re betting that enough of those “other people” will get vaccinated that a large outbreak of disease will not occur, and they will both avoid the disease in their child as well as any small risk of a bad reaction to being vaccinated.
I suspect that the first time this all blows up and there is a major outbreak of something like polio that these same self-entitled and self-absorbed parents will be first in line screaming about why they weren’t warned, and why the government is incompetent.
livsparents
Mar 27, 2007 at 1:16 pm
I will freely admit that it is my gut that prevents me from further vaccinations of my two autistic daughters. I will freely admit that the epidemiological eveidence supports no causational link between autism and vaccines.
But I can’t deny that the regression of my daughter was suspiciously timed with the flu vaccines she recieved and the MMR as well. Probably a coincidence, but a valid fear, nonetheless. Like not letting my other kids out after dark, statistically, there is probably no significant difference in accidents, but fear will prevent me from allowing them out.
I completely agree that, in most cases, the fears of the parents are baseless. But in my special case (older daughter with regressive autism, younger daughter showing signs albeit not as severe), I have a somewhat remote, but not totally unwarrented base for my fear…
daedalus2u
Mar 27, 2007 at 1:42 pm
If regression was temporally associated with vaccination, it was most likely due to immune system activation (the function of vaccination), not mercury (toxicity symptoms of mercury are virtually always delayed, sometimes by months (5 months (with no symptoms) in the case of fatal exposure to dimethyl mercury http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=9614258&query_hl=1&itool=pubmed_docsum).
If it is immune system activation, then any non-specific immune system activation will likely have the same effect, a vaccination, or one of the numerous childhood diseases that children get, vaccinated or not. That may be why the epidemiology shows no effect of vaccination on autism rates, but some parents belief there was a time correlation.
I would vaccinate in a heart beat. All my children have been, and are completely up to date.
Usal
Mar 27, 2007 at 2:56 pm
livsparents,
Trust me that the vaccines had nothing to do with it. I’m in my 30’s, and not only am I autistic, but my father and grandfather were also clearly autistic (and my great-grandfather too.) History like that should help with realizing that vaccines had nothing to do with your daughters’ autism. Autism has been around much longer than vaccines. I have no fear of any side affects when it comes to vaccines, my only reason for not getting a flu shot myself every year is a serious fear of needles. A fear that my kids also have (not sure if they developed it on their own or if I unknowingly influenced them.)
This is a subject that really gets me going most of the time. Just as much as the “dentists are purposly killing us with mercury in our fillings” junk as well.
livsparents
Mar 27, 2007 at 3:11 pm
I’d be much more willing to accept the argument of autism being at a constant and severity stable rate if two things could be better clarified:
If there was better documentation of the existence and rate of regressive autism in the past…
If rates of regressive autism as well as severities of autism could be tracked as well.
I am not putting forth any grand conspiracy that either thimeresol or flu or MMR or any other ingredient is wholly responsible for an uptick in rates or severities; but I do wonder about timing of vaccines and the possibility of some kind of combination of factors exaserbating the disorder…
Club 166
Mar 27, 2007 at 3:34 pm
Actually, if we’re talking about auto accidents, more do occur at nighttime. :)
The combination of increased incidence of people consuming alcohol, increased fatigue, and poorer vision/visibility all combine to make driving at night more risky.
And as the rates of autism have increased in countries that don’t have thimerosol in their vaccines (or don’t vaccinate), as well as the fact that autism rates in this country haven’t fallen as thimerosol has been removed from vaccines I’m fairly certain (as certain as I am of anything) that vaccines don’t have anything to do with autism.
That didn’t keep me from thinking long and hard before I vaccinated my own kids, but after examining all of the evidence I could find, I’m comfortable with my position.
ebohlman
Mar 27, 2007 at 4:55 pm
I’m wondering if a lot of the parental worry about vaccination is really a case of “displaced fears”: parents are actually afraid of something else, but either they can’t/won’t come out and talk about it, or the fear is vague and non-specific. As a result, they latch onto an issue like vaccination.
