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Vaccinations - A Commentary
by Jennifer Nagorka, KERA 90.1 commentator

DALLAS, TX (2003-07-29) I winced when our pediatrician's nurse walked into the exam room carrying two trays laden four syringes each. Our two-month-old twins were about to receive their first round of vaccinations.

However tough it was to see those needles, I never thought twice about having our children vaccinated. Of course they would be. Immunizations save lives.

The greatest health triumphs of the last century had nothing to do high-tech imaging or transplant surgery. The two most important health advances were better sanitation - meaning clean water - and mass vaccination programs. No other health initiatives have done so much good for so many with so little risk and at so low a cost.

That's why a recent change in state law should alarm - and anger - anyone who cares about children's health. Buried in a sprawling government reorganization bill, the measure will allow more parents to avoid having their children immunized before they enroll in school.

Current law permits children with medical problems, or those whose parents object on religious grounds, to forgo vaccination. Fewer than 100,000 of the state's 4 million school children attended classes under those waivers last year. The new policy will allow any child whose parents object to vaccines to enroll in school without shots.

Passing this measure is like saying tobacco doesn't cause cancer. The new policy implies that vaccines do more harm than good, which is demonstrably false.

Some supporters of the new policy suspect that a preservative once used in vaccines triggers autism. Scientific studies have disproved that theory. Other parents fear their child may have a bad reaction to a shot - which is possible, though extremely rare. Still others may not believe in mainstream medicine, or that their child will encounter a specific virus or bacteria, or that a disease like chicken pox is dangerous enough to warrant a preventive immunization.

These attitudes are possible only because of the success of past vaccination programs. Most Americans under 45 don't remember the childhood diseases that used to kill or maim thousands annually. But many older adults remember the dread of polio summers, and the horror of polio victims living in iron lungs. And these diseases haven't vanished. In 1989-90, a measles outbreak in Dallas County killed a dozen children. Our pediatrician had three unvaccinated children hospitalized with whooping cough last year.

Vaccinations are both a selfish and a selfless health measure. When you vaccinate your child, he'll be protected from certain diseases. When 20 out of 21 kids in a classroom are immunized, they protect the one child who cannot take the vaccine because she's undergoing chemotherapy for cancer. When an entire population is inoculated, a disease has no human reservoir in which it can mutate and re-emerge. Through mass vaccinations, smallpox was wiped off the planet. The only surviving samples of the virus were kept by the Soviet Union and the United States for biological warfare purposes.

Unimmunized children are essentially freeloaders on the health system. They incrementally undermine the margin of safety created when almost all kids are vaccinated. The state's new policy on immunizations is a great leap backward for children's health.


Jennifer Nagorka is a writer from Dallas.

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