Written by Thu Tran, MD,FACOG
February 10, 2015
This past weekend my husband David and I took our son Sandy to Chapel Hill, North Carolina to watch a Duke basketball game with my parents-in-law Drs. Sam Katz and Cathy Wilfert. They have been two big Duke’s basketball fans since they moved to N. Carolina in the 1968 to join Duke University Medical School, Sam as Chairman of the Department of Pediatrics, Cathy on the faculty, both specializing in Infectious Disease.
During our brief, overnight stay this time, we had an extensive conversation about the 14 measles outbreaks with 102 cases of measles. As some of you might recall, my father-in-law developed the measles vaccine while working at Harvard Medical School in the late 1950s. The measles vaccine became available in 1963. Last year, in one of my blogs, I informed the readers how Sam was honored by the CDC for his work on the measles vaccine, which Dr. Tom Frieden, head of the CDC, claimed has saved the lives of more than 30 million children worldwide.
We all have been aware of some negative statements about vaccines and “mental disorders” made by New Jersey governor Chris Christie and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, a board certified ophthalmologist. Ironically, Dr. Rand Paul was a Duke medical student! I don’t need to repeat the exact statements of Christie and Paul, but the majority of us believed they had put their foot in their mouth. Even after both of them tried to reverse or explain on and on about what they really meant, it will take more than a podiatrist to get their foot out of their mouth. Governor Christie, I agree, could make such foolish remarks as he is not a physician. For Senator and Dr. Rand Paul, however, to stand against the evidence of medicine, it was hard for me to comprehend. Where was Paul when Andrew Wakefield’s article about the link of autism and vaccine was exposed as fraudulent research and thrown out of Lancet?
The Washington Post’s Outlook section last Sunday had two excellent articles about this vaccine and autism issue, one written by Gal Adam Spinrad, a mother who finally believed in the value of vaccination when her second child faced a tragic illness and couldn’t be vaccinated. Spinrad poignantly recounted how she, like many parents who were “antivax,” had this selfish idea that her child would be safe even without vaccination because everybody around her got vaccinated anyway. These parents do not mind that their children were “living off” this herd immunity. After giving birth to the second child with illness, Spinrad wondered why the idea of “protecting others” did not hit her before.
The link to Spinrad’s article “I Was a Vaccine Skeptic. Now I’m a Believer”:
The second article, written by bioethicist Arthur L. Caplan, summarizes all the essential points the public needs to know about healthcare providers like Rand Paul who dangerously gives inaccurate, unscientific advice which could harm a family and others. People tend to believe physicians as wise health care educators and providers, and those who stand against solid evidence and data can take them down the wrong path. I urge all of you to read Caplan’s article and send the link to as many people as you can to educate them about this issue.
The link to Dr. Arthur Caplan’s article “ Quacks against Vaccines? Revoke their Licenses”:
Did you know there were 147,000 children who died from measles in Africa last year?
Did you know if a child with measles left an emergency room and your child entered this room TWO hours later, your child can be infected by this highly contagious and persistent virus?
Did you know the complication rate of vaccines is less than 1:1,000,000?
Did you know taking aspirin has a risk of cerebral hemorrhage (bleeding in the brain) of 1,200:1,000,000?
Did you know the reason the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) was established in 1988? It was not that the government acknowledged that it was dangerous for children to be vaccinated. The government did not want to see pharmaceutical companies not conducting research or ceasing production of vaccines because of fear and costs from frivolous law suits! If less than 1:1,000,000 severe vaccine complications occur and even if there are no frivolous lawsuits, because there are 64 million vaccine shots given yearly, these companies would still potentially face 64 law suits annually. They would be out of business and many children would die unnecessarily from preventable diseases! This is the reason the VICP was formed.
It is true that most children in the U.S. who come down with measles will survive, unlike those in Africa with malnourishment and a weaker immune system succumb to the disease. However, a child even in the US can survive with potential life long side effects from measles such as deafness or blindness. Would you want your child to have these medical conditions which could have been avoided? Would you feel bad if your child also gave this infection to his classmates who, for medical reasons such as leukemia, can’t get vaccinated?
Senator Rand Paul claimed parents have the right to refuse vaccines for their children, as they “own” these children. Does this mean these parents can dispose their children in any way they want? Would you like to be considered the property of your parents who, by their ignorance, can lead you to harm way? Allow the children to unbuckle their seat belts while on the highway?
Paul, like many so called libertarians, states he’s against the government’s mandate for vaccination of children. Does he believe in the speed limit law? Seat belt law? Does he think it’s wrong for parents to go to jail if they happen to leave their toddlers in a locked car in 105 degree temperature? Where does his civil liberty end and his children’s civil liberty begin? Isn’t everybody entitled to the basic civil liberty of having a healthy life including not dying from a preventable cause?
Furthermore, the refusal of measles and pertussis vaccines, unlike tetanus, impinges on the “civil right” of those around the child who didn’t get vaccinated. When you can spread your highly contagious viruses to me, you have violated my civil right of living a healthy life. You have the moral and social responsibility to protect others around you, if you want to continue to live in the same community. Until all these children, whose parents refuse to get them vaccinated, have their own colony and enjoy their measles party together, I do not want my child to be near them. I do not want them to be in my waiting room sharing their viruses with my pregnant patients who, in turn, can destroy the lives inside them. It’s like the Lord of the Flies, when living in a community, we have to sometimes give up certain parts of our “liberty” to protect each other. It’s the basic social and moral responsibility for living in a civilized country. I do not deny rare tragic cases exist of vaccine complications, as I do not deny how a child can die of anaphylactic shock resulting from severe allergy given by taking penicillin, but a very rare tragic case should not allow healthcare providers to lead a whole herd of parents down a dangerous path where many more lives would be lost. see Marsha’s article about adults who should ask their physicians about vaccination.
For a better society’s sake, and on behalf of children who deserve to live a healthy life, I hope our politicians will try to do the best they can to protect these children, not the best they can to win votes. To do otherwise in this issue of vaccine and autism, I agree with Dr. Alan Caplan that doctors like Rand Paul or politicians like governor Chris Christie should be “honored next to climate skeptics, anti-fluoridation kooks and Holocaust deniers.”
In the case of Governor Chris Christie, maybe it was not to win votes that he made such remarks. Maybe it was pure ignorance. As many of you recall, Governor Christie, contrary to the expert opinion of most medical professionals, used his authority a few months ago to quarantine nurse Kaci Hickox who had returned from West Africa after serving Ebola patients. In this case, he wanted and used “big government” intervention for dealing with the Ebola epidemic and fears of viral spread in the US. When it comes to a much more infectious virus like measles, however, Christie reversed course and argued for limited government intervention (in terms of vaccine use for prevention of disease and spread of disease). He acted against solid medical evidence and the advice of medical experts. Maybe it is safer for the public that Christie stays in politics and sticks to his political knowledge and does not venture into public health issues. It’s good that he heads the state of New Jersey and not the National Institutes of Health.
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