Sociologist Jeffrey Victor suggested that the satanic-abuse and day-care molestation panics of the 80s and early 90s were actually the result of parents being worried about their children’s future in a time of social and economic change. I suspect something similar may be going on with the vaccine panic: parents are feeling (not entirely without good reason) that the world their children are going to grow up into is going to be significantly worse than the world they grew up in. But they may not be able to pin down exactly how it’s going to be worse; it’s a sort of free-floating fear that sometimes “lands” in random places.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Mar 27, 2007 at 5:23 pm
ebohlman: Your mention of “displaced fears” is one I have thought about for a long time. The fear of vaccines seems to be associated with a fear, or rather a distruct, of science and technology, even as these seem more and more to be driving forces in our society and culture. I guess you could say there is a sort of reassurance in being able to point to some single thing as a cause, and especially if that cause is something external.
daedalus2u
Mar 27, 2007 at 7:11 pm
I am pretty sure my mom had Asperger’s. She was born in 1919. I think her mother was on the spectrum too. There have been lots of ASD individuals before the days of vaccines.
I think the “displaced fears” idea is correct. Humans are very good at coming up with explanations for how they feel (which are often wrong). If they feel scared, there must be something to be scared about. In past times, they blamed “witches”. I think that for some people, vaccines are the “witches” of the 21st century.
Humans are also very poor at estimating actual risk based on personal experience. We worry about flying, when driving to the airport is more dangerous than the flight. We worry about irradiated food when food born illnesses kill about 5,000 per year.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/meat/safe/foodborne.html
María Luján
Mar 27, 2007 at 9:16 pm
Hi Kristina
Even when displaced fears can be part of some kind of reactions of certain people, an immunedepressed child ( severely defficient of IgA total and secretory plus a lot lot lot of other medical issues. undetected/undiagnosed/untreated between the first and second years ) nutritionally imbalanced, biochemically dysregulated should have been not vaccinated following the CDC advice.
And he was.
My son…
Nothing in Autism is simple.
I, like livsparents, accept that epidemiology has found no link- such it has been done. Genetic epidemiology has not been done and lack of data is a real problem to have any conclussions on numbers.
The immune system is by far more complex than previoulsy considered. The connection immune-gut-brain is more and more studied and analyzed today. The increased amounts of receptors and messengers (multiple) are more and more researched.
I do think that oversimplification is really a problem in this issue.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Mar 27, 2007 at 9:40 pm
Over-complexity seems de rigueur—–sometimes I think of this issue as a chicken and egg sort of question.
My maternal grandfather was, I think, on the spectrum.
Jez Rourke
Mar 28, 2007 at 1:29 am
I know a lot of people who are now vaccinating their kids when they’re 4 years old, which seems to be a decent trade off. It makes sense. You’re not vaccinating an infant and by the age of four, one would certainly be aware of developmental deficits. So it does seem to me to be sensible. Vaccinations serve a very important purpose and have stopped the ravages of fatal diseases that were epidemics. So it would seem sensible to vaccinate one’s children. But maybe at an age where the body size is bigger and their immune system stronger.
Having said that, I do know adults and military personnel who seem to have been damaged by vaccinations that were required for them to visit certain countries. I’m not a big “drug” person myself anyway. I do believe that with any drug, there are always a downside. But fatal diseases have a huge downside as well.
I’ve accomplished the shedding of no light on this subject although I did intend to. It seems like vaccinations will remain for a long time questionable at the very least. Given what we know about autism spectrum disorders, there’s no question that we sometimes try things that just don’t help. But I think I speak for all parents and for the Hippocratic Oath as well, for sure we all want to “First Do No Harm.”
daedalus2u
Mar 28, 2007 at 8:29 pm
A problem is that the “first do no harm”, is a myth. All treatments have side effects. All therapeutic effects must therefore be balanced against potential side effects.
Delaying vaccination poses the risk that the child will develop the disease before vaccination. If the child is an only child, living on a farm with no siblings and not in daycare, perhaps the chances of exposure to some of these diseases is small enough that it might be worth thinking about. But if the child lives in a city, goes to daycare, has siblings that do these things, the chances of exposure increase greatly.
Karen
Mar 29, 2007 at 2:12 pm
My brother was vaccinated late — three or four — and he went from a gifted speaking child who learned to read and count by himself at eighteen months to being unable to speak, hand-flapping, screeching, biting.
Usal
Mar 29, 2007 at 3:25 pm
Karen,
I’d be willing to bet that the vaccinations had nothing to do with it. Getting shots was tramatic for me (and still is today) but I don’t see them as having had any affect on me physically. I also had a language delay that started when I was three. But my mom did not panic, and did not worry and suddenly I woke up one morning when I was six and was speaking way ahead of my peers, my mom described it as suddenly going from two-three word sentences to speaking as clearly and completely as an adult overnight.
