Op-Ed: Government must step in for vaccinations

When I was in medical school 20 years ago, a professor spent just five minutes talking about measles. After a brief description he simply said “you’ll likely never see this in your career, thanks to immunizations.”

Childhood vaccines wiped out so many childhood diseases that had left youngsters with permanent heart conditions, crippled or worse. And now that’s being threatened by opponents saying their parental rights carry more weight than the health of the community.

Unfortunately, we now are finding that once the protections against debilitating measles, pertussis (whooping cough) and other contagious diseases were compromised, these viruses and bacterial infections have made a resurgence.

By immunizing everyone we are able to have herd immunity. This means that infants too young to be immunized or those whose immunity is compromised, still can be protected because the viruses or bacteria are not surfacing in our general population.

I understand that parents have the right to make decisions for their children. At the same time, the government has the obligation to protect its citizens, a deliberate process that balances personal liberty and the common good. It is the law that you and your children must wear seat belts for protection in the car. Knowing the risk, a good parent would never hold a child in her lap while riding in the car. Car seats, seat belts — and yes, immunizations — save lives.

Parents who decline immunizations for their children for personal reasons — not valid medical concerns — put the entire community at risk. Young babies can’t yet be immunized and thus are vulnerable to measles. This is what occurred at Disneyland last year where a child with measles spread the virus to 131 people. One patient was hospitalized for three weeks, requiring a breathing tube and mechanical ventilator. Nineteen others were hospitalized after their organs were affected. Some initially were unresponsive; some required kidney dialysis.

Senate Bill 277, signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown, was introduced following the Disneyland outbreak. Opponents argued that 131 cases of measles was insignificant. We in the healthcare community believe that one child, one infant, one person taking immune suppressants following organ transplant are too many to risk contracting a potentially deadly disease that had been eradicated.

Early on, when people chose not to immunize their children, that child was still safe because of herd immunity. However, as more and more people choose not to immunize, these diseases are making a comeback.

Diphtheria, which can affect the heart, nerves and kidneys, is now among the possibilities we physicians consider when someone comes to us with a sore throat. I hope the same doesn’t happen with polio, a disease that crippled more than 35,000 people in the U.S. each year from the late 1940s to the early 1950s. Polio was eliminated in this country 30 years ago thanks to a nationwide effort to vaccinate.

Today, people, children in particular, are being put at risk due to the actions and decisions of others who are not properly informed. This is why the government must step in to help protect its citizens.

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ANGELIQUE CAMPEN, M.D. is medical director of the Emergency Department at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center.