Vaccination Alert
Dan Onion, MD, MPH
Mt. Vernon/Vienna Health Officer
293-2076; dkonion@gmail.com
May 17, 2015
Last fall I wrote about the decreasing immunization rates among Maine school children and the threat that poses to all of us, especially them and their peers (September 2014 Mt. Vernon Newsletter). Tom Ward of Mt. Vernon alerted me today to the state-wide reports from the Maine Center for Disease Control of Measles/Mumps/Rubella (MMR) immunization rates in kindergarten and first grade for each Maine school. The report is very worrisome (http://www.pressherald.com/2015/05/17/state-data-show-dangerous-levels-…). Some grade schools in Maine have under 80% of children vaccinated in kindergarten and first grade.
State health policies for years have required full immunization of children before they can enter school, for the protection of all; exceptions for religious and medical reasons have never exceeded 1-2%. The recent report shows that parents of 4% of Mt. Vernon elementary school kindergarteners and 13% of first graders have not immunized their children against MMR for “philosophical reasons”, a new opt-out category now allowed by recent state legislation. Other nearby schools have done better. The Vienna/New Sharon Cape Cod Hill school reports 7% of kindergarteners and 3% of first graders have “philosophically” opted out of MMR immunizations, 3% and 0% respectively in Manchester, and 5% and 5% in Farmington.
As I explained in my article last year, overall population resistance to infectious diseases, when immunization levels exceed 90%, is called “herd immunity” by scientists. When immunization rates drop below that level, there is a large enough pool of susceptible children present to sustain an epidemic.
Why are more parents declining to immunize their kids? Many parents understandably may worry that the number of shots recommended nowadays seems excessive. It certainly is more than our generation endured. But the return in reduced illness and mortality is substantial.
Other parents worry about the mercury preservative (thimerosal) once used, because it does cause more local reactions (sore arms). However, now it has been removed from shots for those under age 6. Probably most importantly, an initial report in 1998 of 12 children, who seemed to have developed autism after measles/mumps/rubella (German measles) shots, understandably frightened many. However, more extensive studies proved the autism/MMR connection wrong. The senior author of the 1998 paper was later sanctioned and his paper retracted because of fraud, conflicts of interest, and data falsification. Subsequent researchers have been unable to find a link. Autism is a relatively newly recognized disease and studies are continuing to identify its causes and treatments, but it is now clear autism is not caused by vaccines.
Further vaccine refinements included removing all cellular material from the whooping cough vaccine to reduce vaccine fevers. Many killed vaccines do still contain aluminum salts because they are benign and act as “adjuvants”, chemical enhancers of the immune response needed to protect.
Although only MMR immunization rates are being reported in this KJ news article, I worry greatly that other types of immunization rates are falling for similar reasons, particularly those for whooping cough (pertussis), polio, hemophilus (causes bad pneumonia and meningitis in kids), and pneumococcus (causes severe pneumonia and meningitis in young children and adults). Young, pre-school children are very vulnerable; they are the first to suffer if school age kids bring these diseases, especially whooping cough, home to them before they are fully immunized. We can’t immunize babies effectively for whooping cough. We can protect them only by preventing it in older children and adults.
It has been a long road from the days of many serious common diseases, to the present where immunizations offer significant protections, but imperfectly unless all participate. If we are to live, work and play together, we cannot allow immunization opt outs, any more than we can allow driving on the wrong side of the road. Parents falsely hoping to protect their own children by avoiding vaccinating them appropriately, jeopardize the health of all of our children and all of us. I think we should go back to tougher vaccination requirements for school children and eliminate the “philosophical” option.