And I still flap my hands sometimes, and rock back and forth (not sometimes, more like often.) It’s not a bad thing really.
Karen
Mar 29, 2007 at 3:39 pm
Usal, hi,
My family believes Scott was born autistic, but we also tend to be wary of vaccinations because it jumped so much after he got them. My grandparents go back and forth on whether they think the mercury did something or no, simply because it’s still being looked at and has so much information coming yet.
Scotty’s ‘outgrown’ the flapping and the biting — a couple times on hydergen helped with that, I firmly believe, but mostly I think he’s grown up. All little kids have trouble expressing themselves, so it’s harder for a nonverbal, I think.
Also, my grandparents didn’t think it was funny, the way my mother did, to tell Scotty, “Go bite Karen, she’s being bad!” They understood that it was not a behavior that should be encouraged!
He still screeches, but we moved from being less than a mile away from SFX to the suburbs of Dallas, so I think that without the airplane noises bothering him, he doesn’t need to cover his ears and mask offending noises as much anymore.
Chris
Mar 29, 2007 at 4:52 pm
Today I had to take my son for his boosters. It was his well check up, he turned 4 in December and I have been putting it off. It is not htat I think the shots are bad–I JUST THINK MY SON CAN NOT TOLLERATE THEM_ESPECIALLY ALL AT ONCE! I have kept a journal about him, and when he started regressing, and we have made so much progress in the last 8 months I just could not do it. I was watching my son sit up on the table, and he heard a baby crying in the other room. He jumped off the table and said” Oh NO its a baby”, the baby has a booboo”. He ran to the door and went searching for the baby in the other room. He went right up to the baby and saw her mother giving her a bottle. He smiled and seemed pleased she was ok, I told him see its ok her mommy is with her and we left. As I was putting on his boots in the lobby he heard her again, and ran back to the room.—8 months ago he did not even make us aware of his own booboo. this is a child who was lost for 2 hours after he escaped out the cat door in the basement and was found naked in a local store. he could not say his name, or answer any questions. he was 3 1/2–he is also a boy who in a moment would climb to the top of a pine tree in our yard, 100 feet+up. we called for him but could not find him because he did not know how to answer to his name. I looked up and saw the top of the tree moving- my husband had to climb up and get him and then got out the chainsaw and cut the branches off 6 feet high. He has come so far–I went from not acknoledging my husband or I comming and going from the house to. 8 months ago he realised it, adn tantrumed. He learned how to process it and now he says–MOMMY IS HOME and runs to me, for a hug! I will say hi BOB adn he will look up and say NO I’M AIDAN and smile. I did not want to loose all that progress. It is so much work and it seems to be happening fast at times. IN OCT I took in all my kids for flu shoots- I did not want to do it–But I thought this will be a test- It was very shortly after his shot-he checked out- he did not mind the shot adn was happy to get he bandaid, actually that is when he made the connection booboo/bandaid- adn then he was gone. It took 5 days to get him back and another 2 to get him back into a routine. We were back to non-stop tantrums and just NO to everything. He ignored all of us, even his sisters, it was very hard to watch and go threw. I gave him a mud bath to speed up the elimination of it and he started to check back in with us. It was a week and it scared me to death. I just could not do it today, and I do not think I will do it all at once even if we decide to go ahead. I will have it seperated. But I have alot to look at first.
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Apr 1, 2007 at 6:18 pm
[…] no credible scientific evidence for a link between vaccines and autism, the belief—the “gut feeling“—persists in some parents of autistic children, and hangs over the heads of parents […]
Erin
Apr 4, 2007 at 12:40 pm
I have always been wary of vaccinations, and when I found out I was pregnant I immediatly began my research. I have found many articles going both ways. Some artciles link auto-immune disorders (not just autism) to vaccines, and some dont. After spending days and months researching it, I decided to go with my gut. I do not see how it is neccesary for my son, at the age of 8 months, to be vaccinated against all these diseases. He is not in a playgroup or a daycare, and very rarely does he even see other children. He will be homeschooled, so he wont even need them then.
I plan to have him on a delayed schedule of vaccinations. I think by the time he is 3 or 4 I will feel more comfortable with it, but I am very happy with my decision to hold off for now.
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Apr 7, 2007 at 1:45 am
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