Measles struck in Washington state. Now there is an outbreak in Vancouver. In a triumph of wilful blindness over common sense, parents who refuse to vaccinate their children are endangering other people’s children.
Measles is one of the most contagious diseases known to humans. The virus can live in a room for several hours after an infected person spreads it by coughing or sneezing. It will infect 90 per cent of the unprotected people who come in contact with it.
Those who are infected can get pneumonia and encephalitis. They can be left with blindness and brain damage, among a host of other complications. Even today, it kills about 100,000 people a year around the world, most of them under the age of five.
Yet it can easily be prevented with the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine given in two doses. As with polio and other diseases that once crippled and killed millions, vaccines almost eradicated it. Until a discredited study and conspiracy theories fuelled irrational fears that continue to spread.
In recent weeks, a few people who refused vaccination created a state of emergency in Washington state. Nine cases have been confirmed in Vancouver, and one infected person went to an emergency department while they were infectious, so doctors are concerned that more cases could be incubating.
Anti-vaccine parents insist that they alone have the right to decide what is right for their children, dismissing the arguments about the need for high vaccination rates to protect those who can’t be vaccinated because of age or illness.
Writer Andrea Martin showed what that really means in a satirical piece in the Onion: “Regardless of what anyone else thinks, I fully stand behind my choices as a mom, including my choice not to vaccinate my son, because it is my fundamental right as a parent to decide which eradicated diseases come roaring back.
“The decision to cause a full-blown, multi-state pandemic of a virus that was effectively eliminated from the national population generations ago is my choice alone, and regardless of your personal convictions, that right should never be taken away from a child’s parent. Never.”
A petition is calling on the province to make measles vaccination mandatory for school children, as California does. Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry prefers requiring parents to report the immunization status of children when they enter school, to evaluate which communities are at risk and as a chance to provide education.
A lighter hand is generally preferable to a fist, but education seems to have had little effect on die-hard anti-vaxxers. Governments can do only so much. It is up to parents to set aside unfounded fears and get their children vaccinated.
