TV fuels vaccine debate

Thursday, February 22, 2001

Ifind it excruciating to watch a child dying on television, even if it's a fictional story line.

And so it was hard to watch the 4-year-old boy on last week's episode of NBC's "ER," as doctors struggled to diagnose his illness, to assist his breathing, and to restore his heartbeat. Ultimately, the little boy died.

What he was suffering from, according to the story line, was that old-fashioned childhood illness, measles. As his white, upper-class, well-educated mother told the doctor and nurses, she had done a good deal of research and decided not to subject her little boy to immunizations.

The risks -- especially of autism -- outweighed the benefits, she maintained. The medical staff treated her as though she were lower than dirt, as though she had all but killed the boy herself.

Meanwhile, one of the commercials between show segments was for a new vaccine called Prevnar, a drug that can be given to infants to protect them from certain pneumococcal bacteria that can cause life-threatening meningitis and blood infections. It was a bizarre juxtaposition.

Even before the show aired last week, parents of autistic children were mobilizing for an e-mail attack on NBC.

Dawn Richardson of PROVE (Parents Requesting Open Vaccine Education), who lives in Cedar Park, Texas, wrote to group members: "We have been advised to alert the thousands of members of all the support groups of parents of vaccine-damaged children to be ready to voice our disappointment to the top officials at NBC. Families with children who have become autistic after the MMR [measles-mumps-rubella] vaccine may even want to consider offering NBC executives 'real life' video footage of their child's regression after vaccination."

Many parents of autistic children say their children began to regress (losing vocabulary and failing to make eye contact) after being vaccinated, often between 12 months and 18 months of life. They, in particular, struggle with the question of whether to have their other children vaccinated.

This episode of "ER" prompted a vehement response by one Bergen County mother, Heidi Roger of New Jersey Cure Autism Now, whose 6-year-old son Andrew is autistic.

She wrote NBC: "Measles has almost been eradicated in the U.S. There were only 86 cases in 1999. Polio is eradicated; the only cases in the U.S. were from the oral vaccine. However, the incidence of autism is up to about one in 125 kids. Let's contact Las Vegas oddsmakers to decide whether we should vaccinate our kids.

"This is not a cut-and-dried issue. It is as complex as the abortion controversy. You should be ashamed of yourselves for grandstanding and writing the one-sided arguments of the vaccine machine officials into your dialogue."

But Dr. Paul Offit, co-author of the book "What Every Parent Should Know About Vaccines" and a member of the advisory committee on immunization practices to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says that no scientifically controlled study has ever shown a connection between vaccines and autism.

"If you look at whether unvaccinated children still get autism at the same rate as vaccinated children, the answer is yes," he said.

And was it a stretch, I asked him, for the writers of "ER" to show a child dying of measles?

"Before the measles vaccine, there were 4 million cases of measles annually, 100,000 hospitalizations, and 3,000 deaths," he said. "Today, we're in good shape; the percentage of children immunized against measles is in the high 80 percent range. But even in the 1980s, when the immunization rate was in the 70 percent range, we saw epidemics sweep across regions of the country."

The measles vaccine came into play in 1963, Offit said. The combination measles-mumps-rubella vaccine started being used in 1971.

So it was not beyond believability that young Dr. Carter and his equally young staff had never seen a case of measles and had to consult a reference book to confirm the measles rash on the little boy.

Offit said he took offense at the way "ER" writers portrayed the doctors relating to the little boy's mother. "Unfortunately, that mother was treated in a pedantic and condescending way, and that's never OK," he said.

But Offit, who is chief of infectious diseases at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, said one of the show's messages is quite true: You are taking a risk if you don't avail your child of the measles vaccine.

"There are very good studies that show if you choose not to vaccinate your child, he runs a 35-fold increased risk of getting measles disease," he said.

Bergen County mom Roger understands that this is not the kind of show that issues a retraction.

But, she says, perhaps the writers could continue the measles vaccine plot line and explore the complexities of the issue.

"They could show a child whose parents thought he turned autistic due to the MMR," Roger said. "Dr. Green could have a discussion in which he disagrees with another doctor about the risks of vaccinations."

The national dialogue on this issue, she said, is far from over.

ALL INFORMATION, DATA, AND MATERIAL CONTAINED, PRESENTED, OR PROVIDED HERE IS FOR GENERAL INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS REFLECTING THE KNOWLEDGE OR OPINIONS OF THE PUBLISHER, AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED OR INTENDED AS PROVIDING MEDICAL OR LEGAL ADVICE. THE DECISION WHETHER OR NOT TO VACCINATE IS AN IMPORTANT AND COMPLEX ISSUE AND SHOULD BE MADE BY YOU, AND YOU ALONE, IN CONSULTATION WITH YOUR HEALTH CARE PROVIDER.