Required vaccines could save some lives

We live in a world where “natural” and “organic” are growing trends.

And in general, things that are natural or organic are better for you, but if this concept is taken to the extreme, it can be dangerous.

To go the more “natural” route, some parents are choosing not to immunize their children, based on the idea that natural immunity is more effective than vaccines.

As of now, it is not federally mandated for children entering schools to get vaccinations, and parents can opt out for religious reasons in 48 states and for philosophical reasons in 20 states.

In 2008, 39 percent of parents refused or delayed giving at least one routine vaccination to their children. This number is up from 22 percent just five years before.

For about a decade, many parents basing their decision not to immunize on a 1998 study claiming that the common childhood vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella could cause autism.

In January 2011, the 1998 study was renounced by 10 of its 13 authors, and the British Medical Journal has declared that the research in the study was not just bad science, but a deliberate fraud.

Even though the study has been renounced, immunization rates for measles, mumps and rubella have never fully recovered.

This is a scary example of what can happen if parents base their decision not to vaccinate on studies they find that may or may not be accurate.

By choosing not to immunize their children, parents are putting not only their children but other parents’ children at risk.

Since vaccines are not 100 percent effective for all who receive them. If a person who is not immunized brings the disease into the population, immunized people can still get infected.

We are fortunate in the United States to have vaccines against many diseases which are epidemics elsewhere, such as polio, diphtheria and tetanus. Because of this, many parents today have never seen the sickness and death caused by these diseases, and they cannot justify giving their child 20 to 30 injections before age 2.

However, if diseases that have been eradicated thanks to the development of vaccines, such as measles, polio, or the whooping cough, are allowed to re-enter the population, they could reemerge as epidemics.

In fact, there are indications that this may already be happening. More than 21,000 Americans got whooping cough last year — the highest number since 2005 and among the worst years in more than 50 years. Whooping cough is extremely contagious, and it could be that the cause was parents refusing to vaccinate their children.

The whooping cough outbreak caused at least 26 deaths — a small number compared to what could happen if more dangerous diseases, such as measles, were to re-enter the population.

According to the World Health Organization, if measles vaccinations were stopped, each year about 2.7 million deaths due to measles could be expected worldwide.

It is not an easy thing to mandate that people get vaccinations, given that religious or cultural beliefs should be respected. But federally mandating vaccinations for children entering schools could stop preventable epidemics, saving lives.

Sarah Dugan is a columnist for the Daily Tar Heel. She is a senior environmental health science major from Asheville. Contact her at sdugan@email.unc.edu